Back from Vacation

We went on a week vacation to Puerto Rico and it was Fun ! Fun! with much needed hot weather and loads of family time..Will post details soon.

Happy Birthday My darling

Today my love turns 6 years old, oh! how he has grown.
I can love him and hate him at the same time. He can mentally disturb me to no end and at the next minute smother me with kisses and hugs all the time.
A big time Amma's kiddo, we fight and make-up and scream and play and sing and dance and do all sort of naughty things.
He is at the age where he is super confident of everything in life. He can make friends with anyone in the vicinity. He gets angry immediately if we tell something that he does not like but at the same time he is a scary cat, scared of everything, even to go alone next door he will want me to watch over him.
He does not listen to anything that we tell and will do things that he has his mind keen on, you can keep shouting 10 things but he will not listen.
He loves to kiss and cuddle his baby sister all the time and most of the time he wants to kiss her butt. he calls her "My baby' affectionately and it melts my heart.
He is generous and kind and innocent and smarty pants and handsome as hell.

Wish you a very very Happy Birthday my Bumble Bee

Spotlight On "My Baby Boy"

 

 

 

To my darling Riti

It has been 14 months now and you are walking/running/screaming and talking all like a big girl.
You love to eat food and the minute you spy something you will point your fingers and say Ku Ku which means you want it, same goes for your anna's water bottle or yummy and junk food that you see.
You have still not taken whole heartedly to whole milk drinking on and off ocassionally.
I am only breast feeding you at night and maybe I'll stop that soon so you can sleep by yourself at night and I can sleep blisfully too.
you are at that stage where you are repeating so much words and can already tell No, Thank-you, hi, bye, Mine etc..
it is so much of a pleasure to see you repeating the words in your child like way.
you want to go outside all the tiem and the minute you see your dad, you get his slippers and then point to the door.
The fun part is to see you sneak nea r your Anna, grab the remote and run away laughing.
You are also attracted to the mobile phone, though I dont give it to you you will take any one phone that you see lying outside and keep it at your ears and start talking.
I am thinking it was  joyride with you till now and the fun is yet to begin.

love u my mottuuuuuuuuu

First Day of School

Today my baby Bumble starts his first day of school in 1st grade. He rides the school bus, goes to the school lunch with his friends, will gain new experiences, hope he enjoys his school, learns to be a good and smart kid and excels in all that he does.

My baby ...umaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Happy Birthday Darling!!

Little R's Birthday Details

So the little one's birthday happened and we had a great summer party for her. As usual all the planning and things happened at the last minute and with the long week-end trip that we made the prior week we really had no time to think clean. First of all i was sure that we wanted a simple birthday party in the park, just a birthday banner , but last minute hubby wanted to order ballons and make a huge ballon arrangement, he also wanted a theme-jungle's theme, i spoke him out of it but still he ordered purple helium and many many ballons for flowers and butterflies and who knows what.
Also he wanted something different and said we should have a pani-puri stall(again spoke him out of it) or a dosa stall atleast(this was doable).
Then had to think of side items decided on starters cake/baby corn manchurian,bhel,cut fruits,tortillas and chips.
Had lots of games organized for kids and we got prizes.
For the main course it was dosa(onion/carrot) hot from the tawa with sambhar/chutney, veg biryani/raita and desert was kulfi/ice-cream.

Now for the bad part, the ballons were blown up the night before but by morning they lost the helium and had come down, all the stuff and more was to be transported from home to the park which is 20 mins from home. We reached late, guests had already gathered. In all the mayhem we forgot candles, there was no birthday banner, we had got a huge poster of baby R which was not put anywhere, tableclothes were missing, so we just went ahead and cut the cake and had everyone have starters. Since there was a play area nearby the kids were all playing there, organized a couple of games by then it was lunch time, everyone were amazed and happy to have the hot yummy dosa concept which was a huge hit.
Finally we were tired too and reached home by 3.
Shall post pics soon.

Note: We went with a no gift policy for her birthday.

Happy Birthday Little one

A year's gone by,


How time has flown,

We can't believe

How Ritiha’s grown!

She's such a joy

And so much fun,

Oh my! Our baby's

Turning One!

We’ll eat cake and have lots of fun.

