Can You Read This?

Hey! This is just a quick blog post.... Some of you are having trouble reading my blog. If you have trouble reading the white writing (and you don't see the pink background) then you can do one of a few things...

- If you're using Internet Explorer, then you just need to update it :) If you have Windows XP then you can click here to update (or you can click here if you have another Windows version).

- You can also use another internet browser like Firefox or Google Chrome. They are both free :)

I don't really have time to re-do the blog again anytime soon :) so I hope that helps!!

you guys ROCK!

First Day of School!

Today was Aashini's first day of school!! Well, today started the acclimation week. She'll officially start next week, but this week we go with her for an hour or two each day to help her get used to it. She didn't need us, she LOVED it! She got to play in the balls again:

The whole school is covered in mirror walls. They have some education theory behind it (something to do with kids and their moods and they'll change their mood if they look in the mirror and see their sad face... something like that). Anyway, Aashini loves the mirror and is constantly looking at herself in it :)

Here is one of her buddies that started this week too (her batch-mate). Her hair clips cracked me up!!!

Aashini got to play on the computer (which she loved!).

They had snack/lunch time. Most people here eat breakfast at 6 am or so and then eat a snack type lunch at 10:30 or so and then eat another lunch at 2:00... so she gets to eat at school too. They gave the kids roti and a paneer dish. Today she learned how to eat South Asian food! She tore off her piece of roti and scooped up her paneer and ate it! It was awesome!

She normally won't eat any sort of bread, but she LOVED this and kept saying: "roti yummy!". I was so proud :)

They got to go outside and have dance time - it's so cute! They turn on the music and dance! Then they got to play all around the outside area. Aashini was really into exploring and at one time a bunch of kids followed her around :)

Of course Aashini got to slide (one of her favorite things) :)

Then we left. She talked about school the whole way home :) I'd ask her what she did at school today and she would say: "Boys, girls, boys, girls, balls, school fun" :)

We got all her school books today, her cover-up thing (for painting and messy days) and her school backpack. All of the kids have the same backpack and they bring it to school everyday. It's cute :)

Although it's only been one day, it's been GREAT! She loves it and has been talking about it all day. She was in a good mood all day too. It's awesome!!

Preschool!!

Most of you know by now though our newsletter that Aashini is about to start preschool (if you don't get our newsletter and want to, let me know and send me your email!) :)

This week is her trial week, where we take her for about 30-45 min a day and we stay with her for the first week to help acclimate to the school. She probably won't need this, but it will be fun for us :) haha!

We weren't sure about starting her in pre-school so early. Most kids start at age 2 here, but that seemed early to us. Then we started thinking about it...

Aashini has soooo much energy these days and once the baby comes I'm afraid she won't have a good way to get out that energy. She LOVES to play with other kids and she doesn't always get the chance to do that. Those are just a few of the reasons. One of the BIG reasons is that we REALLY want her to learn Hindi as early as possible (so that she can learn it without actually having to LEARN it - if that makes sense) :) So, for us this seems like a great thing! This school teaches in both Hindi & English, and most of the kids speak Hindi so she should learn pretty quickly.

We were at a Diwali Fair the other day and there were people from a school there that we talked to... school names here crack me up. This school is called Mother's Pride :) haha!

We decided to visit them a couple of days later and just check it out. They let Aashini run around to the different classrooms and play around while we talked to the teachers. Aashini LOVED it! She didn't want to leave! After we learned about the school we decided to do it! :) They do a mix of the Montessori system and the Australian system. It seems really cool. Here's a picture of Aashini at the school. She LOVED the desk! (she looks grumpy in this pic because we were telling her it was time to go :)).

A few days later, after we signed up for the school, they brought a gift to our house for Aashini. They brought her this desk! (Don't look at her clothes in the next pictures, Adam dressed her... a pajama top and a skirt - haha!). She LOVES the desk and keeps talking about school!

Her hair is funny these days. It's finally growing but it's pretty crazy :) It makes me smile :) Here she is at her desk :)

So, on Monday we do the "trial week" and then Nov 2 she starts school!!!

I'm sure we'll have TONS of stories to share about that :) It's going to be fun!

Mickey Mouse!

In the mornings Mickey Mouse comes on our TV. It's usually at a time when we both need to get something done (or are in a language lesson), so Aashini now loves Mickey. The other day (it was one of the holiday days) they had a big display set up in our mall for Hong Kong Disney. Aashini was so excited when she saw Mickey! It's funny, the first thing she did when she saw him was to touch his feet (which is a way to show respect here). It made me laugh :)

Then she realized that Minnie was there too and went running over there!

She thought that Minnie was so cool!

She loved Mickey's chin and the buttons on his pants... it was pretty funny :)

After a while of walking back and forth, she stood next to Minnie and didn't leave her side until we told her it was time to go :)

That might have been a boring blog post - but I thought it was cute :) haha!

Mela Fun!

