Navratri and Diwal 2023

 I don’t think I added this post before. We have been doing Golu for Navratri for a few years now. A new addition to the collection is Sai uncles Dasavataram set, bought in Pune 1995.

Also had a wonderful Diwali party at home. My favorite way to decorate the stairs :)

Megha's 4th Birthday

This 4th birthday for Megha is so much special for us so many reasons and the top 3 reasons are 1) Tanush is with us 2) Megha now knows and truly understands/ anticipates and enjoys the birthday 3) My parents are here.

Megha couldn't wait for her birthday. Starting September she has attended 4 birthday parties (2 of them from her school JK friends) and she was looking forward for her birthday. She knew what theme she wanted from the very beginning. It's Sofia the First (Disney's latest young princess).  This asking for Sofia started well before Halloween and I thought maybe by mid November she will change her mind but she did not. So, Sofia it is!

Megha wanted well her friends from school to be invited. That would make it 28 kids. So we cut down to kids from JK only, which was 14 kids. We also invited our family friends. After the last person rsvp'd yes, we had 24 kids and 26 adults.

We booked the same community center that we hosted Megha's second birthday party a while ago.

When we shopped around for entertainment, especially princess Sofia related, I couldn't find anything that was happy with. Since Sofia is not as popular as Elsa, we didn't have too many options.

Finally I decided to let go of the entertainment and just figure something else out. Since its around Christmas time, what better craft can there be other than the stocking? I bought about 30 stockings and lots of craft supplies. It took me several trips to the dollar store to get everything in place.
Each stocking had color sketches that go with it so that kids can color their own stockings, lots of stickers, glitter stickers, Christmas tree ornament with a string attached, foam shapes, round and bell shaped ornaments that can be colored and used as a Christmas tree ornament, pipe cleaners, Pom poms and some craft paper clips.

The idea was to keep the kids occupied for at-least 30-40 mins.
Apart from this, I also labeled every bag so that kids don't get into any kind of disagreements.
Putting this together has not been as easy I thought it was going to be. I had to cut glitter stickers in to small portions (so kids don't waste the whole sheet), portion the foam shapes/ stickers and quite literally everything needed attention. Several hours of work spread through about 4 days accomplished this task. I was very happy with it and so were the kids.

Apart from that, we also hired a local Milton mom to do simple face painting for the kids. Kids thought it was super fun and I was so happy to see the kids happy.

Cake, as usual was ordered from the same lady who bakes all of Megha's cakes. This time to go as per the theme, we ordered a 2 tiered cake (Anands selection). After much deliberation, here is what I decided for the flavors; the bottom tier was a simple yellow cake with custard+delche de leche as filling and top tier was chocolate cake with chocolate ganache as the filling. Of course the over all cover was fondant and butter cream holding the fondant and the cake together. It was soooo good to look at. Chocolate cake was finished much faster than the yellow cake (but of course).
We brought home small portion of yellow cake.
I bought Sofia the first paper plates, napkins and spoons and I thought the whole cake table looked cute.

Cake Cutting:

We 4:

Food was below:
Starters: chicken nuggets, veggie spring rolls, party mix chips and pretzels. Pop/soda; juice and water.
Mains: Cheese and pepperoni pizza, naan, veg biryani, muttar paneer, chicken biryani, butter chicken, raita, macaroni salad, potato salad.
Dessert: ice cream and cake

For a change (from previous parties) most of the food was consumed. Whatever left, which is not much, we brought it home.

For the party favors, I kept it simple as the the kids were getting to take their hand made stocking filled with things kids usually like. The favor bag consisted of a box of playdoh, crayons, small writing book, pencil and an eraser. I also left a big bowl of candy consisting of Hershey's kisses, candy canes and soft chocolates for kids to fill in their stocking.

The hall was big and it was such big help when a few friends showed up early to help. Anand helped set up tables and a few decorations and had to leave to pick up food. Everyone pitched in and soon before the first guests showed up, the hall was all decked up and ready. It was such big help to have my parents around. Without them, I wouldn't have been able to take care of Tanush and keep running around receiving the guests, helping kids etc.

Since Anand brought food just in time, everything was still warm/hot. If we brought it along with us when we first came to the hall, I would have gotten cold.

Megha was super excited and sure was the belle of the ball. She looked adorable in the white dress (From Macy's in states).
Tanush was wearing a comfortable sleeper. I could not put on his new outfit as he was crying so much in the car and was all tired. I just left him in his comfortable cotton cloths. I wore a brand new outfit myself; thanks to Anand for the gift card he gave for our anniversary. Anand was wearing his T.

Over all the party was a success. All of us were very tired, especially Anand as he was working nights. Megha got so many gifts which she opened at home the very evening when one of our friends came over with their daughters.
Tanush was such a sweetheart and so was Megha. Such a beautiful day it was.

On Megha's actual birthday, she really wanted to go to school. So off she went! Before that, I made her favorite breakfast, hashbrowns with eggs and bacon; served in her new Sofia cutlery. She loved it.

