Dad's note today...on Facebook

Anand's note in Facebook: Growing up quick!!!! No more high chair and belts.... She has her own table..... Not long before she wants to borrow the car I guess...

Self Pictures!

Megha started opening the camera in my phone and here is one picture of her leg which she took all by herself :)

lol

Play-date with A and K

Megha loves to have company and she was delighted when the twins Arianna and Kasandra (15 month old's) visited us for a play-date on Monday, 17th Feb. She loved sharing her toys (after the initial hiccups; we dont have company often at home. So she took initial few minutes to adjust with sharing like she does at the daycare).

The kids I believe LOVE to tear paper! Look at the room below with 3 toddlers tearing wrapping tissue! But what a fun time we all had. It was great to catch up with the girls. nice eh?

The little twins had just started walking and they keep going behind Megha everywhere she goes...and boy she took them to every corner of our home...lol

On a cold wet day...

The last weekend was a long weekend with Monday off. So, the three days Megha and I stayed home and did whole bunch of fun stuff!

She was getting a little bored on the main level and hence, she decided its about time we head to the basement and claim the place :)
Our's is an unfinished basement, meaning, its not as comfortable as the main levels...on several counts.

That didnt stop us though! We set up a table and learned the names of few fruits and veggies.

She also built beautiful towers with building blocks, while saying building blocks cuter than a cat :)

She also rode her trike. I tried to teach her to paddle with feet but i think she will need a few more months to get there. We have a lot more room in the basement to ride, so it makes sense that she loves to ride here.

Now, whenever she wants to go to the basement she gets ready by wearing her shoes and her jacket!! (I put those on her as its cold in the basement). 

Eating like a big girl!

I had been told by the daycare provider that Megha eats most of what the other big kids at the daycare eat. So, these days I stopped sending her lunch and sure enough, she had been really good in eating big-girls food; that includes spaghetti with marinara sauce, mash potato with cut veggies and chicken etc.

I believe she also likes to sit on the mini table while eating instead of the regular high chair! I guess its about time I put the high chair away at home too :( (hint hint Anand!)
She is growing up :)

Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti

I love The Sound of Music and so, I tend to sing this song to megha. She picked it up and am I so proud of her?! Below picture was taken on Valentines Day, 2014.

While I certainly dont know Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Da Ni Sa, I dont know Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti either. But I started Do Re Mi with the help of The Sound of Music. I keep singing the songs and she keeps picking them up; she starts with the last words, like she did from the very beginning and slowly progresses to singling lines. 

When she sang the Do Re Mi, I was so thrilled! I really wish I knew Sa Re Ga Ma as well, but, thats OK :)

Well, here is the song I sing while Megha finishes the line with the last word.

Me: Doe- a deer, a female 
Megha: deer
Me: Ray- a drop of golden 
Megha: sun
Me: Me- a name i call  (she very cutely repeats after me..."me")
Megha: myself
Me: Far- a long long way to 
Megha: run
Me: Sew- a needle pulling 
Megha: thread
Me:La- a note to follow 
Megha: so
Me: Tea- a drink with jam and (and she says Tea...very very very sweetly)
Megha: bread
Me: That will bring us back to do 
Megha: oh oh oh

Here is the full song from The Sound of Music

Valentines Day - 2014!

Happy Valentines Day Megha! This is the third valentines day we are celebrating with Megha. How fast they grow?!

Megha dressed up in red for the day when she went to the daycare. She gave a card and a heart shaped chocolate cake to her daycare provider.

Here is her playing at the daycare...

Eating a homemade cupcake....

Here is her opening the gift which Anand had sent me...a very thoughtful gift :)

Oh how she loves playing with the wrapping paper and the packaging itself! She put in on the floor, on her hair, my hair and everywhere :)

Here is her making crafts for her dad and our next door neighbors. She is thinking how to decorate the cards.

Here is her opening the card which Anand gave her :) What a pose eh? She read and re-read the card at least 10 times!

Here is her dad opening her handmade craft and his gift:)

Here is how it looks :) I helped her just a little :) It now hangs in our entry way, though, I am planning on removing it soon.

Here are couple of more crafts made with the help of our daycare provider :)

What a great day we had :)

Megha, her dad and his tools!