I took a funny belly picture today :) I'll explain the Disney part in the next post, but thought I'd post the belly picture part of it before I'm further along (if that makes sense). Here's 32.5 weeks! (I love how Minnie is pointing at my belly :))

Last night we went to a Diwali Mela (Fair) in our neighborhood (I wrote more about it on the other blog if you're interested) :). Aashini is finally big enough to ride on a lot of the rides, so that was fun for us as well as her. She loved this ride!

It's just a bunch of cars that go around in a circle (man-powered).

She didn't want to get off!! She loved it!

There was a booth there that had diyas (lights/lamp) that kids could paint. Aashini thought it was AWESOME! She was so cute painting. She painted so carefully and everyone watching was amazed and how meticulous she was painting. It was funny!

Here's her diya :) I think she did a good job :)

Holiday time is fun!!

32 Weeks!!

I haven't posted belly pics in a while, so I guess I need to do that. I look pretty rough in these pics though! haha! Aashini really likes my belly button right now (in all it's poking-out glory) and if you ask her where the baby is, sometimes she points to my stomach :) It's cute :)

So... I have had a couple of questions this pregnancy. One of them is if I'm going to have a boy or a girl. It's probably obvious at this point in the pregnancy that I don't know and we're not going to find out :) haha! but there's a few reasons for that. One of the reasons is that we like the surprise :) We think it's fun :) BUT the main reason is that it's illegal here. We could have found out in Thailand, but we didn't :) We like the surprise :) You can find out here too if you want, but it's illegal, so it could cost the technician their job and I really don't want to hurt my witness asking them to do something illegal.

Anyway, most people ask me why it's illegal here. The sad reason is that female foeticide is a big problem here (killing or aborting female babies). According to the government's statistics for our city alone, more than 24,000 female babies are aborted each year - and that's just in our city alone!! It's causing a lot of problems and the sex ratio has become really skewed. For every 1000 boys born in our city, there are less than 820 girls (they should be about the same!)!! It's crazy. So... they made it illegal to find out before birth what you're having.

You can see a sign in the pic below that is in the waiting room at the doctor I go to. It says:

"Ma. The world's most precious word. Where will all the mothers be tomorrow if there is no girl child today? Stop Female Foeticide"

So do you think I'm having a boy or a girl?? (you can vote on the top right of the blog). I'm carrying about the same as I did with Aashini. At the beginning of this pregnancy I craved more protein, but now I really want sweets! This pregnancy I'm craving South Asian food and last pregnancy I didn't want anything to do with it. Last pregnancy I had some SERIOUS morning sickness that lasted forever but this pregnancy even though I felt bad and was nauseous every morning, I didn't even throw up once (PTL)!!

I'm actually feeling pretty good! It's amazing how different these pregnancies have been. I'm still sleeping pretty good (only wake up about once a night) and have a decent amount of energy. Of course I'm more tired these days, and all the other fun things that go on at this time, but it's going great. Thanks so much for all of your prayers!! That's totally why I'm doing so great this time around :) I'm 32 weeks and last pregnancy I had Aashini at 34 weeks!! What a difference!!

Not real attractive, but thought I'd post them anyway :) I like to take jumping pics - especially while pregnant - BUT sad to say, these are going to be the last jumping pics of this pregnancy... I was hurting later that night after all that jumping :) haha!!

We're still struggling with baby names :) We had a boy & a girl name picked out but we keep changing our minds. We have a lot of trouble picking boy's names. A lot of our picks end up sounding like dog names... so hopefully we'll get a name before this baby is born!! Culturally we could wait a whole year before we give our baby a name, but we have to hurry and get the passport and exit visa after the baby is born (b/c we have deadline to leave the country), so we don't have any days to spare!!

That's it! :) Let me know if you have any other questions or anything like that! You guys ROCK!!!!

Aashini's Wedding Fun :)

Here's a few Aashini pics from the wedding ;) She had a blast! In the pic below you can see her fun shoes with the curly toes :)

This picture makes me laugh! It was hot and she was running all around :)

So, weddings and the main events usually happen at night so that everyone can be there and it's a little cooler. That is great, BUT not so great for a tired toddler! This is actually a pic from the Talik ceremony. It's nice because at most events there are mats on the floor, so Aashini took advantage of that (very lady-like as well) :) haha!

This is at the actual wedding. She got tired really fast (She usually goes to sleep at 7:00ish, but this part of the wedding didn't even start until about 9:00).

Look at that tired girl :) haha!

Finally she hit the wall! We were staying our friend's house (S&S) so Adam took her back to their house to sleep while we stayed up all night at the wedding :)

Weddings are fun! haha!

Random Pics from Wedding Day 1

Here are a couple pics from the first day of wedding stuff :) (the pic above is at our friend's house we were staying with, Aashini had a blast with their girls - they're playing dress-up here).

I posted a pic like this on the other blog, but this pic showed my round belly a little better so I thought I'd post it here :)

Here's Aashini at one of the parties. She loved the dance floor and the awesome lights :)

The first day of wedding stuff, we met at Jaya's house a few hours before the party. It was HOT!! Aashini was really hot! so we stripped her down. She found a broom and a bucket of water and began "painting". She kept saying "painting! painting!" over and over! She was so proud of herself!

She really had a lot of fun in M-town :) More pics to come!!