...SouthAsiaShefs!...

Fun Friends!

2012-01-10T22:47:00.003+05:30

While in Nepal we got to meet up with some fun friends we haven't seen in a while :)

The kids had fun playing together :)

The adults had fun talking together! haha! I look horrible in this picture! haha! I had a vertigo episode the day before and I still looked pale :) haha!

... not sure what was going on in this picture :) haha!

Playing "Ring Around the Rosies" (or as Aashini calls it... "Ringa Ringa Roses")

We met up with some other friends at an amazing 2 story play place!!!!! It was awesome! The kiddos LOVED it!

The kids all tried to get into this together :) haha!

There was a fun climbing wall there too!!

They had this fun train. It went super fast!

We all ate lunch together afterwards :) It's so fun that the kids are big enough to sit at the "kid's table" haha!!!

The Kids in Kathmandu!

2012-01-10T22:32:00.003+05:30

The kids had a great time on our trip to Kathmandu, Nepal.

Here are the girls in our room. We stayed in an awesome guesthouse! It was cheap and super nice! The staff was super cool too! We'll definitely be going back!

One restaurant we've always heard about was "The Lazy Gringo". We couldn't wait to try it!

Here are the girls around the Stupa :)

They had a great time feeding the pigeons :)

They thought it was so fun!!!

They had a great time in Kathmandu :)

The Kiddos in the Mountains - Thanksgiving 2011

2011-12-07T18:43:00.000+05:30

The girls had a great time in the mountains!!! Aashini is really into posing for pictures now :) This picture cracks me up :)

This is in the room where we had our meals ;)

I tried to take a picture of the girls one day... it didn't quite work out :) haha!

Here's Diya on the safari :) She loved the "'noculars" :)

Aashini stopping to pose for a picture :)

Diya loved the horse ride! This horse's name was Deepak.

Aashini LOVED her S'mores!

Diya & Adam :)

The girls had so much fun playing with their friends!! It was fun :)

Diya's Birthday!!!

2011-12-06T19:36:00.000+05:30

Diya is TWO!!! Diya's birthday was November 26th. On her actual birthday we were on a train all day coming home from our trip, so we didn't celebrate that day. On the 24th our friend Susan had a birthday, so the resort made a cake for Diya and Susan that day. Diya thought it was so fun!

She got cake, ice cream AND chocolate syrup!

She loved it! Her favorite thing about birthdays is the cake! :)

A day after we were back, we celebrated her birthday as a family (she already had her Princess Party with her friends a few weeks before - I totally need to post those pictures! I'm so behind!). Here she is opening one of her presents - a doll :)

She was so happy with her cupcake!

SUPER Happy!

She tries really hard to blow out the candles... but still needs some help :)

She ate the frosting off the top :)

Here's a video of Diya and her cake/candles :) I think it's cute :)

Later that day we went to the mall and played and ate :) Here's Diya (with her doll) all ready to go (and making a silly face :)

Diya's FIRST Day of School!

2011-12-05T08:28:00.000+05:30

Diya started school last week! I can't believe she's big enough for school!!!

For the first 2 days, the kids go to the basement play room and play with the other new kids and teachers as they adjust. We're in the same room, so it's not so stressful for them.

On the 3rd day they take the kids to their class for one hour of the time (the rest of the time they're in the basement room). On the 4th day they spend a few hours in their class (while we sit downstairs in case we're needed) and the 5th day we drop her off! She did really good! She really loves school and gets excited to go!

On her first day they celebrated "Mickey's Birthday", so they had a cake and sang. Diya thought that was AWESOME! That girl LOVES cake! haha! She loved it!

So, starting this week, she'll be in school regularly. She's having a lot of fun!

Halloween... a little late :)

2011-11-18T15:19:00.000+05:30

Halloween isn't really celebrated here, so we don't do much around that time of year. This year, some ladies at the Embassy planned a fun craft party for the kids. We went and the kids had a lot of fun :)

They love "craft time" - Diya felt so big!

They made a whole bunch of crafts! It was a lot of fun :)

Afterwards we got to stay at the club and eat and watch some Baseball :) It was a very American day :)

Then we played on the fun playground they have at the club :)

So... that's what we did for Halloween :)

Holiday Season

2011-11-17T14:47:00.000+05:30

Holiday Season is almost ended over here. Of course there is a holiday just about every week here, but the BIG holidays are just about over. The other night we were at a local Sikh Temple.

You have to cover your head in a Sikh Temple. I think the girls look cute :)

Here's Diya goofing off.

Aashini lifting up the people inside.

The girls showing their Bollywood style :)

Lighthouse Beach

2011-11-07T18:38:00.000+05:30

After spending a few days at the other resort we went to another area of Kovalam called Lighthouse Beach (you can see the lighthouse in the background behind Adam)...

This beach was very interesting because it had black sand! In pictures it doesn't look that pretty, but it was really neat! It was super sparkly too (which you know I just love!).... one downfall of black sand - it was SUPER hot!!!!!!

I bought these awesome mini buckets and shovels at a dollar store when we were in America. They're great because they easily fit in my luggage and they are perfect for the girls! :) They had a ton of fun digging in the sand!

This is Diya making a funny face... her funny faces crack me up :) She puts her head to the side and poses like this ;) It's funny :)

Diya's little foot in the sand :)

Playing on the beach! The beach was weird! The sand on the beach was black, but near the water it was sort of red/brown... but if you dug underneath the red/brown sand, it was black! Very interesting!

The girls were very into playdough this trip :) They brought it with them everywhere!

It was very helpful when we were waiting for meals to come though :) The restaurants at Lighthouse Beach were all "open-air" and with beach views - it was awesome!

Diya concentrating with her playdough :)

Here is Diya making her "funny face" :)

The girls and their funny faces :)

Here we are playing on the beach at sunset :) It was fun :)

Digging in the sand at lighthouse beach :)

The sun was about to set but got behind the clouds... Diya couldn't figure out where it went :)

Look how black the sand is!!! Crazy!

Black sand looks funny on faces :) haha! It was super fine sand too and it got on EVERYTHING!!!

Sunset time! I'll have pictures of the sunset on the other blog :)

A nice bucket bath to end a fun day :)

We LOVED this beach and definitely want to come back here another time!!

Kerala - Beach Time!

2011-11-03T18:43:00.000+05:30

We went from the capital to the BEACH! This is Diya when we first arrived at the resort :)

I liked this picture so I just had to post it :)

Same with this one... :)

This picture isn't very great photography-wise... but I thought it was cute :) The girls had fun playing with their buddy Lucy :)

Aashini at Area 51 :) You can sort-of see her cute heart-shaped birthmark on her arm in this pic :)

Diya at Area 51 :)

This picture was taken the day after Diya's "accident" (if you don't know what I'm talking about PLEASE read about this amazing miracle HERE). Aashini couldn't stop hugging Diya that day. It's not a great picture but brings back sweet memories to me :)

Aashini got to use one of our cameras one day. She took this picture of Diya that I just LOVE :)

Aashini took this picture too :)

Kerala - Kidz in the Capital

2011-11-01T17:53:00.000+05:30

We spent our first couple of days in Kerala in the capital city. There were some fun and interesting things to do there (check the other blog to see more things we did). We went to a park one day that had these great swings that the girls LOVED!

They had quite the swinging radius (not sure how to say or word that... but when you went forward - you went forward for a long time and then back for a long time - haha!)... It was a smooth swing! It was neat!

The swings were tied to two coconut trees! Look at how this was rigged up! Fun :)

Diya's face cracks me up in this picture :)

Diya liked swinging by herself :) She thought she was cool :)

Here is Aashini at a different part of the park...

They LOVE playing in the sand!!!

