Safety First! (and some fun) :)

When we left to go to America, we had an 9 month old that could crawl and pull up on things... but we came back with a 14 month old toddler that is quite the walker... It was a whole new world at our house! We quickly learned that we needed to add some safety supplies to our house...

First up - our table! Aashini's head is right at the same level as the pointy corners of the table... so, now we have bumpers on our corners :) haha!

Aashini also likes to get into all the cabinets (especially the ones with the cleaning supplies and stuff) - so now we have them all locked up!
And the last one (for now)... the baby gate! We have 5 stairs inside our apartment, and Aashini thinks they're fun... well, they may only be 5 stairs, but they are MARBLE Hard stairs! So, the gate was necessary :) She's not sure what she thinks about it yet :)
We have a stroller that our friend gave us that works great and is great for traveling and stuff, but it was too big to take anywhere and fit in rickshaws and all that stuff... so we couldn't use it very much. We had been eyeing this stroller in one of our favorite shops for the last few weeks. On Monday we went to the mall and there were TONS of sales!!!!!!! This stroller was 51% off! whoo hoo!! So, we had to get it :)

It's great because it packs up really small and fits in a little bag :)

Well, that's about it... hope that post wasn't too boring for you :) Just to spice things up a bit... I just have to tell you a funny thing that we heard today.... One of our National friends told us that if we wanted Aashini to have more hair then we needed to rub butter on her head! hahaha!

Here's a funny picture for fun :) (No, there's no butter on her head in this picture :)

Playing with Friends :)

We went over to our friend's house yesterday, and Aashini had sooo much fun playing with their kids! Here is Aashini playing with Ashish. He's 4 months younger than Aashini. They kept trading toys - they thought it was fun :) Aashini did steal a few toys from him, but he did his share of stealing from her too :)
Aashini had the most fun playing with Daniel. He had a tricycle that his Aunt and Uncle gave him. Aashini would sit on it and Daniel would push her around :)

Then he would sit in it and she would try to push/pull him around too :) It was so funny! She would pull so hard and grunt a lot - it was awesome :)

This picture made me laugh :) She had her finger way-up her nose! She doesn't really do it that often (yet), so it was funny when she did it here - I think it was an accident because she kinda made a funny face afterwards :) haha! She REALLY loves her bellybutton now! She always wants to stick her finger in it and she says "bel-buh".

After we were finished hanging out with Deepak and his family, we decided to go to our favorite Turkish place for lunch. We've become friends with the owner and usually talk to him for a little bit. Yesterday, his daughter was there hanging out :) She LOVED Aashini, and just took her hand and walked all around the courtyard area with her while we ate. Aashini had so much fun. She just held her hand and walked around with her for about 30 minutes. It was sooo cute!

You can see the Turkish Restrauant in the background :)

After that full day of playing with other kids, Aashini was exausted!!!!!!!!!

Here's another funny "fish face" picture :) She's gotten good at her fish face trick and can even do it all by herself :)

Jellybean Update :)

So just a little update on Jellybean :) (Aashini)... I was trying to think of some of the new things she's been doing :) Lately she's been taking her little plastic keys and trying to unlock the door that leads out to our porch when she wants to go outside :) It's funny! She now knows what sound a cow makes and when we pass by one on the road, she yells out "moooo!" haha!

She has also gotten REALLY into books! Before, she would just sit and read by herself all the time, but now she wants to sit in our laps and have us read to her :) We've done a LOT of reading lately :)
Aashini has also been enjoying her little Hello Kitty House :) We put her in it with the balls and she thought it was awesome! She currently has 5 - FIVE - teeth coming in at ONE TIME!!!! Yeah, lots of fun! Four Molars and one non-molar :) You can't see the molars in this picture, they hadn't poked through yet in this pic ;)

I guess that's it for now :) haha! Fun!

Aashini's Room!!

I've been working on Aashini's room a little bit every day since we've been back, and for now, I've finished fixing it up :) She really only plays in it right now :) She's not ready for the "big bed" yet :) haha!

