Sitting!!

Diya can sit by herself!!! The other day we thought we should see if she could sit by herself and she could! She probably could have done it earlier but we hadn't given her the opportunity (poor 2nd kid!). She's great at sitting!! She's so cute!! She can sit for a long time without falling!

We pulled out our walker the other day for Diya to use and she LOVES sitting in it. She can make it scoot a couple of inches here and there :)

Go Diya Go!!

Baby Doll Fun :)

The other day we were over at a friend's house and they had a little play bottle for their baby doll. Aashini thought it was the coolest thing ever! She spent about 30 minutes just sitting on their couch and feeding the baby! She LOVED it!We actually had those same bottles at home but we were saving them to give to her on a bad day, or a "rainy day" (aka - super hot day), etc... but we just had to give it to her after that :) She LOVED it!!!
This picture below cracks me up! She was having so much fun and laughing the whole time!

She has so many funny things that she does now. We have a floor rug in our living room and one of her favorite things to do is to hide toys she likes under it. She used to only put gift cards under it (we brought back a bunch of Target & Wal-mart gift cards for her to play with - they are one of her favorite toys! She plays with them every day!). The gift cards were small, so it wasn't a big deal. NOW she puts everything under it! We just got her some fun wooden blocks to play with - so she's started stuffing them under the rug! haha! Adam & I keep tripping on the rug now :) The other day she tried to put a big stuffed animal under the rug. I guess she's part squirrel :)

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She is doing another funny thing ... but we can't laugh at it... :) Whenever she does something bad, or something she knows she's not supposed to do, she'll look at us in our faces and say: "boo!". It's so cute, and it takes everything in me not to smile :)

Safety First! (and some fun) :)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch-Up :)

I've been super busy the last couple of weeks, so I haven't been posting as much as usual... So we'll do a little catch-up here :)

Aashini has learned a few new things lately :) She's become very good at pulling up on things :) She's pulling up on everything! She's also learned how to take off her cloth diapers :) A couple of weeks ago, she pulled up in her bed fo the first time - and had her diaper half-way off :) I thought it was funny!

She was so proud of herself :)
She seems so big in the pics above... but then when I look at the pic below then I realize that she's still really small :)

So the crib (pack-n-play) in the pics above was one that we were borrowing from our friends S&S... they just had a baby this week (see the other blog), so we packed it up and pulled out her travel bed to use for the next few weeks (and to use a lot when we're traveling in the states). It works out good because it's a lot taller :) She has been able to pull up in it though... I thought it was cute to see her little eyes peeking over the top :)

I had to post another one :)

Adam likes to get in there an play with her sometimes - she thinks that's so cool :)

And one last pic for fun :) Aashini thinks she looks so cute in her sunglasses :)

Pool Party!

We got a kiddie pool a few weeks ago for Aashini to play in on those hot days :) So, for the last week or so, we've "gone for a swim" about every afternoon. We got this pool that's pretty big so that we can all get in it (which is great!). We put it out on our porch and it's a lot of fun :)

When we first put Aashini in the pool she didn't like it...Then she started to think it wasn't so bad....
I like this picture - it's like she's thinking..."OK, I'm not so sure about this...it's a little colder than my bath water..."
THEN she started to have fun :)
My little chubby baby :) This picture (below) cracks me up!

OK, so I'm posting tons of pics, but I thought that she made some really funny faces :)

Another funny face :)....

We also have a raft for her - haha! - it's actually really great because she can sit in it all by herself (which she seems to really like since she can't sit up by herself yet). She got really relaxed in it :)

This picture (below) is funny it looks like she's saying: "yes, I'll have a fruit punch please" :)

She got so relaxed in it that she almost fell asleep :) It was cute :)

So that's our fun kiddie pool :) It's going to be super awesome on those days when it's 125+ outside :) (not that I'm looking forward to that - haha!). Hazel is going to come and play soon too :) That will be fun!

Gadgets & Gizmos a Plenty :)

There are all sorts of fun baby things out there to get for your baby ;) We have a couple of things that are pretty fun... Here's the fun chair we just got... Aashini doesn't have tons of use for it yet but she definitely will soon!! It's great because it folds up really small and is only 3 inches tall :) ... she's still a little short for using it on our chairs so we had to put a pillow behind her so she wouldn't bang her head :) haha!We also have this great baby carrier that our friends in Colorado gave us. Aashini LOVES it! She loves to just sit in it as we do our daily stuff around the house... Adam cooks dinner with her in it sometimes.
She likes it so much that it tends to put her to sleep :)

Fun New Toy :)

We ordered a cool travel bed for Aashini to take around when we travel - it's really cool - it only weighs 5 lbs and packs up into a small bag - it's great!! My parents brought it with them when they came. Adam and dad pulled it out today to set it up and see if they could get it all set up easily... Adam thought he needed to try it out too :) Aashini was making such a funny face in this pic, I thought I'd have to post it :) haha!

Babies, Clothes and Birthmarks

The other night, Aashini was really tired, but she didn't want to go to sleep, she wanted to play... so, we played... her eyes were so heavy though, so the pictures cracked me up!
This one is funny too :) Our downstairs neighbors the Mittals, came up to see Aashini yesterday and brought her some clothes :) They're all really nice clothes but quite big... it's not going to fit her for a while - haha!
Today our upstairs neighbors, the Guptas, brought Aashini some clothes... these are more typical of the clothing gifts people give here. The dress on the right cracks me up... the sides of it are completely open - I guess it will be nice and cool in the summer :)

I have quite a few red-colored birthmarks on me - so I was wondering if Aashini would have any like that too... While she was in ICU, we noticed that she had a little red one on the back of the arm... but as we were looking at it more recently, we noticed that it was HEART SHAPED! (with a little bite out of it :))... This picture (below) doesn't do it justice (the lighting wasn't very good, it was at 1:00 AM :)) - so I'll have to take another picture later... but I wanted to share - it's so cute :)

Rockin' Fun!