Here's Diya with her funny goggles :) We went down to swim at the hotel's pool one of the days while we were there and we were all suited up and geared up. When we got there on one side of the pool were about 30+ people sitting VERY quietly in chairs dressed up for job interviews that were taking place right next to the pool. The elevator door opened up to the very front right where they were sitting.... it's hard to explain but it was very funny and a little embarrassing! haha! We were all ready to swim, so we got in the pool (not even 5 feet from all the people doing job interviews sitting VERY quietly all dressed up!) - haha! It was very funny to swim next to them :) haha!

HaPpY DiWaLi !!!

2011-10-27T08:00:00.000+05:30

Wednesday was Diwali :) The girls had a lot of fun :)

This past week Aashini had a big Diwali party at school. Here is Aashini (with Diya) all dressed up for her school party :)

Here is Aashini showing Diya how to dance :)

This is at Aashini's school when I picked her up after her party :)

These are a few kids in Aashini's grade at school :)

Diya at the market posing with some diyas :) (she wouldn't look up at the camera :))

Every night of Diwali (there have been 3 nights so far) we have gone to the market at night to look at lights and all the fun things going on. We live in walking distance to two awesome markets, so it's pretty fun :) The girls LOVED these moving lights the best :)

On Diwali day (the 3rd day of Diwali) the girls wore their new firecracker shirts :)

They thought they were awesome :) Aashini giving Diya a high-five :)

The girls were dancing and jumping around :)

On Diwali day we went to a market a neighborhood over from ours to get some stuff and enjoy the hustle and bustle of the holidays. We stopped and had lunch at McD... the girls had to get a picture with Ronald :)

Aashini loves taking her picture with Ronald - hilarious :)

On Diwali afternoon the girls painted diyas. They love to paint, so it was a fun holiday craft :)

Diya's face makes me laugh here :)

Aashini loved painting - she concentrated a lot! :)

Here are Aashini's finished products :)

Diya painted 2 diyas and then moved on to paper... she made quite the mess! There is paint all over the porch :)

Here is Aashini in the market :)

The girls had fun on Diwali :) They were a little scared of the fireworks, so they didn't see many of those this year, but they REALLY enjoyed all the lights! :)

A Very Scary Day...

2011-10-10T20:27:00.000+05:30

I'm going to tell you a story about one of the scariest days of my life. I get knots in my stomach just thinking about it, but the story just has to be told!

This past week we went on a vacation to a beach city to south of us. Our awesome friends Keith and Carie met up with us there and we had a really great time! One of the days though, we had the scare of our life!

Before I begin this story, let me tell you a little about our hotel room... we were on what we call in America the THIRD floor (In South Asia we would call it the 2nd floor because the ground floor is either called 0 or ground)....

Anyway....

We were about to take the kids to the swimming pool. They had just gotten up from their naps, and we put their swimsuits on. The swimsuits were still a little wet from that morning and Aashini kept complaining that she was cold. We told them to go outside and stand on the balcony and we would grab the sun screen and bring it out there and put it on them. As I was getting the sunscreen, I hear a "THUD" and then hear Aashini scream: "Diya!"... We run outside and look over the balcony... I see Diya laying face down on the ground - not moving.

A lady that was in the hotel room on the ground floor ran out. She heard the sound (and it woke her husband up from his nap) and wanted to see what it was (she though it was some coconuts or something). At this point Adam is sprinting down the stairs to her and I'm yelling down to the lady (Fiona) that my husband is on his way down. Diya starts to try to get up, so Fiona picks her up. I grab Aashini and run downstairs as well.

The area our balcony looks over was really hard to get to unless you have a ground floor. Adam ran around to the side and jumped over a wall to get over there, while Fiona went through her room into the middle lobby area of the building we were in to find us. Adam got to the outside area and Diya wasn't there, so he ran through Fiona's room into the lobby area. There he was able to get to Diya about the same time Aashini and I reached them.

At that point we ran with Diya & Aashini to the doctor's office at the resort. There were some American doctors there for the week, so we ran to them. They did a quick look-over of Diya. Her right arm was covered in red mud/dirt and her right side (rear-end & leg) was red. She seemed to be able to move her arms just fine, but wouldn't stand up and was crying a lot, so we weren't sure if something was wrong with her hip or leg area.

So we rushed her to the hospital. Aashini was super freaked out at this point, so Adam took Diya to the hospital and I kept Aashini at the hotel. Right as we were leaving the doctor's office and Adam was headed to the hotel car that was going to take him to the hospital, our friend Karen was at the pool. Aashini had been wanting to swim with her, so it was perfect timing. Karen was a life-saver and watched Aashini while I grabbed some things in the room to bring to Adam in the car (and for about an hour after that while I sat by the pool talking with Adam on the phone).

He rushed Diya off to the hospital. I then went to Keith and Carie's room and told them what had just happened. We prayed and Keith left and went to the hospital to be with Adam and Diya. It was really hard not to be with them at the hospital, but Aashini didn't need to be at the hospital and she really needed me. She was dealing with it in her own kid way. It came in waves. She kept saying: "Diya fell. Why did Diya fall? I couldn't catch her. I couldn't catch her". We talked about it a lot and talked it though and told her it wasn't her fault, but it was still really hard on her. She was worried about Diya.

Adam went to the first hospital which was super small and they sent him on to the larger hospital in the capital city (just about 20-30 minutes away). They looked Diya over and then gave her a sedative so that they could do x-rays and a CT Scan on her head. The sedative made her hyper! She was running all around the emergency room and singing (this made me so happy!!! Her bones seemed fine, so now we just had to make sure there wasn't anything wrong in her head). Eventually they gave her more sedative and she fell asleep.

They did the X-rays of her spine and the CT Scan. We got the results back and there was NOTHING WRONG! Diya was perfectly fine!!!!!!!!!!! She fell from the 3rd floor balcony and nothing was wrong!!!!!!! She didn't have a cut, scrape, bruise or bump!!!!! NOTHING!!!!

Praise God! He totally protected Diya!!!!! I will share this story over and over again about how God protected our little girl. She fell from the 3rd floor balcony and didn't get a scratch or a bruise! God protected her!!!! Thank you God!!!

Here is the balcony. The balcony (except the one side) is fully covered with glass. For most of the time we were staying there, we had a towel over the far end (with the X) so we didn't realize what a hazard it was! In the few seconds that she was out there by herself, she fell through those holes! Do you see how high up it is??? We are at the tops of the trees??? WOW! I kept looking down and thinking that if I fell I KNOW I would have broken something!

The is the ground where Diya fell. Right where those two holes are is where she landed. She was just a few inches from both concrete walls!!!

Here is Diya at the hospital trying to fall asleep. She had her swimsuit on when we did her exam at the resort with the American doctors, but Adam took her with just the beach towel... so that's all she had! Poor thing! When Keith left to go to Adam, my brain was not working well, so I didn't send him with anything! Keith was a super hero though! He got Diya some diapers, milk, cup, straws & biscuits (crackers)) all in a country he doesn't know in a language he doesn't know!

Here is Diya asleep getting her CT Scan.

This isn't our balcony, but it's the same balcony on the other side of the building. It was over 20 feet off the ground!! We took this picture so you could get an idea... The arrow is pointing to the balcony and on the ground you can see little Diya... just to see the perspective.

Diya got home that night around 10:00 pm! Wow! Here's a picture of her the next day :) We've always called her "Bam-Bam" and she is REALLY living up to that name!!!! She keeps talking about what happened and says: "Fell down and 'BONK'" She still talks about it some. When she saw this blog post, she recognized the balcony and started talking about it.

Here is Aashini the next day too :) She was so worried about Diya and had a really hard time going to sleep that night without her there. She was soooooo happy when Diya was there when she woke up!

I am soooo thankful for this miracle that happened in our life this past week! Thank you Jesus!! :) Whoo hoo!!!!