Today’s extra special because you turn ONE

My reads

1. The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister --Love
2. The Cherico Cola Book Club --Light Read, Good
3.Orange is the New Black --Good
4. The Dirty Life --In Progress, Love
5. Relish --Fun Read

My favourite article of clothing --Blog marathon 3

Again I picked my prompt from here. My favority piece of clothing is dresses. I love wearing dresses with the curls and sways and the freedom that they give me.

I have owned a number of dresses and I want to buy more. The only downside of having dresses is also having neatly waxed legs.
As a kid I remember my mom had aksed an aunty to stitich a yellow color dress for me and that was my favorite with the frills and the curls. We never found anything like that ready-made in the shops.
I usually purchased lots of dresses as a kid and when I was done with it, it would be given to my little cousins.

Lately I have also bought maxis, these are also very comfortable especially in the summer time.

Some things which I had

What do you do to get ready before a trip? Blog marathon 2

I picked this prompt from the website here.

Usually there are 2 types of trips that we make, the one back home to India or the short camping trips that we do here.

For the short trips if its not rustic camping and sightseeing then shopping is one of the main things to do.

I need to have different new costumes that will go well with in the pictures.

The camera needs to be charged and the SD card needs to be empty to be filled with all our pictures.

For short trips we usually rent a cabin or are driving out and what we need is lots of food

There is something about travelling that makes you hungry while on the drive or in the cabin, we alwasy need to be munching on something or the other.

Toothbrush and paste is the most essential ones and undergarments, have to have clean ones everyday.

I cannot do without my kajal and my comb which I have with me from when I was in the 8th std. i bought it in Dehuroad and it goes everywhere with me .

These are all the necessities, now the nice to have time permitting is to make sure I get my eyebrows trimmed and legs/hands waxed and ta-da i am pretty much ready for the trip.

What about you? What do you do to get ready for a trip. Join me and let me know.

Blog Marathon 1:Challenging Myself

Hop over to Preeti's blog here and join in the June month of blogging hosted by NaBloPoMo for June

They provide prompts which you can refer to or just write on your own.

Ready Set Go: Set a timer for 20 minutes and write about the best present you ever received. (Don't overthink these time-sensitive prompts. Just set the timer, write however much you can write in the time allotted, finish the post, and hit publish.)


It's 3:09 now and I will stop at 3:29 as I have a meeting to attend.

The best birthday present I received was in 2005. At this time I was on a 1 year onsite project and it was the first birthday that I was away from my parents. My then fiancee(who was in Mumbai) and I spoke on May2nd morning my time which is night(India time). Roaming facility on mobiles had just started and I was not aware of them.
Actually at that time he was travelling to Pune at my parents place. here, In US during lunch time my friends asked me to come home with them and i obliged, we went to thier place and had some frozen roti and curry and then one of them switched on his laptop and started fidgeting around. I wanted to get back to office but since we carpool and there was only 1 car, we had to wait for him. He kept talking things which did not make any sense liek I am trying to viddeo chat with my g/f and in my mind I was like, Dude, it's ofc hour, why cant you do this in the evening and my other friends were surprisingly not complaining, it was more than an hour we were out for lunch, he set the laptop and refused to show me the screen, kept hiding all the time and then suddenly they all frinds asked me to come near and the laptop and they also got a cake singing "Happy Birthday" song and when i looked in the laptop screen, I saw my parent with a beautifully decorated cake sitting on the table at home. I almost had tears in my eyes. I cut the cake here and they along with my fiancee(who had planned all this days ahead) cut the cake there @Pune and had the yummy cake. He also send me a musical collage of all my pictures from childhood till then which along with the planning he did was the best birthday present I have ever received till date.

Also thankful for the lovely frinds to arrange everything and give the surprise.
Love you all loads.......

Busy Week-end

Friday evening we had a kids bday party, so after getting my son ready and set we all went to our friends place, there we did cake cutting and then kids were talking and screaming and I returned by 9 with little r, left her at home and went to leave big R for sleep over and came back by 10:30 pm. Waited till 12 to wish SIL.

next day morning took all the kids for drawing competition then afternoon went for gems show, bought lots of fancy stuff, eve returned home and then went to play VB at Riley Park, returned by 9:30 pm and went out for dinner. little R was hungry and so we fed her soem egg fried rice as she was almost ready to bring the house down.