Our external hard drive was giving us trouble and Anand opened it out. Guess who was all ready to help? And she did it all right! I guess I don't have to worry about me influencing her too much :) she will find a balance :)

Gril's in White Dresses and...

Me: Girls in white dresses with blue satin 
Megha: sashes
Me: Snowflakes that stay on my 
Megha: nose and eyelashes
Me: Silver white winters that melt into 
Megha: springs
Me: These are a few of my favorite 
Megha: things

Megha is such a quick learner. I sing a song three times and she catches it! Sometimes it worries me that she is getting into a lot of things that I like. I mean, the above is my favorite song and obviously I sing this to her. I refrained from singing anything other than rhymes all these months but The Sound of Music is a classic! So I started it 1 week ago and above is the result :) 
She likes this song and she also likes white chocolate...my favorite and no other sweet. 
Am I influencing her too much? I hope not! Next song in line, Do Re Me Fa So!!!! I am so very excited!

If anyone is interested in listening to the whole song, here it is!

And here is the full lyrics:

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad

They grow up so fast!

This evening as soon as we returned from the daycare, I started to get her dinner ready. Before I turned around, Megha opened the dish washer and took her spoon!! I said, thanks Megha for helping.
I then went about setting her high chair and before I know, she was ready with her snack tray! Boy...was she  really really hungry or just getting to understand her needs better? I think a bit of both :)

Shortly before going to bed, I was making her snack (cereal+prunes puree) and told her, "Megha, Cereal time"...she says, "pizza time"...lol! (we were just having pizza last night and she had some of it and of course she remembered it.

Modern Art by Megha

So, today we are all buried in 20 cm of snow. Megha and her dad stayed at home and did lots of fun stuff.
Here is some wonderful modern art by Megha!! (With a little help from Anand).

Megha's Second Birthday- 15th, December 2013!!!!

Happy second Birthday Megha!

Unlike the first birthday party where we began planning for it at least 4 months in advance, preparations for second birthday began 1 month in advance. I think that’s reasonable, given its second birthday. But needless to say, we have put our heart and soul into this one as well. Here is my baby :)

The awesome part is we had 3 birthday parties this time for Megha!

Office party: I joined new team recently and I really wanted to do something. I bought the entire team coffee, tea biscuits and muffins! The whole team had a great day munching on these all day. This was couple of days before the actual birthday party.

The second party was at the daycare. The daycare provider (Sherry) hosted a beautiful birthday party for Megha (couple of days after 15th). She went to the daycare all dressed up, had a photo session and was the star of the day!

Here she is lost in thoughts while Sherry clicked away.

Here she is admiring the candles lit on mini cupcakes.

Here is the star with a birthday girl badge!!I still have it :) 

She gave small party favor bags filled with child safety chocolates. I heard the kids loved it!

Party we hosted: Preparations for the party started with the utmost care. Initially the plan was to host the party at home itself but after finalizing the guest list, we had about 40 people coming. That was not going to be possible at home and so we rented a hall.

Invitations this time went through e-vites. Nothing fancy, just small invites sent online. All 40 people responded that they would come. I was happy I booked the hall.

Food: This time, like last time we ordered main course from a restaurant (an Indian/Pakistani restaurant). Starters and dessert, we managed to arrange from home, with the exception of cheese, samosas, juice, pop...wow, quite a lot of exceptions! 
Menu included

Starters: Samosas, homemade pita chips (prepared by Anand from scratch!) with hummus and spinach dip, veggie fingers and cheese platter. Here is Neeta posing infront of the starter table!

Main Course: Chicken and veggie biryani, chicken achari, mutton curry, bagara baigan, aloo-spinach, naan, salad and raita.

Desserts: Ice cream with sprinkles (ahem ahem…wait for the picture below), homemade kheer (an aunt of ours made it), cut fruit, dates and gulab jamun.

Entertainment: This year we have hired Dora for the entertainment! We were speculating between Oso, a Disney cartoon character and Dora (a Nickleodeon creation), them being Megha’s favorites. We decided on Dora as per the entertainer’s availability. I couldn’t have been happier with the choice! Megha absolutely loved Dora!

Party Favors: So much thought has gone into preparing these party favors. I had to make 3 sets of favors: one for kids at daycare, one for kids coming to the birthday party hosted by us and one for the adults coming to the party.