Check out this awesome Bible Story about a boy that fell from a 3rd floor window! - Click here to read

Vacation!

2011-10-03T17:12:00.001+05:30

We are on vacation! The girls are having a great time :-) we found some swings today and the girls loved them :-) here are a couple of pics i took on my phone :-) I'm posting on my phone too, so we'll see how this turns out :-)

Funny Little Sleeper

2011-10-03T09:34:00.000+05:30

Diya is a funny little sleeper. She LOVES to sleep in the "crack" of her bed. At night, after we leave the room, she always wiggles herself into the crack to fall asleep. It's hilarious! We have a long stuffed animal in the crack, so she's not going to fall through, and it's probably pretty comfortable :) Some nights she sleeps half-way in and half-way out - she's a funny little girl :)

Aashini Fun :) :)

2011-10-01T20:16:00.000+05:30

Aashini is a fun little girl :) Here are a few pictures of her....

A couple of months ago (I keep forgetting to post this picture) at McDonald's they had Cricket Gear inside. Aashini tried it on and loved wearing it :)

The other day when we went to pick up Aashini at school, she found a rubber band... the girls were playing on the school's playground and I look over and Aashini is "fixing" her hair in the mirrored window :) It made me realize how big she's getting!!!

... but she's still a funny little goofball :)

The other day Aashini was playing the egg & spoon race at a friend's birthday - she thought it was awesome! :)

That's it... just a few pictures :) I'll post more soon (hopefully) :)

Fun Friends :)

2011-09-29T21:18:00.000+05:30

Some of our fun friends were in town this week :) Our kiddos had a lot of fun playing together :) They had so much fun playing with our dupattas (neck scarf things).

They're cracking me up - this picture is so funny :) haha!

Then we went into the bookstore and the girls played some tennis :)

They got some reading in too :) They're so cute :)

Dress Up Fun :)

2011-09-21T21:40:00.004+05:30

My girls (like many girls) LOVE dress-up! Diya is very into princesses and looking like a princess. The other day she was wearing her "princess skirt" and didn't want to take it off ... so she wore it for most of the day :)

The other day Diya wanted her head covered. They see lots of ladies with their heads covered, so it's a pretty normal thing for them to want to dress up like :) I think they look so cute! (Diya does NOT like to look at the camera! - I don't think she's looking at the camera in any of these pictures!)

A little sister love :)

Adam went trekking not too long ago and was gone about a week. When he came home the girls were soooo excited! So here are Diya and Snow White greeting Adam at the door :)

Diya LOVES sunglasses. Here she is watching TV the other day with them on :)

Out and About!

2011-09-13T17:27:00.000+05:30

Here are a few pictures of the kiddos recently :) Here are the girls walking down the alley by our house.

Here are the girls with their friend CB :) They have fun playing together :)

One of the malls we take the kids to play at sometimes on the weekends has a great playground. Not too long ago they had a girl that was there with the kids that was dressed up as Alice in Wonderland. She was there a couple of weeks. The girls don't really know who Alice is, they just thought she was a princess. Diya is obsessed with princesses (only wants to read princess books or watch princess movies!) and she LOVED this girl. She followed her around the whole time! Hilarious! :)

Aryan's Birthday :)

2011-09-07T11:53:00.001+05:30

A couple of weeks ago we went to the birthday party of Aashini's friend Aryan. He was in her Pre-Nursery class with her. They were buddies :) Now that they are both in Nursery, they are at different schools so they haven't seen each other since March (The new school year starts in April here). When they saw each other, they were so excited! Aryan went around introducing Aashini to all his relatives :)

Aryan got a new bicycle at his party. He and Aashini had so much fun playing with it together. They would take turns riding it and pushing the other one.

They party was quite the affair! They had an ice cream cart and McDonald's for the kids!

They also had tons of food. Here's the food table!!!! It was full of awesome food (Aloo Tiki, Bhel Puri, Gulab Jamin.... TONS of yummy food!)

Here's Aashini pushing Aryan :)

For a long time Aashini was the only kid at the party. We got there 30 minutes late (on purpose) and we were still some of the first people there (oops! not late enough I guess) :). A couple of other relative's kids came a little later.

Here are some of the guests :) At this age, birthday parties are more like family get-togethers and they don't usually invite many of the kid's friends but they invite TONS of adults.

After a while, the other friend that Aryan got to invite, Alena, arrived. Alena is probably the most hyper kid I have ever met! She was in Aashini's Pre-Nursery class also. They all had so much fun playing together! We hadn't seen her parents in a while, so it was fun seeing them and catching up :)

Birthday Cake Time!!!! He had a Clown Car Cake with Noddy on the top :) haha!

After he blew out the candles they let loose some confetti....

Aryan's grandmother got it all in her hair! It was awesome :)

Now here is the weird cake tradition they have here in our area of the country... When it's someone's birthday, the birthday kid will take a slice of cake and feed a bit to everyone. In our experience it's usually one piece and everyone takes a bite off that one piece (gross right?).... Luckily Aashini was offered the first bite :) haha!

Here are Aashini & Alena enjoying their cake :)

The kids played around and danced to the music and had fun :) In this pic you can see the return gift Aashini got (Party Favor)... it was a fun pink & white polka dot umbrella :) A fun gift for Monsoon season :)

It was a fun party with fun friends :)

Potty Training!

2011-09-04T21:48:00.000+05:30

We've started potty training with Diya! She's done GREAT! It's been almost a week and she's almost got it! Here's a pic of her on her first day of potty training :)

Fun Friends :)

2011-08-30T15:17:00.010+05:30

A few of our fun friends have been in town lately so we've had fun hanging out!

The other day our good friends from M-town were in our city, so we met up at the mall so the kids could play and we could hang out :)

Then this past week some of our friends from New Orleans were in our country! The last time we saw them, none of us had kids! Now, between the two of us there are 6 kids! hahaha! Awesome :)

The kids had a great time playing together.

We went to the mall and let them play, then we had dinner at Chili's!

... hanging out in Chili's... Our Chili's has 3 of it's walls made out of glass... you kinda feel like you're in a fish bowl sometimes :) haha!

Here are all of the kids (minus one) :)

Afterwards we went to the fun bookstore/music/movies/toys store that is near Chili's. Aashini was playing this tennis game (hard to tell from this terrible picture)... but she was actually playing really well!

Yay for fun friends! :)

Pigtails!

2011-08-27T15:54:00.004+05:30

The other day I realized that Diya had enough hair for pigtails!!!! :) Until last week she hated to have her hair done... now she loves it! :) Here she is - first time in pigtails :) (or "2 ponytails" as they say here) :)

Diya loves making funny faces. If you say: "Diya make a funny face"... this is what she does:

I love her pigtails :) Too fun! :) She's getting big!

Dress-up Fun!!

2011-08-17T16:16:00.001+05:30

Aashini has always loved dressing up, but Diya has just discovered that she loves it too! The other day while Aashini was at school she came up to me and kept pointing at herself and saying: "Princess!" I kept reassuring her that she was a princess but she just kept saying it. Finally she led me to her room and pointed to the basket of dress-up clothes. She knew something in there would make her a princess :) She wanted the yellow princess dress. It was always Aashini's favorite (she just recently outgrew it), but now it fits Diya. (Here's a post of Aashini in it if you want to see - http://southasiashefs.blogspot.com/2010/07/little-princess.html).
These aren't great pictures, but I think the kiddos are cute all dressed up :) So fun :)

Independence Day!

2011-08-15T16:29:00.001+05:30

Today is Independence day here ;) Aashini had celebrations at school on Friday and we've had other opportunities to celebrate since then too. It's been fun! Here's Aashini beating the drum at school :)Here's a video of Aashini singing the National Anthem. It's not perfect but I think it's cute :)

Here is one of Aashini's schoolmates... I thought he looked really cute :)Here's Diya holding her own on the slide :) haha! She wasn't about to let that boy rush her on the stairs :) haha!
Hope everyone had a fun Independence Day :)

School Fun!