Sun morning woke up late, went to farm , watered around, then afternoon went for Schooner days with Big R, played Bingo, had some cheese curds, he played a game, won a parrot prize, came abck home, rested, went out in the eve and came back home.

busy buys

Spring Concert

If you remember my baby was the lead singer at his Winter Concert and so when the Spring Concert dates came out for their school I kept pestering him to know how many lead songs he was singing, but he shook his head and said None and a look which said--Don't bother me with more questions.

But being the mommy and all I tried again and again only to get killer stares and i though ok, this time may be someone else will do it.
2 days before the concert when I went to leave him, his teacher mentioned that they all were waiting for him as he had to practice the speech (Welcome and Thank You).
I was so happy, my baby giving the speech.

La LA LAnd

So what is happening at our end? Lots and lots of stuff. We bought some land(agricultural purposes). So our group of friends decided to rent some land on lease for 3 months in this Mn weather and try to cultivate our own veggies/fruits etc. The idea materialized on Fri eve and we booked 3 sites. Sat morning went to HomeDepot and bought shovels/rake/seeds/watering can/seeds etc, the guys went to the land along with the kids and ploughed and shovelled their way around, planted seeds and returned by 8:30 pm.

Sun they went to farmers market and got lots of plants i.e tomato/eggplant/okra/strawberry/carrot/beetroot/onions etc again we went(I joined them too) at 4 and planted and cleaned in the poring rain and returned by 8:30 pm.

Next day they again went and bought more seeds and we went in the noon to do more planting and watering.

Lets see where we reach with this. Attaching pics

****
Before Pics

After Pics

MAA VolleyBall Womens Tournament Champions

So we won the Womens Volleyball Tournament that took place on 16th May (Saturday) at Applevalley, MN.
Our chances were good as we had practiced a lot for the match.
We had 4 teams against which we had to play the league. 2 of the teams we won easily but was a close one against the third team.
In teh league we were in the top and hence had to play against the 4th team, we very easily won against them and went to the Finals.
The finals opponenet was a team against whom we have practiced a few times and they all have improved a lot.
The first set we were in the lead and won agaisn tthem, in the second set we were 6-12 and then we had to play some really good game to close the gap and comeback and even take a lead and finally win.

It was a great match and a great day
Yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.                  

10 months on May 9th

My darling is 10 months and she is standing on her own and even keeping 1 step forward by herself, soon she will be walking. Last Sunday we cut her hair and made her Motta, she looks like a mini don and I think this really suits her face.
She can blabber AAta, Aana, Akka, Amma and even make high pitch noises. Nowadays there is a lot of talking and expressing herselves, it is a joy to watch her, she loves listening to songs and even does some head banging on jazzy music.
Ever interested in our food, she has started eating fruits(oranges, blackberry,blueberry,grapes) but give her a banana and she will run miles away from you.
She also stopped taking milk in the bottle so either I have to wean my feedings and do them only at night, which is good as I can stop pumping in office(which is a huge relief)

She even got her first sterp thorat infection(poor baby was miserable for 2 nights)
She loves going out and playing in the swings, she will be lauging and enjoying.
Also she got 2 upper and lower teeth(which I may have mentioned before) but ther upper teeth has gap and ppl are telling it is very lucky.

She adores her brother and the minute she watches him, she will be squealign and jumping in delight Also nowadays there is a lot of taking his things and I have to make sure i distract her, all in all a joy to watch her.

Luv u my muttu kutty.                                                          

Now for the Real Birthday

My birthday was all about my dearest Riti, we woke up by 7:30 and I woke my princess too, she could not open her eyes so early but when I called out her name she would smile in her sleep, awwwwwwwwwwww

Finally we woke up by 7:30, a friend had come to cut her hair 3 times, this would be given to the temple and then her uncle came to shave her hair. I was worried she would cry but she sat quietly without any issues until all her hair was trimmed, then I gave her a bath, we had breakfast and then left for mall of America where we piereced her ears, from there we went to S.V Temple, we wanted to have lunch there but they were out fo rice so we stopped at davanni's and grabbed hoaggies and reached home by 2, I slept for a while while the in-laws started cooking for the evening party. I woke up by 3 and preapared the bhaji for pav-bhaji, meanwhile payasam was done, SIL was making medu wada , in-laws were cooking rice while both the kids slept.

