Freedom Fighter - Rani Lakshmibai

The other week at school, the kids were supposed to come to school dressed like a Freedom Fighter.  We decided to dress Aashini up as the super cool Rani Lakshmi Bai!   Doesn't she look tough?! :)

This is a picture of the original Rani Lakshmi Bai.  She was a queen and one of the leading figures of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.  She is a symbol of resistance to the rule of the British East India Company.  

Aashini LOVED getting to dress up like her and speak about her at school.  

 So tough!! 

 Whenever Rani Lakshmibai is pictured, she always has on men's clothes and has her adopted son tied to her back.  So, Aashini just had to have a baby on her back! :)

 The day that Aashini did this, Diya had her speaking competition, so we saw her at school when she was going to the computer lab :) 

 This picture makes me laugh :)

 After school Aashini loved being able to run around and chase the boys with her sword! haha!!

 Aashini and her buddy Tanvi were both dressed up as Rani Lakshmibai :)  They had fun together :)

 Chasing the boys :)

 Aashini and Tanvi - the two Ranis :) 

 Leaving school... Aashini had a super fun day! :)

Diya Diva :)

 I have some fun/funny pics of Diya, so I thought I'd post them :)

Here is Diya being a DJ at our friend's house :)

 I had to post two pics because it cracked me up so much :)  (how does she know to do that?!?)

 Diya LOVES to dress up!  She likes to wear dupattas when she dresses up :)

The other day she really wanted two braids in her hair like Aashini had that day.  So I attempted 2 braids in her hair :)

She thought it was awesome :)  

 She really did feel awesome... so awesome, that she went to the bathroom and sang and danced for a while :) haha! :)

Diya wanted to tell the Jonah story too... she got a little confused along the way and it turned into another story :) haha!!

Family Day 2012!!! (aka Anniversary)

 HaPpY FaMiLy DaY!!!!

August 10th is our wedding anniversary.  This year was our 10th Anniversary and we decided to start a new tradition!  We decided to start "Family Day" to celebrate the day we became a family :)

This year we decided we were going to give the girls gifts...

Aashini LOVES art and being crafty and creative, so we cleaned off my desk (that I never use anymore) and filled it full of art stuff (crayons, markers, paper, tape, glue, scissors, etc).

 Here is Aashini when she first saw her desk... she was SOOOOO excited!!!!  It was so cute!  She spends at least an hour every day at her dest (and many days, much more!)

My funny girls :)

 Diya LOVES fashion, dress-up, dolls, doing hair, etc... so we made her a fashion station.  

 This is what was in her fashion station :) 

 Both girls had fun playing with it and fixing their doll's hair, doing their make-up and even dressing up themselves :)

 This cracks me up... I think Diya looks like Elton John here :) haha!

 Aashini dressed up like a princess :)

 Diya showing off her new style :) haha!  The girl walks around the house all day with high heels on! haha!  She wears them all day!

 They had a long weekend, so we were going to celebrate Family Day mostly on Saturday... BUT all night Friday night (our Anniversary), Aashini was up throwing Up... so she wasn't 100% on Saturday morning.  We were going to try and go Ice Skating, but she' wasn't up for it... so instead, we did painting! :)

 Later that day, we pulled out their princess tent to play in :)

 That night we made a big tent in the living room, ordered pizza and watched a movie together.  The girls got to sleep in the tent all night :) 

It was a fun First Annual Family Day :)  We're definitely going to repeat this next year :)

Dress Up Fun! :)

My sister sent a couple of costumes to the girls and they were so excited!  My girls LOVE Dress-Up... they do it almost every day!

Diya LOVED her fancy skirt!  She loves it so much that she wants to wear it outside all the time too :)

Diya is our little fashionista!  She wanted everything matching... she had a purple purse and a few other purple things... and she was stressed out that her shoes didn't match for this picture :) haha!!

 Aashini LOVES her pirate costume :)  She loves playing pirates.  Here she is saying "Argh!" :)

 The girls posing together :)

 Diya is showing off a little bit of attitude here :) haha!

Dressing Up is always so fun!! :)

All About Diya

Here are some fun pictures of Diya recently :) 

  Diya fell asleep in a rickshaw the other day and I thought she was so cute propping her head up  :)

 Playing at the play place :)

 Running around some ruins :)

 Diya is goofy!   She loves making silly faces for the camera!  Diya has to wear a "princess skirt" at all times!!  Here she is in one of her "princess skirts" and her fun boots.  (My sister sent them to us... you can't tell from these pictures but they are blue glitter Doc Martins... sooo cute!)

 Here she is doing a Bollywood Dance :)

 This pose made me laugh :) haha!  My girls crack me up :)

Dress Up Fun :)

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 :)

Dress-up Fun!!

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 :)