2011-08-08T20:18:00.001+05:30

Aashini is getting so big!! Here is a picture of her practicing her writing for school :) Fun!

School Fun!

2011-08-04T16:31:00.000+05:30

Aashini is back to school after a long summer break! She missed a few weeks of school, so she was a little behind when she got here, but she is almost caught up with everything :) She's learning to write all of her ABCs and numbers. She has homework about 3 days a week. She has a school presentation (speaking competition) coming up this Monday (don't worry, it will be well documented) :)

Anyway, after school when we (or one of us) picks up Aashini, we usually let her and Diya play at the school's outside play ground for a few minutes before taking her home (they have an inside playground too - it's really cool!!).
Just thought I'd show you some pics of the girls playing :) You can see Aashini in this picture (she's in the one above but you can't really see her :) haha!)
Diya loves it too! She can't wait until she's big enough to go to school!! :)

Hanging Around

2011-08-03T16:42:00.002+05:30

Here are just a few random pictures :)

The other day the girls both wanted to lay on the couch and watch a movie (getting over jet lag)... I thought they were so cute!!!
Here's a pic of Aashini & me at the mall this past weekend :)
I LOVE this picture! Aashini cracks me up!! This past Sunday after chuch we decided to go out to lunch. We were going to go get pizza (one of Aashini's favorites) but asked her if she'd rather have South Asian Food or Pizza... she chose South Asian food :) This is what she picked instead of Pizza :) She was super happy :) I asked her to smile for a picture and she kept making this face :) She said this was the face I made in pictures - hahaha! :)

The Bunkbeds!!!!

2011-08-01T17:17:00.003+05:30

We moved the girls into the bunkbeds this past week!!! We were tired of having the pack-n-play in their room (there wasn't much room and it was sorta in the way)... so we bumped Aashini up to the top bunk and put Diya in the bottom bunk in a "big girl bed" :) Diya LOVES her new bed!!!! She really loves it! She fell out of bed (onto big pillows) a couple of times the first night but since then she hasn't fallen. She only got out of bed once the first night and once since then (after putting her to bed) but that's it! They've done really great!!!

Here's Diya in her bed :) (Oh! and check out the cute quilts my mom made for their beds!!)
Here are the girls in their bed! They're so big!!!!!!

America - Last Pics!!

2011-07-26T19:17:00.002+05:30

OK, here are some last pics from America...

Aashini had a lot of fun with a Bike rack :) She had a lot of fun swinging on it :)

Diya watched her and learned how to swing too :)

They were really cute swinging together!

Diya always likes to sit on everyone... she's a goofy kid!

.... so we got on an airplane and headed back... so that is the end of the America posts (unless I forgot something :)) :)

America - Alison in Tally!

2011-07-25T17:50:00.001+05:30

At the end of our time in America, my sister Alison came in town for a few days! We had fun going around and seeing things. One place we went was Wakulla Springs :) I LOVE Wakulla Springs. The water is so beautiful and there are so many fun things around there. We went on the riverboat to see the river - it was awesome! :)

When we first got there it was pouring rain, but it stopped long enough for us to get on the boat!There are lots of fun things to see along the river :) I love Anhinga Birds - they're so cool! (They don't have oils on their feathers, so when they get wet they have to hold them out and dry them :))It was really neat to be there at dusk right after (and later during) the rain :)The rain made it pretty humid and made it look so cool! I love how the steam looks coming off of the water! :)We got to see a lot of alligators! It was fun!We also got to see this cool bird. It's on the endangered species list. It's called the Purple Gallinule. It was really fun- colored! :)We also went to the Tallahassee Museum. It is a really fun place that has lots of Florida animals :)It's really neat because you walk along all of these boardwalks through the woods to see the animals.Foxes are cool!Here's Aashini posing for a picture :) haha!There was a playground at the park that the girls had a blast at!Aashini learned how to slide down a pole for the first time - she had fun :)It was fun having Alison in town :)

America - Panacea

2011-07-24T13:25:00.009+05:30

One of the weekends we were in America (and we weren't traveling!) we went to a fun place near Tally called Panacea! It's a fun area on the beach and there's a fun "museum" type place where you can go and touch and see all kinds of sea creatures! Aashini LOVED touching everything!

They had rooms full of touch-tanks where you could touch everything! (they also had shark tanks that weren't touch tanks :) haha!)This one tank had a funny orange sea thing that turned Aashini's hands orange :)Aashini loved this big shell :)Afterwards we had a fun picnic lunch :)... with cookies of course :)It was a fun day :)

2011-07-23T13:29:00.003+05:30

We're back in SouthAsiaLand! I didn't end up posting too many pics while we were in America... I still have some I wanted to post :)

Aashini & Diya got the chance to go to one of my favorite places - Build-a-Bear!!! :) They both picked animals then later traded, then later traded back - haha! Aashini named hers Fuzzles :)The kids LOVED the fun grocery carts :)Aashini was teaching Diya and showing her the ropes :)One day we went to the Science & Arts Museum! It was fun!!! It was during their Bugs & Baroque theme... Aashini LOVES bugs!Here's one of the Baroque art pieces :)The girls dressed up :)Doing a little swimming......walking around the park......playing with her play kitchen and play food :)Doing some reading! I love that my girls love books :) Aashini has loved them since she was super little... and Diya has just started liking them :)Here's my little goofball :)One day we took the kids to the library for "Toddler Time" - it was packed out!!!One of Aashini's favorite things during the summer was VBS! She LOVED it!!!!! Here she is with her friend Kaley from church :)

The kiddos!

2011-07-21T15:19:00.011+05:30

We're back in SouthAsiaLand! Here are a few pics of the kiddos I took before we left....

My aunt made them these shirts. Aashini's says: "Drama Queen" and Diya's says "Diva" :)

They wanted to wear their dress up skirts :)This picture of Diya makes me smile :)This picture didn't turn out as planned but I thought it was fun anyway :)These kiddos crack me up :)This picture looks like it has a fake background :) haha!We gave them lollipops and they LOVED them... not sure why Diya is so upset in this picture :) haha! It cracks me up though!Cheers!!I love big lollipops! (they are soooo messy though :) haha!)

Hangin' Around - America

2011-06-15T09:11:00.001+05:30

Just a few fun pictures of the girls :) Aashini is a little jungle girl :) She loves wearing leaves and things on her head as she hunts for bugs :) That's my girl! haha!

Diya likes to do what Aashini does :)

Aashini in her bath towel :)

Diya in her bath towel :)

We went at had South Asian food one day. The girls were super happy :)

Here's Diya chowing down on some roti :)

Aashini's roti was well done - but she didn't seem to notice - she was so happy to eat South Asian food and had really been missing it :)

Here's a Turtle Aashini drew - I thought it was so cute :)

DISNEY!!!

2011-05-17T09:45:00.001+05:30

DISNEY!!! Adam's dad hooked us up with some Disney tickets!! It was awesome!!!!!!!

We went to Animal Kingdom first. We played in Dino-Land most of the time. The sand pit where you can dig up animal bones was Aashini's favorite! We stayed in this area for a while!!!

After lunch we went to the Magic Kingdom! The girls fell asleep on the way over, so when we first got to the castle, they were sleeping (I think Diya just woke up in this pic though). It was funny :)

The princess castle!! (that's what Aashini calls it :))

Diya LOVED wearing Adam's hat!!