Anyway, these pics aren't that great, but this is the view you see when you walk through the door (the door on the right of the picture is a bathroom). Here's the wall opposite her bed. You can see on the far left of the picture, a picture that our friend AJ made Aashini. It's really cute and has pictures of kids and babies and Bible verses. I'll take a picture of it someday and post it :)
... And here's her fun bookshelf - and my game shelf :) haha! It came built into the wall, it's really cool!

And, a picture just for fun :) (probably the last one I'll post like this - I don't want to embarass her toooo bad) :)
You guys ROCK!

Doctor's Visit...

Aashini had her first doctor's visit since we've been back (but actually since we left South Asia... getting a doctor's appointment in America is really hard!). She LOVED the doctor's office! She made some fun little friends :)
They were cute kids and had so much fun playing with her!

She really seemed to like Dr. Malik :) He gave her a flashlight (or Torch as they call it here) for her to play with :)

She even sat still for him to check her ears!

However, she did not like getting a shot :( She got over it quickly though and was ready to play again :)

Funny Fun :)

We have a funny little play Mobile (Cell) Phone that we bought for Aashini before we left to go go America. It makes me laugh because it has a "Barbie-type" doll on it but it says "BENIGN GIRL" haha!

It didn't come with batteries, and we didn't get around to it before we left, so the other day, Adam got some batteries for it :) It plays loud Hindi / Bollywood music and it's hilarious! You can see a video (below) of Aashini dancing to it :) (she was covering up the speaker, so it's not that loud in the video) :)

And this picture just made me laugh :)

We're Back!

We made it back! Aashini did GREAT on the flights! She was sooo good! It must have been all of the prayers! You guys ROCK! The first 2 flights were only about an hour and she slept through both of them. The second two were about 8 hours each and she slept through most of both of them!!!! Crazy! She did great!!! She's jet-lagging a bit and was wide awake at 2 am the last couple of nights, but she slept through the night last night!!! :) ... and on the rickshaw yesterday (see pic below) You guys ROCK!!!!

Ducks & Birds!

There was a bird show at Lake Ella this past Saturday, so we decided it would be fun to take Aashini to it :) First we walked around the lake to look at the ducks... She was a little scared, but thought they were cool :)Someone gave her some bread and she had fun feeding the ducks (from the safety of the picnic table) :) Then we went to the bird show. There weren't that many birds there, but it was still fun :) I even won a door prize ;) Mom was looking at a bird with Aashini and the bird decided to flap it's wings... mom put up her hand to block Aashini and it made a really funny picture!

And I threw this pic in for fun :) Aashini was being funny in this picture :)

Build-a-Dog!

One of my favorite stores in the whole world is Build-a-Bear! Whenever we're at the mall, we always go to it. It's very fun! Everytime we go in, Aashini always wants to see the dog... She loves to hug it. So.... mom had a coupon and I just had to get it for her before we left! We gave her other options, but she just LOVED the dog!She had a hard time giving up her dog so that the girl could stuff it :) She watched very intently! She did enjoy getting to "wash" off her dog! She thought the foot-pedal was so cool!

She loves her dog! She named him "Dog-Dog" haha!

On another note, Aashini has a new trick!!! We can put a straw under her nose and then tell her to make her "Fish Face" and she'll hold the straw with her lips! She thinks she's so funny when she does it too! haha!

First Ice Cream Cone

The other night we were out at a restrauant with some family and decided to let Aashini have some Ice Cream. She had a bite of two before, but had never had her own cone... we planned on just giving her a bite, but she wouldn't let the cone go! So, we decided to see how long she would eat on it :) She was so funny with it!She just inhaled the ice cream! Then, the cone started getting in her way...
So she went to town on the cone! haha! She spit most of the cone out... she was more interested in the ice cream ;) You can see in the pic below the ice cream coming out of the bottom of the cone too... she bit off the end tip :) haha!

She's been such a goofball lately! I think she now things that ALL words must be said twice. There's ma-ma, da-da, na-na (how she says nani), pop-pop... so now she says: ball-ball, dog-dog, etc... it's hilarious!

She's also currently getting in some molars... lots of fun! haha!