Fancy Dress Competition

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!

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!

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 :)

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!

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!!!!

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 :)

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!