Aashini had fun playing with her new bubble gun :)

I like this picture :)

Diya had a light up wand... she thought bubbles came out of it too :) She was running around pointing it at people :) it was cute :)

Aashini and her bubbles :)

My sweet little princess :)

One of her favorite things we did was to meet the princesses!! All day long she kept talking about wanting to meet Belle and Gaston (not sure why she likes him so much :) haha!). We stood in line to meet the princesses... we knew their would be 3 but we didn't know who was there until we got right up to them in the special room. The first was Jasmine. She had so much fun with her, but the whole time she was with Jasmine she was looking at the princess she was going to meet next....

Belle!!!! Her favorite! Look at Aashini in this picture looking at Belle! Too cute :) She was mesmerized by Belle. After she met with Belle she whispered to me: "Mommy, I forgot to ask Belle where Gaston was!"

I think she had the most fun with Cinderella! Cinderella was so cute with her! This picture looks like she is about to hit her over the head with her light stick, but they really did have fun :) haha!

Aashini's face was like this most of the time :) ADORABLE!

We stayed for the light parade. Aashini LOVED it! Her face looked like this through most of the parade! She was so excited that she got to see Tinkerbell! She had fun!!

You can tell we're a bit tired :) haha!

We stayed through the fireworks and stood just under where Tinkerbell "flies" down from the castle... Aashini thought it was awesome!! Shortly after the fireworks Aashini passed out :) haha! It was a fun day!!! Diya had a great First trip to Disney too :) It was awesome :)

Funny Things :) - Aashini

2011-05-11T09:41:00.001+05:30

Aashini & Diya were playing with this toy (below) the other day and Aashini decided to stick her hand in it... it has a vacuum in it and she could not get her arm out... Adam had to help her and it was still hard to get it out!! haha!! It made me laugh!

In America!

2011-05-09T09:32:00.001+05:30

We're here in America! We're here visiting family and going to meetings ;) The flight was LONG. We flew over 22 hours (not counting layovers!). The girls did really good. They had a couple of hours of restlessness, but did great :) Diya had her carseat for the flight (which was great!!)... Aashini joined her in the carseat for a little bit - it was cute :)

The London airport had some awesome vending machines!! You could get Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream!!

Here's Diya when she arrived in the US (in Miami) for the first time!!!

They had fun drinking out of the waterfountain when we got to the US!! I think that's been their favorite thing so far! haha!!

One of the things we love are the Big Huge Life Oak Trees!!! LOVE THEM! :) This is one of the parks by my parent's house. This was one of the first things we did :)

Diya LOVES swings!!!

Aasnini loves dirt and sticks :) haha!

... but I think their favorite thing at the park was the water fountain :) haha!!! Wee spent quite a bit of time at the water fountain :) haha!

Aashini had fun watching this guy play tennis :)

I'll leave you with this picture blooper... haha! not sure what is going on here but it makes me laugh :)

Pool Time!!

2011-04-22T14:47:00.007+05:30

Last weekend we pulled out the kiddie pool! The kiddos had a lot of fun!! (and I think it's time to pull out our bigger pool! :) haha!)

I couldn't find Diya's swimsuit, so this one is a little small :) (I've found it since then) :) Diya LOVED the pool! She would have played all day!!!

Aashini lost interest in the pool after a while... but Diya kept on playing :) (although Aashini did have fun for a long time squirting her water gun from the balcony :) haha! They had fun :)

A Diya Post :)

2011-04-18T14:47:00.003+05:30

Diya is a funny crazy kid! She's grown so much in the last month it's crazy!! She has 4 teeth on the bottom (two front middle teeth and 2 molars!) and 6 on the top (4 front middle and 2 molars) and has one coming in right now :)

We were at McDonald's the other day and this family was playing with Diya. She wouldn't let them give her any fries though - she kept making this face :) haha!

Diya LOVES ice cream :)

Diya is really great at eating with a spoon now. She LOVES eating with a spoon! She likes to eat cereal in the morning and just about anything we give her she will eat if it's in a bowl with a spoon :) haha! Here she is eating some chili :)

Diya LOVES crayons! Her attention span with coloring isn't very long, but she loves to color a little here and there and LOVES to carry crayons around (which we don't let her do because then she marks on everything!). It's hard to keep the crayons away from her!

Diya is a sweet funny little girl :)

Catching Up - Aashini :)

2011-04-12T14:49:00.001+05:30

I know I've been horribly behind on blogging... time has been quite limited lately :) Anyway, here is a blog post of some Aashini pictures over the last month :) Aashini loves the Backyardigans. They have one show where they are cowboys and Aashini loves it! There was some guy selling cowboy hats on the street the other day (at the traffic light) so we had to get one for her... she LOVED it! Here she is with her hat and stick horse :)

Here she is with her hat and lasso (jump rope) :)

Aashini loves the metro. This is an old picture (about a month old - Aashini has grown TONS since then!).

Here's a more recent pic on the metro (and yes, Aashini has a "princess wand" in her hand :) haha!)

Aashini likes to pose for pictures (sometimes) now :) haha! Awesome ;)

This picture cracks me up :) Aashini got a HUGE sticker this morning and it covered her whole hand :)

Here's Aashini at a play place. She loves the princess castle - it's her favorite one to play in :)

Aashini loves dress-up :)

This picture cracks me up :) Love it! :)

First Day of the School Year!!!

2011-04-07T20:01:00.013+05:30

About a week and a half ago we started the new school year here!! The school schedule here is totally different from the school schedule in the US! The school year starts in April and then they let out for summer break in May & June and start back up in July.

Anyway, Aashini started Nursery this year!! She is at the same school she was before, just a different branch. This year for Nursery, she has a school uniform - so cute :) Diya wanted in on the "first day of school pictures" :) (I love how she's trying to pose like Aashini in this picture) :)

I think Aashini looks so big in this picture!!!

My girls!! :)

This is Aashini's new school! The picture isn't great (taken from a moving car) but you can see her school! She calls it her Princess Castle School :) It's right next to the metro (you can sort of see it in the top left corner of the picture). It's SUPER close to our house - we can walk to it!!!

Her school has a fun playground and a roller skating rink :)

The first day of school was only for the new kids. Diya got to come too :) They have a basement room that is HUGE and has a big indoor play area (they have an outdoor one too), ball pit, play houses, puzzles, games, etc! Diya had fun :)

The parents were supposed stay with the kids for the first day of school (it was a mini-day of school). Here's their lunch time (the 10:30 lunch time :)). They just had a simple meal this day (pakoras).

Here's the fun ball pit!!! It has a cool slide into it :)

Aashini love it :) It's such a fun new school! She's so big!!!!

Whoo hoo!!!

End of the School Year!

2011-03-28T08:38:00.002+05:30

The school year has ended here. Monday starts a whole new school year (we're on a different schedule here than America :)). Aashini has just "graduated" from Pre-Nursery and will start Nursery next week! Here's her Pre-Nursery class :)

The school's website has some pictures from the school year - here's a few of them :) I love this picture below :)

This is a picture from Independence Day. On the right is Aman. At the beginning of the year Aashini always complained about him, he was a bit of a bully and was always picking on her. By the end of the year they were super good friends! They loved playing together! It's pretty funny :)

This is a picture is from a water day they had. They have a kiddie pool at the school and all the kids were playing in it :) I love this pic :)

Aashini playing in the ball pit :)

Aashini with her teacher Jaspreet. She LOVES her and really misses her! Jaspreet misses her too - she's already called Aashini to say hey - cute :)

Aashini at the Fancy Dress Speaking Competition.

It has been a fun school year!! We'll see what next year has to hold!!! It should be fun :) Her new school looks like a big castle!! Awesome! :)

HOLI!

2011-03-21T14:50:00.003+05:30

I don't have internet yet (hopefully tomorrow!) so I can only post a couple of pictures (posted via my phone)... We had quite the eventful Holi this year! Adam had typhoid (and didn't know it) and wanted to go out and play anyway, and then he passed out - We did get to meet a lot of neighbors that way though :) haha!

