what do we do

so you might wonder what aliyah and i do while we're visiting oklahoma. generally, our days pretty much go like this:
aliyah wakes up in the same room i'm sleeping in and says, "mommy. mommy eenjast (mommy is here)" then "....aaaapapa (allah'u'abha, meaning, "get up, let's get started here")!" then we join iman and jamilah, who are usually already up, for breakfast. every morning when aliyah sees her cousins, she squeals, laughs, screams and has a few blissful moments rejoicing their presence.

then, generally, nadia and i try to find something interesting and fun that the kids can do together bearing in mind that it's usually about 100 degrees by 11am. we've taken them to a museum, botanical garden, a park, McDonald's indoor play area... Barnes and Noble book shore... all of which you'll find photos of on aliyah's blog (some now, more soon to come). lunchtime rolls around and aliyah has a bite before taking her afternoon nap. i used to hit the gym while she napped, but now, if someone's home, i'll run errands and then take aliyah to the gym with me after she wakes up. she just *loves* going with me because this gym has a place for parents to leave their kids to play while they work out. the girls at this place are great and aliyah loves playing there. so recently i've made more of an effort to take her with me.

after that, it's dinner, either home or at a friend's house. then bedtime for aliyah and then a couple of hours of 24 for nadi, my mom and i. by the end of that, i'm usually ready to hit the sack, but sometimes i'll stay up a little longer to update the blogs.

tomorrow i'm driving down to texas to a town near dallas called frisco where my best friend, bita, her husband, kenny, and their 6-month old daughter, layla, live. aliyah and i will probably spend 2 or 3 days there and then come back to oklahoma....

so yeah. that's what life's looking like here on our end.
not that exciting... but not too shabby either. :)