Initially we wanted to keep the party in a park but there were rain warnings and so we decided to keep it home, on Sunday the weather looked good and we decided to keep it at Round Lake park. So we asked everyone to gather there by 6:30, packed food stuff, plates, cups etc , got the kids ready and reached there by 7:00pm. On the way it rained very heavily for 5-10 mins but luckily the rain stopped by the time we reached the park and we got out all the stuff while kids went to play at the nearby play ground.

Then we cut the cake and heated the pav bhaji/medu wada/chutney combo, had veg biryani with raita and then payasam. By that time it started gettign cold and we returned home. i then went around and gave cake and payasam to friends in the colony.

All in all, a day ended well..Pics coming soon.                  

Happy Birthday to Me

Happy wala birthday to me (yesterday).
3rd May Sunday we had already decided to get Riti's Mundan and ear piercing ceremony. Attached below is the invite.

Saturday morning we woke up by 7:15 as G went to Farmer's market, then at 9:30 me and Ritvik went for Pancake breakfast  at the Eden Prairie Community Center. Then we went to Home Depot as it was the 1st Saturday Workshop, they had it outside and it was very hot, from there we went for a bday party. At noon after he left for tamil School I did a bit of shopping and then came back home to apply oil, and take bath.
Evening we went for a photo shoot but Riti was hungry and sleepy and did not co-operate.
Then I went out to play Volleyball, night got a call from SIL to come to party hall, all friends had gathered and we had a cake cutting(yummy upside down pineapple cake baked by SIL), gifts and lot of gappa, was 10:30 by the time I came back home, then had dinner, played carrom and slept at 12:00 am.

Whom should I marry?

So my 5 year old(who nowadays claims he is 7) asks me the other day, "Whom did you marry Amma?
Me: I married Appa.
R: Ok, then whom should I marry?
Me: Well you grow up like 25 yrs, you can marry any girl you want?
R: I will marry Ritiha?
Me: You cannot amrry her coz she is your sister
R: But then she will marry someone else Amma, I will marry her, she is my sweetheart.

So again I repeat the you cannot marry your sister dialog.

He then goes about ransacking the bedroom, searching for somethign to play while I go off in the hall.
After some time he returns with a perfume bottle and shows it off to his dad,
Appa, this for my marry (instead of I will give this to the girl I marry)

Appa as usual did not understand what he was telling while I wanted to laugh out loud at this statement.

R's Annual Day

Sat I woke up and started crying hysterically, Why, u ask? We have created a Private IPL League among ourselves and based on the players you select you are awarded points and will be top/bottom in the race. Normally I set the players the previous night but on Friday I did not realize that there is a match early in the morning and did not set my team, when I woke up I realized that my team was not set and I would loose points and so the major let-down.
Noon in-laws and big boy went to the zoo with his Uncle while we stayed at home with the kid. Evening we went to a friends place and returned by 9pm.

Sunday was R's Annual day at tamil School, he was in a skit(a a cat) and also in song.
We went for lunch and then the programme was supposed to start at 2pm, but everything was delayed and it started at 3:30, the programmes were over with quickly and we returned home by 5pm.

Kids went out to play while I watched the Malu movie--How Old are you? for sometime before having dinner and hoping on to bed.

9 months on this 9th April

My baby is 9 months on this 9th and what is she up to? She is holding and walking all along the couch, is crawling fast on all fours that we have to be constantly after her, is talking aata--tatata, aana and other baby words all the time.
She is still eating pureed foods but very much interested in our food. She eats ragi, wheat,fruits and her favorite cereal.She loves watching her anna and akka all the time.

She has 4 teeth which she will show off to everyone aroud, if I kiss her she will smile, her so special smile and nowadays she has a new smiling technique, so whenever she gets food that she does not like she will close her mouth , it is as though you put a gum on her face, she will plaster it shut and now if we make her laugh she will laugh with her closed mouth itself, it is very nice to see.
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I love her

Waiting for her many other milestones.

D is for Dreams

Last night I saw a dream that my baby girl started walking, infact not walking but she was sitting down and then started running. I was excited, speechless, did not believe it was true, so I took her to another room and plonked her down and viola , she was up and running. I went about screaming excitedly at everyone around, grand-parents came running to see the visual and lo and behold there it was again. This morning I woke up to realize it was a dream.

