Amnah, the Cheesecake Queen.

Not because I tried her own cheesecake, but because she's the one who's encouraged me to make my first cheesecake, all by myself.
So I have the right to call her The Cheesecake Queen.

I mean, if you read her post about her first cheesecake you'd want to try it yourself, right away!
The ingredients, the steps and her pictures were all encouraging.

Because of her, I made 3 so far.
Different topping every time.



Baklava cheesecake.



Cherry cheesecake

And today I made blueberry cheesecake.
I use the same ingredients she mentioned but I play with the topping.

Today, I added fresh blueberries to the mix before baking.
And when it cooled down, I topped it with blueberry pie filling.





And then we enjoyed it after dinner :)






And then we died!

No, really!
It's so good:)

I'm glad I was able to use this for the recipe.
Alcohol free vanilla flavor jeeej found at Trader Joe's.


This woman I mentioned above, the mother behind this little life of mine is truly amazing.
I have had the pleasure to meet with her a few times now.
She is so smart and unique with lots of fun ideas.
A beautiful mother to 3 adorable girls, masha'Allah.

Our meet ups are play dates for our daughters and still we get to talk about several issues between our girls' calls for help or attention.

What you read on her blog is what you see in real life :)
And she blogs for Disney too.
Now isn't that Cool??!

In a Crafting Mood.

When we moved to this 3 bedroom house I wanted the girls' bedroom to have nothing except for their one big bed and of course their clothes in the built in closet.




It's empty and the walls are blank. I tried hard to ignore the walls calling me begging for some colors but I couldn't.
One day, last week, I grabbed one of the canvases I have and wrote this message for my girls.




I don't have the alphabet stencils and since I'm not a perfectionist I decided to use my own handwriting.
Why not?
I have good potentials.
It's the popular phrase used in "The Help", the movie.
It moved me a lot when I heard it and wanted to remind myself to always say it to my girls.
I searched for it online and the results were beautiful I decided to do it right away.
I used "ARE" instead of "IS" simply to avoid Mariyah's questions about the grammar "mistake".
I hanged it next to the full length mirror I did for their room.




I forgot to take a better picture during the day of this mirror but this is how I did it.
I bought a mirror from target for $5.99 and covered the black frame with some colorful duct tape I bought from target as well.
Today, I was in the crafty mood again.
My girls were in the backyard when I started this project for their bedroom:
Scrapbook papers on canvas.
All you need is:
-canvas.
-scrapbook papers, different designs and colors.
-glue
I started cutting the scrapbook papers into pieces, big and small, randomly. Remember, I'm not a perfectionist plus I'm always in a hurry.




Mariyah helped me cutting and then Selma joined, together we made this...




I hung it right away and the girls love it :)




Then I went a little bit crazy.
Mariyah was still in the mood to craft more so I gave her the last canvas I had. I gave her all the acrylic paint I have and 2 brushes.
I asked her to think of nature and paint something special for their room.
I was reading to Selma while Mariyah was working on her first canvas project and two books later she came out of her room carrying this masterpiece




Grass, flowers, tree, sun and a velvet sky for it's almost sunset time.
I, of course, hung it on the wall, right away :)
I love productive days.
It makes me happy to see the girls excited for jeeej's home arrival to show him their work.
It melts my heart.
You know what else melts my heart?




This drawing;
"Mama, your hair is short because you cut it and made a blanket out of it so you could swaddle me when I was a baby".
This artist girl of mine is turning FIVE this month :))
Masha'Allah!

My Everyday Decisions

When you become a mother you aught to make decisions. Not only for yourself but Also for your kids and sometimes for your partner too, on daily basis.
Sometimes they're big and sometimes they're small. I think it's about how much thinking you put into them. It's you who make them bigger or smaller.
I thought deeply about it when jeeej asked me to decide on a restaurant for our date last Friday.
You see, my mother in law offered to babysit for us that day and we hadn't been on a date in over a month so I wanted it to be perfect.




It took me a day to decide.
During that day I had to decide on what to cook for the girls.
I had to decide on the after school activity, play at the park or attend the arts class at the library.




I had to decide on what to wear for the date, too.
Silly life and decisions you might think but these are the little decisions that make and build up our daily life around here.
Don't forget that while deciding on these small issues my mind is working deep inside on the bigger ones.
Whether I want to get back to teaching Arabic or wait for a new path to open up this year.
Whether I want to enroll my kids in swimming classes during summer or to simply keep going to the pool where we used to live and teach them on my own.
Whether I want to homeschool Mariyah or simply have her attend a regular school coming August.




My mind can go blank for a couple of hours during the day, trying to escape the responsibility. I'm a worry wart and maybe that's why I make a big deal out of nothing but then I think of my parents and of those parents who have big issues to deal with on daily basis. How did/do they do it?
They have no way to just run away or escape. They deal with it.
They make decisions.
I try to decide wisely so that I don't have regrets later on and so I don't blame others for my own mistakes.
Who gets to decide whether it was a good or a bad decision anyway?
Is it you?
Your kids?
People around you?
As for our date, it was perfect!
We got back home after midnight, too sleepy and tired.
The food and then the movie were both good, so good :)
Alhamdulillah.

Hair Going Gray, Gracefully.

The gray hair is invading my head. I can see it clearly now. Maybe it's because I am 30 and I'm getting old. Or simply because I have a daughter named Selma.
When I mention her name to anyone this is how they see her.




The most innocent, kindest and cutest baby on earth.
As for me, when I say: "Selma", this is what I have in mind.












You know what?
Today I'm not going to complain about her, I want to complain about myself.
I can be so impatient with her sometimes. She drives me crazy but it might be my mood or my lack of sleep.
I'm the adult who has experience in life, who has dealt with kids before, not her.
I'm the one who should be teaching her how to love and how to be kind.
Maybe I need to listen to her stories more often, no matter how long and fake they are.
Maybe I should accept the fact that she's a very independent person who loves to do things on her own.
It's ok if she does mistakes, this is how we learn, right? She's so curious after all.
I really shouldn't care much about what other people think of her loud voice or her funny walk. No one really matters in her world but herself, right?
Once again, I should listen more and more.
It really is me who needs to work harder, because no matter how tiring my day is because of her, after I put her to sleep at night, I look at the pictures I've taken of her and I remember all the words she said and all the actions she did and I smile and I sometimes laugh.
Sometimes I cry feeling ashamed of myself, my bad temper and the lack of patience.
Being a mother of a girl like her is really challenging, both mentally and physically. But then she is a healthy, beautiful and a smart girl and that's what matters.
I'm capable of becoming better and that's what matters.




















Whatever the reason behind my gray hair is, I should embrace it and celebrate it. It's a part of my being and my life.
Just like my Selma.