Aashini REALLY loved Holi this year!! She had so much fun - she would have played all day!!! Diya didn't like it at all! This is the only picture I got of Diya :)

Here's Aashini :) She LOVED it!!! :)

A Diya Post :)

2011-03-18T15:43:00.001+05:30

Diya seems to be growing so fast! She's been slow to get her teeth but that hasn't stopped her from eating everything!!! She has 3 teeth and has been grumpy the last few days... and then Monday night I saw something in her mouth and reached in a felt that she had 2 upper molars!!!!!!!!! The girl has 2 bottom teeth and one top tooth and now she has two upper molars! haha! I don't remember that being the order they were supposed to come in - haha!

Anyway, here's Diya eating corn on the cob! Too funny :) She loved it!

Here's a super crooked pic of Diya playing on our new porch :)

This is before we moved, but this was Diya's first day to discover that she loved tea parties :)

She's a sweet little goofball :)

Sisters :)

2011-03-17T15:32:00.001+05:30

I just wanted to post this picture :) They're so happy :) I love it :)

Tea Party!

2011-03-15T16:02:00.001+05:30

In case you were wondering why I haven't posted much lately, we've moved! We don't have internet at our new house yet, so I'm at a coffee shop right now.

Anyway, the other day I walked into the living room and I see this:

My girls sitting together having a tea party! It was adorable!!!

I love that they're getting old enough to play together now! So cute!!!

Playing!

2011-02-28T21:35:00.004+05:30

Here are a couple of pictures of Aashini from today on the playground :) She cracks me up! I love the look on her face in this picture :)

The look on her face here cracks me up too! haha! She's a funny girl :)

Out & About

2011-02-27T15:52:00.008+05:30

Here are a few pics from yesterday :) Here are Aashini & Hazel playing Simon Says next to an Auto :)

This is a seriously awesome ball pit!

The girls sitting at their special table for dinner :) (Ignore the mess we're in the middle of moving!!!!)

We went to Pink Mango to get some frozen yogurt for desert! Yum!

Having Fun!

2011-02-26T20:31:00.013+05:30

After a morning full of doing stuff, we took the kids to a garden to run around. They had a great time :) Aashini is cracking me up in these pictures running around with the chip bag! haha!
We stopped to feed the ducks :) Don't fall in Adam!!
Here are the girls running at me to get more chips to feed the ducks ;)
Feeding chips to the ducks... they don't really like chips :)
These circle steps were awesome :)
haha! This picture (bad photography and all) cracks me up!
Diya did NOT want to be carried anywhere. She wanted to walk by herself Everywhere! She LOVES walking now!
Here are the girls :)

Buddies :)

2011-02-25T21:39:00.005+05:30

We have some fun friends in town right now! My friend Emily who used to live here in the Capital and her kids and one of their youth Kiley is here. I used to post a lot of pictures with Aashini and her little buddy Hazel. They were born just a few days apart. The last time the kiddos were together, they were little.... They looked like this:

You can see more pictures of their last time together here. Anyway, they are here! They're so big now (AND they have little sisters!) I love Diya's smile in this picture :)

Adam made the girls laugh in this pictures :) haha!

We told them to make funny faces :) The little ones didn't get it :) haha!

We're all having a lot of fun!!

Valentine's Day!

2011-02-15T21:11:00.003+05:30

This year for Valentine's Day we had some extermination done on our house - yay! haha! We have a serious termite problem! Anyway, after that we needed to get out of the house, so we headed to a fun park called the Garden of Five Senses. We've been here MANY times but have never seen it all -it's huge! Anyway, usually on Valentine's Day they have a camel there, so we thought it would be fun to let the girls ride. Aashini was a little scared at first but she had a great time!

Diya LOVED it! She laughed and clapped the whole time!

Valentine's Day is an interesting holiday here. Relationships outside of marriage are taboo, so if anyone dates then they do it secretly. Usually on Valentine's day all of the parks are filled with couples paired off hiding everywhere. This park actually had a "make-out" police. A park guard was walking around with a whistle blowing it at couples - hilarious! (to see a previous Valentine's Day post, click here)

Aashini had a blast at the park climbing on everything! This picture is totally overexposed but Ithought she was cute :)

There were also other fun things to climb on :)

...and other fun things!

They had a super small playground that had a hamster wheel and a slide. The hamster wheel was tied up so that it wouldn't move because it had holes in it and was dangerous... but that didn't keep Aashini from trying :)

The slide was funny - it was a conveyor belt! It was fun :)

Diya liked it too :) It was a fun day :) After this we at South Asian food at the park and the girls napped in the car while we went to the mall. They played at the mall and we ate there and went home to our fume-y house :( The girls slept in a non fumey room and we all went to sleep :) Anyone have any tips on getting rid of fumes?

Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day!

Diya Fun :)

2011-02-14T16:37:00.001+05:30

Here's a post all about Diya :) We have a newish mall in our city that has an awesome (and FREE!) play area! The girls are a little young for it, but they had a great time at it :)

Diya made a little buddy while she was there :)

Diya got to meet Shrek the other day - she was a little scared of him (but less than Aashini who wouldn't get closer than 5 feet away ;) haha!)

Poor Diya still only has 2 teeth but she eats everything! haha!

:) Diya is walking everywhere now! She walked steps here and there for a long time but then one day a couple of weeks ago she just decided she wanted to walk everywhere and that's what she did :)

Diya has just enough hair that I can put up a little water spout - haha! It's fun to be about to do something with her hair :)

Diya doesn't get juice very often, but she LOVES it when she gets it and sucks the box dry! (Mango juice is the favorite of both my girls) :)

This picture isn't great photography but it really makes me smile, so I thought I'd leave you with this picture :)

School Fashion Show

2011-02-07T16:32:00.000+05:30

Aashini had a school fashion school this weekend. It was awesome! We weren't sure what to think when this whole thing started. Her school is awesome and they are always doing some kind of public speaking contest but this one was a fashion show too. We weren't sure what to expect! (There's a video at the bottom of this post in case you want to go ahead and let it load :))

We weren't sure how to dress her. The teachers and principal showed us a video of the past winners and showed their outfits and things like that. The kids were super decked out! They had all kinds of flashy crazy clothes or fancy clothes. The teachers told us to make sure Aashini's hair was done up special and that we should buy a hair piece or a wig. So, as a good South Asian parent I found a shop that had hair pieces and I bought one (I even found one in her color!)... She looked very 80s and quite funny...

Anyway, I couldn't handle the fake hair :) so here is what Aashini looked like :) (her hair was super cute but it's hard to tell at this angle :)

The Fashion Show was awesome! The kids had to walk out and "do the model walk" and then walk to the microphone and talk about something and then "do the model walk" again. This was the first kid - he was hilarious!!!! When he walked up to the microphone he made this face (below) and just stood there like that for what seemed like forever! It was hilarious!

The kids spoke on some funny things! Some of the topics were Alcohol, Government Corruption, Global Warming, Female Feoticide, etc...

This kid was awesome - see the Nike swoosh necklace? haha!

This kid's outfit cracked me up! He had real leaves on!

After the boys went, then the girls went. This is Rhea (below), she's Aashini's best buddy at school. She talked about Government Corruption.

This is Aashini's little friend Pavani. She was dressed so cute!

Aashini was next! She was so excited!! She sort-of did her little walk and walked up to the microphone :) She was loving it!!!

When she first got up to the mic she just kept posing. We weren't sure what was going to happen :)

Her teacher took the mic off so that she could hold it herself and that seemed to be what made her comfortable - haha!

... and another picture :)

...and another one :)

She was so cute when she walked off. She kinda did a little strut :) I thought it was cute :) I like how you can see her friends Naviya & Rhea in the background :)

I posted a lot of pictures :) haha! Here's another one :)

This little girl was so cute!!