Sometimes the dreams feel so real, as though everything is happening in real and then you wake up in the morning to realize that it never happened. The dreams that I remember are usually happy ones..............so what do you dream of?

C is for Cute

Cuteness Overloaded is my 9 month old baby girl. We had always wanted a second baby and having a first hand experience I was prepared for the night feedings and sleeplessness for the first 2 months, like I say to so many of my friends, nothing changes after the first 2 months, just that your body gets used to the sleepless nights.
I distinctly remember how terrified I was as soon as it used to get dark during the first 1st -4 th week after my first one was born, I was scared thinking of the nights, how bad it would be, the pumping that I had to do at 4 am in the morning. With my first born this saga went on for 2 months after whcih he has not given my much trouble.
Moreover my 2 year old nephew was here with my parents and he did not allow my mom to come near the baby at nights, so it was pretty much me and hubby, after the first week it was pretty much me talking care of the baby at nights and even mostly the other times.

Then July 9th 2014 happened, the baby latched on immediately for her first feeding itself, no issues there, at night we send her to the nursery, they got her back after every 3 hours but we were pretty much rested the remaining time, she hardly cried which is so much of a blessing. After we came home mom, me and baby slept together, I pushed my hubby out with daddy to the other room, she was a sound sleeper, normally babies should feed 3 hrs at night, my little one slept so well, we had to wake her up for her feeds and normally I did only 2 feeds, after feeding, I gave her to my mom who patted her for some time and then all 3 of us would be asleep, day times also she slept peacefully, I was no longer scared of the evenings. 3 months later dad left for India,my mom and baby moved out to the other room, she came for feeding once at night and that's it, otherwise I slept peacefully, mom took over all our home tasks and taking care of the baby.

My little one was also pretty easy going, she played,slept,smiled a lot infact some girls at out apt have nicnamed her Smiling Ritiha as she is always smiling to everyone around.
Now everyone says that she looks exactly like my son and whenever we go out everyone will be oooing and aaaaaaaing at how cute she is, infact when we went to leave my mom at the airport people standing in the queue were gushing at her and one lady put all her luggage down to come and peek at her and squeal at her, I secretly thought she would take her away and go if she could, now the question I have is How come no one ever said that my son is cute if the look alike, is it because she is a girl?

I know, started this post with this question but got digressed...
Any thoughts??

B is for Broadmoor

Broadmoor is the apartment complex that we have been staying for the past 6+ years since we came to US (after wedding). It is a slightly old apartment complex with about 500 units, all interconnected with internal gym/swimming pool/game room.
Hubby was living with friends at another place and then when I came a month later we signed a lease at this apartment complex (Apt 309) courtyard facing.
We shopped for bathroom curtains, bath essentials, kitchen essentials and it was the first time I was setting up a home. We also had a group of bachelor guys who stayed in teh 4th floor and another 3-4 couples in the same apartment.
All of us mostly hung out together. I was too much into cooking then and tried and tested various new receipes for everyone.
It was here that we conceived our first baby and when it was nearing for my due date we decided to move into a 2 BHK as we needed the space with parents coming over.
We shifted to Apt 303, hubby did most of the moving and arranging as I was 8 months pregnant by then. Our baby boy first arrived in this apartment and we had my parents and the in-laws both come over and stay with us.
We celebrated my son's first food giving ceremony here with all our friends. After parents leaving we felt the house too big and shifted abck to a 1 BHK (Apt 213), also we had left baby boy in India and it was only the 2 of us.
At this time there was a case of bed bugs all over the apartment and hence we threw away our sofa/bed and other stuff away, we sort of had a matteress in the front room and we were sparwled over there all the time(kind of like bachelor days). At this time we got addicted to the serial "Prison break" and would watch back to back episodes. We also had new friends with other friends who were having kids our son's age.
Time flew in going to gym, workign out, playing TT(remember the game room)

6 months later our baby boy was back, now the previous bachelors, most of them moved back and the new ones had formed thier own groups, we sort of felt left out and at one point I was very homesick.
Slowly we got to meet other families from the apt complex, we had a first apt Diwali celebration where I was a part of the initiative commitee. Had our first book reading club and formed a bond with many friends, suddenly there was a lot of activities going on, Thu evening Saibaba aarti, Navratri pooja, Shivratri jagran, get-togethers at so many places, birthdays of dear friends were celebrated, holi, independence day,Ladies parties were organized and enjoyed together. Kids played together all the time, we knew each and every one, we shared and joked and formed a common bond, lots of old faces have gone but new ones have come and kept the tradition going.

