this and that

hiba is learning to read. jason is such a good teacher to her. he is super patient and she gets so excited when she figures out new words. she gets pretty focused, as you can see.

we went to a princess birthday party a few weekends ago. hiba absolute loved it. well, maybe that is not entirely true. we did have a mini-meltdown when playing on the swing set was not part of the outdoor agenda, followed by a little bit of stress due to the idea of having tea, even if it is not real tea, because real tea is hot and she doesn't like hot things, and if it is not real tea, she doesn't want it because it is a tea party, but she doesn't like tea. so she had some water.
all in all, a fun party, hiba loved dressing up, and had a fun time.

while hiba and i were at the party, jason took thing 2 to get a haircut. his first haircut, in fact. after seeing the before and after pictures, i am thinking we should have done this awhile ago.

here's mr. crazy hair....

and here's the finished product! he is so stinkin' cute!!

jason and i enjoyed a night out at the annual rugby banquet. it's so fun to see everyone dressed up and acting semi-classy.

and jason won the team m.v.p. my husband is awesome.

we decorated the tree with the kiddos - matthias and hiba did their best to remember exactly which ornaments they each put on, which is now followed up with a detailed conversation about it each morning. "who put the angel on? who put the snowman on? who did the music? noooooooo, I did it.". i don't particularly remember which ones i put, and definitely don't remember which ones anyone else hung up, so it usually ends with matthias huffing exasperatingly at my lack of memory skills. it's a fun way to start each day.

one of the kids' favorite activities is "play sleeping". which is especially fun when they start this game at 9 a.m. on saturday mornings because they are tired, since they chose to wake up at 5:30 a.m. instead of "real sleeping".

hiba loves drawing. i'm not sure what the picture is, but she is super cute, so there ya go.

jason's youngest brother, tom, recently came back home after some time away. i made fish tacos, a huge amount of guacamole (which ended up not being too much, thanks to my guacamole eating skills), and we ate, hung out, and played settlers. it was fun to see him and great to have him back home.

jason and his "little" brothers.

and i leave you with this. gangsta hiba.