My parents blew a few balloons for her.
We gave her the birthday presents we bought for her and she cut the cake I baked at home (zebra cake).
My baby is 4!

Here she is opening her gift from her grand pa and grand ma (Anand's parents)

Father's Day 2015 (June 21st)

Anand was not home for Father's Day this year, which fell on Sunday; so we celebrated Father's Day on 20th June itself. Megha had been very excited about this as we had been making crafts for days in advance. We had made a bear craft which said "I love you Beary much" a few weeks ago but Megha decided that she cant wait until Fathers Day to show him. So, she told him the very same day when he got home about the craft. Will update the picture later.

Megha helped me make puri and chole curry for breakfast. Original plan was to make two items but later we ended up making minion cookies for the dad. Here she is helping line up the cookies in the baking tray. She loves to help!

Here is the final product after baking.

After a quick trip the library for story time, we went to check out the trains place. It was very good. The weather was beautiful and it was good to get out of home.

Apart from being a museum, it was surrounded by woods, small ponds and all. We were able to hop off the train to explore the are a bit.

Here is Megha by the pond. There were some fish, frogs, lotus and water lilies in here.

Here she is posing...

We went around a bit in the train, stopped by to check out some spiders too.

Had hotdogs for lunch.

Here are Megha and Anand in front of the museum.

One last picture:

In the evening, Sasha, Neeta and Naomi had come to celebrate Fathers Day with us. We had some lovely food (Anand made burgers). Here is the cake cutting sessions by dad's.

Megha made the below crafts with a little help. I cut out some old greeting cards, words and letters. Took hours to do that but it was fun. When I cut out all the letters needed for a greeting card, Megha stuck them up with some glue. She decided where all the animals and flowers would go too. It was a fun craft.

Here is the very proud Megha after the craft.

We also made another craft with pebbles and stones. We first painted the rocks (she chose the colors), then let it dry out and then wrote the letters (I did). She used glue to stick them all on a plate.

Dad also got another craft, beautifully framed from the daycare provider, Sherry. Megha even signed it with her thumb :)

Over all I think it was a good day...Hope Anand enjoyed it too.

Not to forget, Anand also got a beer bucket consisting of different beers from around the world :)

Mothers Day 2015

Mothers day 2015 has gone by really well. Megha and Anand made breakfast, bought me flowers, a baby monitor as a gift and I sure did feel loved.

It was warm and sunny and in the evening they did a BBQ for me. Anand's leg wasnt feeling good and it was super nice of him to make the day special, inspite of that. We were hanging out at our new patio set that evening.

He also made rum cake which turned out yum. A starter with celery sticks, wings, virgin mojito and meat for dinner. Megha got burgers and fries.

It was a beautiful day.

Easter!

Megha had fun this Easter. She made quite a few crafts at the daycare that involved egg painting, drawing and fun with colors. I did not take pictures of all the crafts but here is one cute one, a chicken made out of her feet :)

Here she is being all silly being a bunny.

Dressed up for the Easter party at the daycare. She also had pancakes at the daycare that looked just like bunny :)

This morning I hid a few eggs for the easter egg hunt. I couldnt really organize anything outdoors, unlike last year as we had a lot of snow last night.
We also missed the easter egg hunt at downtown Milton. She still had a little fun at home this evening for all her eggs in our home though :)
Here is her basket filled with chocolate eggs and treats.

Pongal 2015

We had a wonderful Pongal celebrations. We made an unexpected trip to Orlando, Florida to my friends place. Megha loved all the attention. Pongal is basically a harvest festival.

Here she is wearing a pattu-pavadi sent by her momomma (my mom). She loved her necklace, her bangles, her bindi and over all, everything about her outfit.

Here, she is getting ready for Bogi Pallu (flower shower). In Andhra, we mix some raw rice, flowers, few coins and berry fruits and shower on kids. Here is some more information on this harvest festival.

The traditional Aaarti.

Dad showering his blessing:

Bogi Pallu (flower shower). Oh she loved it so much! Friends Appu and Ramana also showered her with flowers and she could not get enough of it :)

Here is a family picture.

Here is another picture; these gaghras are from India (but of course). With BFF :P

Beautiful day.

Valentines Day 2015

Whats there not to like about Valentines day? There usually is chocolate overload, some presents and whole lot of love.

Megha packed some candy and pencils for the kids at the daycare. And she also received quite a few goody bags from the daycare too.

Here she is with all her treasure from the daycare. The hat which she is wearing was made by one of the kids at the daycare. I think thats one of the cutest hats I have seen in a while: Love Bug :)

She couldn't wait to open them all! I was equally excited.

She also got cards, balloons, play dough, some candy from us. Aunt Neeta gave her a PJ.

She ate so much candy yesterday (14th Feb) that she was super hyper all day. She didnt even nap. I got flowers, cards and cake.