Broadmoor is truly a home away from home for me, a perfect place to live in.

A Letter to my Baby Boy

First of all I love you my baby and there is no one in the whole wide world that I would love more except your little sister(I have to write this else you will be yelling at me, she is my sister Amma, you have to love her more).
At this age of 5 you do not listen to anything that I have to say, I have to keep repeating things ten times for it to register in your head or most of the times you will not even blink an eye.
At this age all you want to do is play with your friends, have sleep overs and generally just have fun. It amazes me to see your developed social skills, you can play with both kids above and below your age, you are very popular in school too where other parents coem and tell me, Oh, you are Ritvik's mom, XXX always talks about Ritvik.(proud mama moment)...Be like this always sweetheart.

If anytime in life you are faced with rejections or hurt (which you will for sure), all those are part and parcel of growing up ,remember to not give up , you can always come back to your Amma and Appa and we will welcome you with open arms.
You have grandparents , cousins, aunts and uncles who love you to bits and pieces.

You are growing and will definitely want to try out new things in life, but please do not play with your body, health is very important in long life and so is putting oil on your head and body(which you so run away from nowadays).
Please do not take drugs and get addicted to alcohol and abuse.
Go wild, live your life but also be responsible for your actions.
Sometimes I wish I could hug you and keep you safe in my arms forever.

I love you my baby, umaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

The Value of Life

Many of you must have stumbled upon Oregano's Blog here through Pepper's blog.
It was shocking to read of a 23 yr old having Kidney failure without any symptoms and then reading about his journey, his willpower, the changes in his life makes one want to thank God every day for the healthy life he has given me and my near ones.

However we were faced with a somewhat similar situation a month back. One of my friend's kid, almost same age as my son, whom we have seen since he was 2 years old and is always in and out of our house playing with the gang had to have a liver transplant.
It hit us all from nowhere, the 6 yr old had no symptons, just complained of stomach ache a couple of times, parents took him to the doctors where they did some tests and said it was some viral disease, they could go back home.
2 days later he puked and so they again took him back, this tiem they send him to the Childrens hospital to conduct more tests, and aft 2-3 days they told the parents on a Wednesday night that his liver was 80% damaged and the only option was to do a liver transplant. On Thursday morning they got a donor and were ready to operate that night. This is when the friends circle came to know about it. We were shocked to hear about this, some of the guys went to the hospital whereas the few of us took care of their little ones.

The surgery went fine and Fri noon myself and 2 other friends went to the ICU. It breaks your heart in a thousand pieces to see a kid lying on the bed with tubes all over his body, I am even scared to think what his parents must be going through.
For the next few days we were in and out of hospital in turns helping out,taking food, being there, thankfully the kid was responding well.
There were a few hiccups here and there but after 2 weeks he got discharged.
He will have to take immunosuppression drugs for his life and for now the 1 year period is very critical to make sure his body adapts the liver.
He has to take about 20 pills per day and has to avoid crowds so that he does not get any common cold or any other disease as that will again lead to a hospital visit.

The liver biopsy was done and the doctors could not point out the reason for the failure which is another very scary thought. The said it could be any virus that may have attacked and it was acute which means the liver damage could have happened within a week.

I am sure God has some great plans for him, this life changing incident will definitely lead him to become a big doctor or scientist(the kid is way too smart, the smartest that I have seen till date)

Praying for the kid to be well soon and also for the health and well-being of each and every person in this world.

Go and hug all your loved ones, I definitely did that, Life is too short and precious.

8 month Milestone

The little R completed 8 months today. She can sit by herself and can hold onto things and stand. She is eating mostly all foods in the pureed form. She also got 2 lower teeth coming out and one upper teeth.

She can babble a lot nowadays, still sleeping half hr morn, half hr eve and the 2-3 hrs noon nap.

Touchwood a good night sleeper also.

And then there were 2

This post is inspired from R's Mom post here .
Sibling love is the most beautiful and precious emotion  in the whole universe.