We got two fun surprises from friends far away this week!! I've been feeling pretty bad, so it totally made my week!
This cute onsie below is from Karen Walker :) It has a rockin' drumset on it and it rocks!! Thanks Karen!!!
And this one is all the way from Russia from our friends the Goodmans :) We think it ROCKS :)

So I added a couple of new polls on the right side... The first new one is to vote and see who will have babies first... me or Emily... we're only 10 days apart, so it really could be either of us :) The other poll is if I will have the baby early or late, etc :) Just some poll fun :)

Baby Stuff :)

We've been working on Jellybean's room lately... There aren't any great pics yet, but I thought I'd show some... :) This is one of the shelves in the room... We found a store that had TONS of English kids books for about 10-25 cents each... so we bought a bunch :) We have all kinds of cool books like I read as a kid (Bernstein Bears, Sesame Street, Golden Books, etc. :) Very fun :) We have some more books that are "chunkier" and better for younger babies, but they're on the bottom shelf - and it's not ready to show yet (kinda messy) :)Here's Jellybean's dresser (well, the top of it anyway... you can see pics of the whole dresser on the other blog)... we have our cute new leather elephant bank on the right... and our fun coconut/turtle night light on the left :) In the middle of the dresser is a box that we have to take with us when we go to the hospital (when I go into labor)... We've decided to bank Jellybean's cord blood... There's a good amount of diseases that can be cured with cord blood right now, and there could be a lot more in the future... we're hoping to NEVER have to use it... but it's a pretty cool insurance plan :)
On another note... we're going green..... and blue and yellow.... we thought it would be cool (and way cheaper) to use cloth diapers... they have cool cloth diapers on the market now, we just couldn't say no :) We ordered a few to get us started - you can see some of them below. They're cool because they have snaps and change sizes and you can use them the entire time your kid is in diapers :) - Besides, they are in super fun colors :)

Natal Stuff...

So yesterday we had our second "antenatal class"... or otherwise known as PREnatal classes :) Emily & I were at class early yesterday, so we took a pic of us inside the class... it's not a good pic, but you can see the mats and stuff we do our exercises on :) Emily & I are pretending to do breathing exercises ;) (well, Emily is - I"m just smiling...) :)The classes have been really fun :) There are about 10 couples in the class, so it's pretty fun! The first class was funny though because they spent the first 30 minutes telling us HOW we got pregnant - haha! I guess they don't teach that in the schools here... This last class was on labor, c-sections and all that stuff... it kinda freaked me out :) but it was fun :)

We DO have a washing machine - thank goodness (we spend a month in the mountains for language washing our own clothes and became very thankful for our washing machine)... It's a cute washing machine and it's in our kitchen... maybe I should blog about that one day....

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ANYWAY... one thing we don't have is a dryer... they just don't make them here... I've heard rumors that there have been sightings of them down south of our country... but I've never seen one myself...

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It's no big deal though... I'm not complaining... we have very dry heat over here, and things dry pretty fast... you can do a load in the evening and it's usually dry by morning (unless it's monsoon season).... or you can do it in the morning and it's dry by the afternoon :)

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BUT... what do you do when you have a baby and TONS of little tiny clothes to dry??? Seriously, they have thought of everything... we had seen these before but never had any need to buy them... Until NOW... Check it out!

It's a little plastic hanging thingy with 36 clips on it! NICE!! We really don't have a good place to put it yet, but it works great!!

Baby Shopping

So baby shopping here in our area of South Asia is VERY different than in America :) In America you can go into Wal-Mart and get all the things you need while leisurely perusing the aisles with your buggy... Here... there aren't very many baby stores, and most stores are in the typical South Asian Style - a Teeny Tiny store that is CRAM PACKED with pretty much anything you would need... You don't always have as many options of variety as you do at Wal-Mart (or a fancier baby store).... but you can get what you need....

So this past week, Emily and I decided we needed to get some of the baby things we needed before we got into our 3rd Trimester and go too tired... so we went shopping! The particular store we went to was called "Wieners" (pronounced - Weeners)... It really only had room to fit a couple of people. When we got there, there were some people in there, so we decided to wait outside until they were done... When we got inside, we started "shopping".... To shop here, you really have to know what you want... We came in with our lists and started asking questions... "Do you have....?" or "What is that? Can I see that?".... (you can see me demonstraing below). One guy (usually the older man that works there... a father or grandfather) sits at the register, while his son or his gopher gets all the things down and displays the items for you...We had been standing for a while and I started to get a little sicky feeling, so the son gave me his stool to sit on... it's pretty fun to sit and shop!
Emily and I bought a bunch of stuff :) (although Emily got about twice as much stuff as I did :))... just little things like socks, cloth diapers (which I may or may not use... but it's always nice to have a backup), a little hat, a changing mat... you know, little things you need - which I totally didn't realize all the little things you need!!!
(In the pic below you can see the man at the cash register) :)
OK, so in the pic below I'm holding both mine AND Emily's stuff... I thought I'd try to hide my shirt (the same one I end up wearing every time I have my pic made - haha!!)

Jellybean is coming!! Whoo hoo!! I've been getting kicked a lot lately - it's fun! :)