Daycare favor bag: This contained simple child-safe candy and chewable’s. As is the policy at the daycare, I could not send any toys which may pose choking hazard to the kids.

Kids Favor bag: I have personalized each kids bag this time (unlike a standard one last time) according to their ages. Each girl had an assortment of chocolates to eat and a personalized gift. The various gifts included beautiful hair clips with flowers or dvd or soft toys if it were an infant or under an year old or bath toys or nursery rhymes. I bet they all liked it (Their moms emailed me later).

Favor bag for grown-up's: All the ladies got an assortment of dry fruits packed in beautiful net bags and also candle holders with candles inside. Anand helped me pack these.

All supplies were bought from Walmart, Michael’s arts and crafts and Bulk Barn. Here is how the bag looked like before giving.

I had so much fun collecting these items! I had made several trips to the above stores to make sure I had everything needed.

Decorations: Most of the decorations were used from the previous year as we had bought them brand new at that time and were still in excellent condition. A few new decorations were bought from Walmart.

Cake: Ah the cake! Like on her first birthday, we got Megha’s second birthday cake custom made as well from the same lady who made Megha's first birthday cake. Keeping the birthday theme in mind, we got Dora cake made. It had two layers, bottom was chocolate, then strawberry filling and then the top layer was white cake. I got fondant over the cake with Dora with her backpack, stars and even map J

The day of the birthday:

The day before the birthday, I made sure all the things which need to go to the party hall are ready. The morning of the birthday Anand woke up early (as I slept in late last night) and cut the fruits and got the perishables sorted. Megha woke up at about 7:30.

Calls poured in from all over the world and finally she was all set to open her very first gift which was from Anand and me J Here she is!

And here is the actual gift; a small Crayola board with one side where she can draw with sketches and crayons and the other side where she can use chalk. We have taught her to say "Thank you", when someone wishes her "Happy Birthday" and she did so well!

We got ready, loaded everything in the car and we got going. We made a few stops, picked up the cake, some coffee grind for the party, keys to the hall and reached the hall.

Here is how the hall looks like from outside. It’s a beautiful place with tennis courts and all. If it were summer we would have wanted to take a stroll.

We did a few decorations and then our good friend Neeta helped us along. I was so thrilled to see baby Naomi’s outfit! What a joy it was to see her!

And then came our neighbors who helped in decorations too!

Anand had to step away to get our food from the restaurant. It was too busy though. I was trying to get this and that done and it felt like I am stressed.

Here is our starter table:

Here is the main course table (the full picture).

Here is the dessert table, my favorite table! Sasha’s mom made yummy kheer. For the ice cream toppings, I used the below 5 bowl setting (a thoughtful gift by Neeta and Sasha for Christmas-2013). The big bowl had chocolate melts. Smaller one's around had M&M’s in one bowl, chocolate covered raisins in one bowl, dry fruits in one and candied cherries in another bowl….yummy yum yum! Fresh cut-fruit by Anand, some dates and of course Ice Cream and Gulab Jamoon were placed around.

And here is our pretty girl making a grand entrance! Megha knows it’s her day and she made the most out of it J

Dora entertained the kids really well.

Here they are playing a floor game where kids toss the coin in the center.

Another fun game involving parents too..

Another one where we needed to make mummies using the streamers! My neighbor’s kid won the prize and he sure deserved it!

Here is us playing musical chairs!

Here is Megha getting her face-painting done J

And here she is cutting the CAKE! God Bless you bab She had a little bit of cake, not much though as she is not really cake-person.

Dad and mom had the most of the cake...lol

Everyone loved the food and we in general had an awesome time. It was a bit tiring though as couple of my friends promised they would come and help me out but couldn’t make it because of the weather.

 Here is us, dancing to the lively Disney music.

Megha received so many gifts and by 4 PM, we cleaned out the party hall and returned home. Some friends joined us for coffee and drinks. What a great day we had!

Thank you so much Appu and Ramana for the beautiful outfit you had brought for Megha; as you can see, she looked oh so adorable. Thanks Neeta and Anita aunty for coming early to help us out! I dont know what we would ever do without your help. Thanks Faisal and family too for help with decorations!
And of course Anand and Megha...my sweethearts for everything.