I see my little one's eyes light up the moment she sees her older brother, He in turn wants to hug, cuddle and kiss her all the times (xcept when he is playing on his ipad) even then if I ask him to entertain her he will call her quickly 'Kunniie"(in Malu).
He can dance and entertain her non-stop and she will always be in peals of laughter, if I do the same thing he does she will just smile. If he screams peeka--peeka boo you can hear her squeals in the other room.

At night he will kiss her and then tell me, Mom, she is the cutest or things like 'She is super cute Amma', I love her, she is my baby.

The younger one is no less, the minute anna walks in and squeezes her tight a bright smile will be plastered on her face. We will be scolding him as he might crush her or put her weight on her but she is always having fun.

Hope thier love and bonding continues as years go by.

Luv u my chubbies.

And back again!!!

Life is again become so busy and I am not recording anythign here. After Mom left I was staying home with baby in the mornings and was working in the evenings. Hubby took care of cooking, older one, making the house clean etc etc. The first 2 days were tough but me being me could somehow manage mtgs, feeding, cleaning putting baby to sleep and also gettign 2 Deployments done in that process.
Initial plan was that we would travel to india in March but we dropped the plan and the in-laws reached here last Friday, has that made my days less hectic, no way , it is just the same and I am enjoying everything.

How i could manage a baby and work has to be recorded, first of all my Bumshika is a sweet , loving, and very precious baby. Wake up at 9 or sometimes 9:30 when I had calls and would play on the bed by herself, then I would clean her, give her some fruit and then by 10; 30-11 she would sleep for 30-40 mins, then wake up, give her bath, feed her cereal and take her around for a walk, by 2 she would sleep till 4:30 -5 and I was left to do all my work :)

Sometimes I worked in evenings which was not easy as my older one came from school and I had to give him my attention too but I managed for 3 weeks and now I feel as if nothing is impossible for me.

And Mom leaves for India today

Today Jan 16th 2015 Mom leaves for India after being with us for 8 months. I am so thankful to God for giving me such beautiful and gr8 parents. They are my pillars of strength. They are the ones who made me what I am today. My mom basically did everything from taking care of the baby, the house, and all of us.
It was such a gr8 help to have her and we did have some really fun times together.

We went for walks along the park, went for some Women's Expo, went to the casino, went shopping and had a great time everywhere.

The whole family came in May. We went to parks, went to Wisconsin Dells and Chicago, we even did an overnight camping trip with me 8 months pregnant. The Sis and nephew left in 1st week of June, then it was only mom & dad. After bumshika's arrival mom was super busy with taking care of her and everything else. Then dad left on Oct 16th and we extended her stay for another 3 months. These few months passed so fast. She enjoyed Halloween, Diwali party, X'mas party, Secret Santa gift, X'pose girls party, New Year party andnow it is finally time to bid adieu to Eden Prairie and go back.


WIll miss u mommy.

My dearest baby bumble

This saturday nite I had a womens mtg that I had to attend for the forthcoming Charity Event that we are planning.
Bumble was playing on his ipad, I told him and went for the party , came after an hr only for his dad to tell me that he was crying for u and I was like , really, Why? So strange....

The background, his dad asked him to change for his night clothes and when he went in to his room he same pictures (which I had just developed that day for mom to take to India)
he saw my picture and remembered me and missed me and started crying.

As soon as I entered he hugged me and when I asked what happened he said, i saw your picture and missed you Amma.

Perfect Awwwwww  moment.

6 month milestone

Yayyy, we are halfway there. We completed 6 months on 9th Jan 2015 and we had our check-up the same day.
Bumshika weighed 19 lbs and 27cm in length.

today i.2 10th JAn she even started crawling forward. Till now she was pivoting on her stomach and mostly rolling and her back and front but from now on I have to be careful of all things as my lttle crawler is here.

Day 4: 2014 in Retrospect-first 2 months

So much happened in 2014 but sadly my blog does not reflect it entirely.
January: I managed to successfully complete a blog marathon, it was fun, it was rewarding and even though I knew that this year would be tough I signed up. I already missed one day but since there are no rules I will try to blog everyday. It will be a way of journaling everything.
Last year we had just returned from India and my first trimister ended on Jan 4th, before that I had to get the genetic testing for the baby done. Mid January I had an appointment with the doctor(1st time). I choose Katie Toft but she had to cancel that day and I did not want to reschedule as I had not yet met with a doctor hence I went with Terri Johnson.
I had my weight taken which was 157lbs, urine test and then waited for the doctor, she was a kind older lady, I discussed with her my options of normal vs c-sec as my 1st was a c-sec and I was inclining to do a normal this time.
She said I could certainly try but it was more likely that I would have a bigger baby this time it would not be easy and it was entirely my decision. In case I wanted to go forward with it I would have to change the clinic.
We enrolled Bumble in a new swimming school i.e Foss. Details are here.
I googled and cooked new receipes, had evening walks with friends in the party hall and let the month pass by.