This was almost all of the little girls that participated :)

This is the little girl that won! She was hilarious!

They gave the kids gifts when they were done. The kids were all so excited with their gifts! (They were all a little less excited when they opened them I'm sure... it was a set of coffee mugs...)

Aashini with her gift - her face here cracked me up :)

I love nose picking pictures... this isn't a nose-pick, but it's pretty close :) haha!

This girl had the biggest wig... it was quite big!

This is Aashini with her friend Naviya. Naviya and Aashini were born on the same day at the same hospital! In a city of millions it's pretty crazy that they ended up in the same class at the same school!!

We celebrated afterwards by letting Aashini strut her stuff at the mall and getting ice cream cones :) Fun!

And.... a VIDEO!!! Our video camera half-way died right before Aashini went on (so the image stabilizer isn't working - so it's a little rocky!) and totally died just a little bit after she went. Crazy :) Anyway, here's the video. Aashini's is first, and then I put a few clips of the other kids on it too :) Enjoy! (if you can't see it then just click here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7ztx7j0ip4 )

Fancy Dress Competition

2011-01-24T16:00:00.001+05:30

Aashini's school really works with the kids on public speaking (I know! She just turned 3 and has already had 2 public speaking competitions!). Right before Christmas (yes, I'm late in posting) Aashini had a "Fancy Dress Competition" at school. She had to dress up like something or someone and deliver some lines. Aashini was a princess. When we originally asked her what she wanted to be she said Pirate... but then later decided she didn't want to be a pirate but wanted to be a princess. Here she is before we left the house.

Here is Aashini with her teacher (Jaspreet). She's taking Aashini from the classroom (holding room - haha!) to the stage.

The first time Aashini did a speaking competition she wasn't nervous at all and spoke nice and loud. This time Aashini was so nervous and couldn't remember her lines and just giggled.

She did a good job - it was cute :)

Here's the video so you can see it too! At the beginning of the video you can see her saying her lines before we left for school, then you'll see the competition. One thing to notice, after she's done they give all the kids a toffee (candy). They told all the kids before they went on that they would get a toffee if they performed - haha!

Here's another kid all dressed up - she was a mermaid.

Some of the kids weren't so happy to be there.... look at this sad little lion!

... and this sad little bear!

Here's Aashini's buddy Pokajeet :) (I told his mom the other day that Aashini calls him Pokajeet and she thought that was hilarious!) Notice the kid behind him dressed like a soap dispenser :)

Here are some of the kids on stage :) Top right is a cute little tube of toothpaste ;) Bottom right is Rhea, one of Aashini's best friends at school - she was Mother Goose.

At the end all the parents went crazy taking pictures - it was funny :)

All of the kids got this funny cup thing as a prize (even the boys). Aashini LOVED it and was so proud of it (and her crayons are kept in it even now) :)

Here's Aashini's buddy Palak... she was the tube of toothpaste :) (it's hard to go down a slide as a tube of toothpaste) :)

Here's Aashini with one of her buddies. This is the most hyper girl I've ever met!

Aashini and another buddy :)

It was fun :) Aashini has another speaking competition coming up at the end of this month... this one will probably be quite hilarious! I can't wait to post about that one!

Sliding at the Beach!

2011-01-19T21:32:00.005+05:30

Whoever thought of putting a playground on the beach was a genius! What a great idea! My girls LOVE slides!! Diya has recently fallen in loves with slides. The minute she gets off she wants to get back on! Anyway, Aashini had a great time with the slides at the beach :)

We thought it would be fun to let the girls slide down together but Aashini didn't get it. She set up at the top with Diya and we kept telling her to slide down with her but it just wasn't computing :)

.... so she just pushed her down the slide first - haha! Diya had fun :)

Slides are very fun :) haha!

Diya's First Beach Trip!

2011-01-17T15:12:00.003+05:30

Diya went to the beach for the first time while we were in the Gulf :) The beach had a playground on it! Brilliant!

Diya & Aashini had a blast hanging out on the playground.

Diya loved playing in the sand :)

Here's our feet!

Here's Diya putting her feet in the water for the first time! Her first time at the beach was in the Gulf of Arabia (or Persian Gulf as Americans call it) :) Aashini's first time at the beach was at this exact same beach too! Fun hunh? (If you want to read about Aashini's first beach trip click here)

Diya loved it!

It was a little chilly so we weren't planning on letting them play in the water any, but they really wanted to... so we let them :)

Adam and his girls at the beach :)

Diya played like crazy in the sand.

After a few minutes of crawling in the sand I think her knees hurt, so the rest of the time she was "bear crawling" all through the sand. It was hilarious!

Aashini had a lot of fun too. She made a sand castle and thought it was awesome :)

Here they are on the beach - you can see Diya doing her funny crawl :)

Everyone had a great time :) We played until it was too cold to play :)

We got the girls all cleaned up and warm again. Aashini thought it was awesome :)

... then she played a little more :) It was a fun day :)

Gulfi Fun :)

2011-01-13T18:42:00.009+05:30

Here's a few more kiddo pictures from the Gulf :) When we got to the airport here in the Capital we ran into some friends and their kids. Aashini had fun playing and eating with them before we headed out :) It was fun :)

The girls LOVED having a bathtub while we were in the Gulf! We bought some bubbles and used them just about every day :) I thought this picture was funny :)

One night while we were there at our friend's house, Diya fell asleep and Aashini thought it would be funny to stack cushions all over here... she was proud of herself - haha!

This is Megan. Aashini loved her! She copied things that she was doing. Megan was sitting on the counter with a book so Aashini wanted to sit on the counter too with a book. She kept copying Megan's movements and stuff - totally cute :)

Here's Diya eating an onion - she LOVES onions! - That's my girl!

Here's Aashini at a cool museum that we went to :)

Here's Aashini being goofy! She's hilarious!

They had fun!

A REAL Silver Medalist!

2011-01-11T21:58:00.001+05:30

This post is a little late in posting!! When we were at the Commonwealth Games (diving), we got to see a real medal from the games! One of the divers that was there diving (from Australia I think) had won a sliver medal the day before. He didn't want to leave it in his room, so he gave it to his parents to hold while he was diving. They were really cool and letting people see it and take pictures of it. They even offered Aashini a chance to wear it :) She was scared to do it at first, but loved wearing it!!!

Here's a close-up of the medal:

She thought it was awesome :)

....Then, two weeks later she won her very own silver medal (in the transportation race - see here for the post about that)... She was so proud of herself!

Here's her medal :)

Very fun :)

First Steps!!!!

2011-01-06T14:55:00.000+05:30

Diya took her first steps yesterday!!! We're still here in the Gulf - she took her first steps here! :) Here's a short video of Diya walking :) If you can't see it then click on the link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NViB6_wbwK4

Drummer Girls :)

2011-01-04T11:50:00.006+05:30

While hanging out at our friends' house, the girls have gotten the chance to play a little guitar hero and drums :) Aashini really gets into it and seems to have her tongue out just about the whole time she's playing ;) haha!

Diya has been really interested in it too. She actually knew what to do (just hitting the drums - not playing the game :) haha!)

She was pretty good :) Maybe we have a couple of drummers in our future - haha!

On Vacation :)

2010-12-30T12:06:00.005+05:30

We're in the Gulf on vacation right now :) The girls are having a great time :) We're staying in a great house and it even has a bathtub! The girls are loving the bathtub :) We bought some bubbles and they think they're awesome :) haha! We're going to see a movie in a few minutes - fun ;)

Christmas Day!

2010-12-26T22:37:00.016+05:30

We had a great Christmas :) The girls had a lot of fun with food and friends :)

Diya was only a month old last Christmas so this one really felt more like her first Christmas :) She had a lot of fun :)

Aashini really had fun :) She was cute :)

She got a fun new soft elephant :)

Diya was mesmerized by her glow worm.

Aashini had fun playing :)

Diya hugging her glow worm :) I love those things (they came in handy tonight when the power was out and our inverter - battery back-up - stopped working :))

Diya was exhausted and took a long morning nap :)

Aashini had a yearbook photo shoot on Christmas morning, so it worked out that we could go over there before we did other things. Here's Diya with Aashini's main teacher - Jaspreet.

For the photo shoot they did the whole family, the girls with me, the girls with Adam and just the girls... it was pretty funny :)

They were cute :)

More pics on the other blog :) Check it out!

We're leaving tomorrow for the Middle East for a couple of weeks. I still have some Christmas posts, but they'll have to wait a few weeks... see you in the Gulf!

Christmas :)

2010-12-22T23:51:00.004+05:30

Christmas is almost here! Our city has decked itself out a lot more than normal this year, so it's felt a lot more like Christmas. Aashini is a lot more interested in Christmas this year. I'm excited to see how she continues to experience Christmas this year :) Fun!

An Aashini Post :)

2010-12-20T13:47:00.001+05:30

This post is all about Aashini :)

She likes to make pretend food a lot now. The other day she lined up a few stuffed animals and fed them - I thought it was cute :)

She likes tea parties (with juice :) - the girl loves juice!).

Aashini loves getting dressed up and dancing. Here she is dancing to "Go Tell it on the Mountain" haha! (if you can't see it, click here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-TcsAa10g8)

She loves to dress up!! She goes back and forth from wanting to be a princess and wanting to be a superhero/pirate :) This day she had a combo (check out the shoes) :) In this picture she's showing us the picture she just took on her camera :) haha!

Aashini still loves doing puzzles. Here she is at school one day when we went to pick her up... she wanted to show Diya her puzzles at school: )

Aashini LOVES being a pirate!! Here she is "playing pirate" with Adam and Joe. The newspaper is the pirate map :)

Here's another video. If you can't view it, then you can go here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R-zSNt91uQ) to view it. This was the other night. Aashini was cracking me up! We were getting her dressed warm for sleeping (marble floors and cement walls make for a really cold house!) and she started dancing on the bathroom counter. She calls herself a "Dancer-lina" (She confused a ballerina and dancer) :) It's pretty repetitive but funny (to me anyway :))

A Diya Post!

2010-12-18T21:15:00.000+05:30

Here's a post all about Diya :)

Diya says "Happy" now. It's cute. She says it all day long! It's hilarious! Here's a video (if you can't view it, click here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glhoa5rG3mE)

One day this week we were in a steel shop and Diya was having fun sitting on a stool :)

She has fun shopping :)

Diya loves to pick Aashini up from school. She likes to sit at the desk at school and be big :)

And here is a random video of Diya chasing a toy and cracking up :) haha! (if you can't view it, click here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F0pZqOwfww)

Diya is fun a giggly :) She's super fun :)

Christmas DRAMA!

2010-12-14T21:35:00.014+05:30

So last Sunday Aashini was in a Christmas Drama/Musical at Chrch. Aashini LOVES the microphone and stage, so we weren't sure how it would go... Before it started, Aashini and her friend Evie seemed to be excited about the mic :)

They got all lined up on the stage. Aashini was excited to get started :)

They told all of the kids to sit down. Aashini stood in front of the mic...

Then the drama begins... no, not the musical drama, but Aashini's drama.... Her and Evie started fighting over the microphone... oh yeah, I was embarrassed...

... Evie won... and Aashini pitched a fit!

She stayed on the sidelines for the first song. At the 2nd song she wanted to go back to the stage... so she stood in the very front of the stage and sort-of pouted...

Then Evie left the stage to sit with her parents and Aashini took over the microphone...

She was super happy to have the microphone in her control...

...then she realized that the mic was turned off. She started tapping the microphone and motioning to let people know it was off...

She had fun at the end. It was quite the experience - haha! First Drama performance was full of Drama.... You can see for yourself :)

Here's a little bit of video of the performance/drama :) (if the video doesn't work, click here)

Artwork :)

2010-12-11T20:39:00.008+05:30

Aashini loves coloring and drawing! She's recently started turning her smiley faces into people - I love it :)

The other day she decided to draw Adam. She was really into it...

The blue colored-in parts are his clothes :) She finished and said:

"This is daddy. Isn't he cute?!"

So fun :)

Random Post & Videos :)

2010-12-07T09:58:00.003+05:30

Here are a few random pictures... some good, some not-so-good :) Here's Aashini dancing in her birthday tap shoes :)

Here's a video of Aashini. She has a funny thing she likes to do... she likes to look sad and when you ask her what's wrong she'll give a big smile... so that's what's going on at the beginning of the video... then she does a Hindi poem, then she talks a little bit. At school if they are studying something, they usually write it on the kid's hands (I know... nice :))... so on this day it's special shapes... Cone & Rhombus - made me laugh :) Anyway, enjoy... if you can't see it, then you can go here to see it.

Here's Diya with one of her new birthday toys :)

This is what Diya looks like when she's super excited and trying to talk :)

Here's a video of Diya playing Peekaboo :) I love her giggles :) If you can't see it then click here to see it.

I got some boots for Aashini from another mother who's kid outgrew them. Aashini wore them for the first time the other day and she thought she was awesome :)

Here's Aashini at church with two of her little buddies :)

Here's Aashini at school (after school) with her super hyper friend Alina. I've never seen a kid with as much energy as she has! I'm trying to get it on video - one day I'll get it :)

At the end of a long day - the girls were exhausted!

Retreat! - Last Stuff :)

2010-12-03T17:44:00.001+05:30

Here are a few last pictures from the retreat :) The girls took baths in the bucket in our room. I thought they were so cute in the bucket :) This is a true bucket-bath :)

I love that Aashini can still fit in a bucket :)

On one of the last days, a baby horse was running around the camp. It was super cute and fluffy. It definitely had some attitude though :)

Aashini had fun feeding the horse :)

One time she didn't feed him right and he bit her finger and wouldn't let go, we had to open the horse's mouth to get her hand out. Thankfully her hand was totally fine, but she cried a little and said: "Why did that cute horse bite me?" (see her face in the picture below - this is when she realized that her hand was stuck)...

My girls playing with the rocks :)

Aashini looking at the water - she loved looking at the water!

It was an awesome retreat!!!

Retreat! - Diya's FIRST Birthday!

2010-12-02T16:43:00.003+05:30

Diya turned one during our retreat! It was a fun time for her to turn one :) Diya had a super fun week! She loved playing in the fun rocks!!! If you look closely you can sort-of see her little tooth in this picture. Now both of them are visible, but I think you can only see one in this picture (click on it to make it bigger).

Aashini was so excited for Diya's birthday! I made cupcakes and icing the day before we left for our trip and brought them over with us and decorated them there :) (I even remembered sprinkles) :)

Aashini got to help Diya blow out her candle :)

Diya sorta liked the cupcake :) She ate the icing anyway :) haha!

She LOVED the icing :)

Happy Birthday Diya!!

Retreat!! - Thanksgiving with the Kiddos :)

2010-12-01T17:07:00.001+05:30

The Girls had a fun Thanksgiving too :) Here's Diya eating some Thanksgiving Chinese food :) haha!

Aashini had fun catching butterflies on Thanksgiving. There were TONS of beautiful butterflies at the resort! Aashini tried catching them all week and then caught one on Thanksgiving! :) She was so proud.

Aashini's buddy Sharad helped her catch the butterflies. She loved hanging out with him.

Here she is looking for butterflies :)

... And she's off!!!

Diya had more fun swinging in the hammock!

... and Aashini had more fun swinging with her buddies in the hammock :)