February: This month I had my 20 week ultrasound where I could know the sex of the baby. I decided I did not want to know, as long as I had a healthy baby I did not care.
We had a ladies get together and though the invite was send to 30 ppl only 12 accepted and came, luckily the less turn out was great, we had some really good snacks and fun games. I was still going to work, cooking good food, having my walks with friends and njoying time with baby and hubby.

Day3: Christmas School Concert

On one of the days in November we got a letter stating there was to be a

school concert in Bumble's school on the 17th December. We were supposed to pick the kid by 4:30 and return at 6 pm.
Now my boy never talks about what he does at school, even though I keep asking him he will just reply in one liner and return to his playing.
One of the days when his dad went to pick him the piano teacher told him, "I am proud of your son", we dismissed it off.
Finally on the D-day I went and picked him up at 4:30 and then at 6pm we all (mom,dad,bumshika and amu) went for the concert. As soon as we entered we saw the Director whose first comment was , Oh! the best singer of the class has arrived. We all smiled and he went to his class while we went to the open are, some parents had come and we were waiting for others to come.

Finally at 6:30 the kids marched out and the concert began. It was a wonderful experience, the kids sang about 14 songs and Bumble was the lead singer in 2 songs, he sang beautifully  and I am so proud of my baby. We recordered the concert and I have watched it over and over again.

To think that he never told any thing at home, modest like us I think wink*wink*

After the concert we had snacks and interacted with the teachers who were teasing him and then we all returned home.

Day2: Feed My Starving Children - Volunteer Work

So the community I stay in i.e Broadmoor Apts all ladies were interested in volunteer work and someone came up with the idea of FMSC i.e Feed My Starving Children where we could go and pack food that would be send out to various parts of the world. It just involved 2 hrs of our time.
For more details you can go to http://www.fmsc.org/
So  Sneha took the initiative of booking the slots and letting all of us know about it. We could take kids above 5 years and so I decided to take Bumble along. I told 2 from my side not sure whoch two of us would go with the kid. As Mom was here I wanted her to have this experience too...
The day before it was snowing a lot and so I asked G to go the following day but he refused tellign he will take care of Bumshika (my baby girl, new blog name) and asked us to leave.
I woke up at 7:30 , took bath, pumped milk , woke up Bumble who got ready in 5 mins as one of his friends was also coming with us.
We picked SIL and me, Mom, Bumble and the other kid left at 8:50, we reached there by 9:05, did the check-ins , we were given hairnet and they ahd a 15 min orientation session after which we were asked to wash our hands and go inside. There was some sitting volunteer work for which they wanted 8-10 volunteers and mom, SIL and some others went there. The rest of us went to the packing stations.

I must say that everythign was very neatly arranged, there were vitamins, frozen veggies, soy and rice to be packed. It was to be put thorugh a funnel using the spoons or cups into a bag held below the funnel. These bags were then measured to be between 380-400gms. Then they were sealed and packed into boxes. There were loud cheers and screams whenever a box was packed. The kids were involved in various activities helping the adults.

2.5 hours passed by very quickly. We had a 9-11 slot. By 10:40 they asked us to stop and clean up the place, then a small prayer was told and we again waited outside where a small story was told oh how the food helped kids all around the world.

104 of us packed 143 back which equalled to $6453.33 and could feed about 84 children for a year. After this we all returned home feeling very very happy.

Day1: Happy New Year 2015

Wishing all of you a very very Happy new year 2015

I had taken part in a blog marathon last year in the month of January and following the tradition Seema Abbas contacted me and asked if I wanted to do one this year too.
So even though my schedule is going to be super hectic I joined in the craziness. The link is here
http://seemabbas.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/blogathon-2015/

Pls do join in if you are interested. It will be a fun ride.

Note: To think I was going to miss the 1st day itself. Just made it in time.

Will have some fun filled posts over the month.