Travelling.....our passion

We've been travelling whenever we got a chance......to attend social occasion, to meet family, or just sheer fun.A trip to taj kuteeram in Dec, a trip to a farm in jan, our travel to vizag in Feb and a trip to Lepakshi and Puttaparthi in March.Wow... that's the way we like it ....We love getting away from the city...Ananya is showing a great interest in the countryside and the greens and natural surroundings. Advaya is getting used to sitting in the rear seat and enjoying time with her sister. They read, talk, sing, dance to the music playing in the car....Not that they like being confined in a car, but they are trying to manage....because, the destination is what they look forward to.This past weekend, we went to Lal Bagh, and they had a great time collecting twigs and leaves, playing catch, playing with little balls, talking with other kids. Kids need no telling how to find ways to have fun.

Mundan pics

Little Advaya had her mundan done on the day of Dusshera and her cute, fresh 'gundu'(shaved head) needed to be recorded here.
Advaya pre and post Mundan



Ananya didn't want to miss the fun and so,

Happy Bithday Dadda!!! Nov 10th

The kids were busy wrapping all that they thought was good enough to be presented to Dadda.A great, festive atmosphere filled the house and there was running around, making surprieses, decorating, and arranging toy tea parties and so much else that went into making Dadda Dear's birthday special. Every five minutes, the kids would run out of their room, and announce,'Come in and look what we made for you, Dadda!' and even before dadda could get himself to go to the room and make out what the surprise was, there would be another innocent, excited announcement.
We had a cute, little celebration in the evening. And, Dadda had his best birthday ever. And what bigger gift can a loving, doting Dadda expect, than little hearts filled with warmth and love and little faces filled with joy and excitement!!!

Wishing you multiplying love, happiness and peace for many, many, many years to come...........

Advaya's 2!!! 25th August

The lil one turned 2 !! She's growing ......more beautiful, more loving and lovable and so is our gratitude to God that we are truly blessed. Our prayers to the Almighty that his blessings and kindness be showered on us and the lil ones have a healthy and loooong life.
We rang in Advaya's 2nd birthday with a cute, little Animal themed party and the kids had a great time. And it was pleasure watching all the kids and the birthday baby wear masks and go '1..2...3.. rrooooaar'.The room was transformed into a little, lively forest with partying cubs.

So, what have we been doing???

Of Car trips and Happy Birthdays..

Been a long time since i wrote a post. you bet the world to end up getting more
confusing..First there was the blog and then facebook and now twitter.
Where do you write what?

It sometimes does help when you dont like to experiment.. and so i stay on with what is more familiar to us- The blog.

It is now in its sixth year since our first post- written days before Ananya was born.

All the efforts have been Lalitha's. My work keeping me away for a long time - from family and friends.
These blog pages do no good either. They keep reminding me how much of the kids have i missed :-(
But since we are into a lifetime of fun, i am positively looking in the future- which has so much more in store for us.
Days keep churning like wildfire. And never a dull moment.
Ananya now is my conscience keeper. A job which she loves to do so much. "Dadda, You must not keep the tap on for so long- you are wasting water" "Dadda, why do you carry your newspapers to the bathroom" "Dadda, i will wait for to come home from work by the evening" "Dadda, Can we do something better than watching TV?"

And the little one, Advaya, is no less:. Together with her elder sibling she can ensure a laugh riot at home. Still some months away from turning two, She comes to me with a"what-a-doin" masking her real intention to make me read her "torybooook" while she eats "tobytob" (strawberries for the uninitiated). During the course of her play she sometimes gets "finga hurt" (finger) and she knows whom to blame "Didu, hurt" (it's all ananya's fault hehe). Knowing how much her elder sis loves her, it is but natural for her to give a nice "hug-i-hug" for her didu and to her dadda.
Her favorite three line greeting in verse is
"Happy birday to you.. I hear thunder.. oh dont you" (Go interpret it your way hehe)
Lalitha and I love to travel.. Never a day when we dont talk travel and we dont make plans.
Ananya loves it to some extent but she gets bored in the car. Advaya however is a very strong opponent of anything to do with sitting in the car, even if it means a visit to the supermarket.
So therein lies our challenge. I so much looked for our April trip to Goa on car, But Advaya didnt approve of this..I am hoping that the new portable sony DVD viewer with a real long battery life will help her reconsider for our next big trip.Vizag calling? :-)
A few pictures..

Travelling to unwind..

We've been making a travel trip every month or two this year, to unwind and refresh. First, it was Kerala, then to Tirupati and in April, it was Goa. Myself, Murali and Ananya are excited about the entire trip but the lil one enjoys the preparation but hates it in the car. She hates being confined. But, hope she grows out of it!!! After every trip, we decide to avoid travel until the lil one grows older but, within a couple of days, we are already busy planning for the next vacation:-) NEVER SAY DIE!!!

Ananya's 5!!!! 1st May, 2011

I'm more surprised than anything else, every year, on her Birthday. My lil baby, growing up so fast, getting more thoughtful, more humorous, more fun.... MORE BEAUTIFUL.
A little party with her close friends .....and her baby sister. Very beautiful.
We are gifting our precious darling a new idea this year......of HOMESCHOOLING. Want to give her the gift of more freedom.....to learn and do things at her will....not to be dictated by schedules, the pace of other students etc.,to allow her to be inquisitive for ever, to decide how she wants to grow, and of course, spend more time with family. Hope this turns out the kind of gift we want to give her and the kind she would cherish forever.

Our Wayanad trip

After Murali came back, we've been planning to take a break and have some fun time.And so we did, we made a trip to Wayanad, a few days away from the hustle bustle.

Happy Birthday, Dada!

Happy Birthday to you......
Happy Birthday to you......
Happy Birthday to you, dear Dada....
Happy Birthday to you......
You are an year older, Dada ......And nobody can tell it, if they didn't look at the back of your head:-)Hahahha. Come home soon, Dada and we shall celebrate.
Love,
Chinnu, Sonu and unki Mama too

our 'diyas' this Diwali

God! can a day have 30 hours instead????

I've experienced a whole gamut of emotions(the past year, owing to Murali's staying away on work) from one of being all confident, powerful and a supermom, taking charge of two kids all alone, to one of sheer frustration, anger and irritability. The kids have kept me busy, busy and busy what with me trying to balnce Ananya's and Advaya's needs.

I've made sure Ananya got to have her share of fun, going to school regularly, fun in the playground, and then, being part of all the celebration we have here. She and a few other kids danced to the number 'zoobi doobi' , as a part of the Diwali celebration in the apartment complex.

The lil'er lil one, Advaya is doing well too. She is a confident walker now, though with a coupla tumbles. Her endeavour at physical activity is having me exhausted. I think she's a mountaineer in the making and is incessantly honing her skills. she likes to climb heights and her insatiable curiosity is only making her explore newer heights to climb everyday. But alas! there are only a limited options at home......but never mind! we practice over and over again, with the same options......Practice makes a man(well.....a determined toddler too) perfect!!

She's elated speaking the words she's learnt.....amma, ammamma, thatha, hi, bye, dadda, akkkkka, apple, susssu, poooootty,nnnoooooo, seeee, take, woooooow, and we are adding everyday!!!! She's already got a huuuuuuge circle of friends(bigger kids and adults!!!!) and is endearing everyone with her beauuuuuuutiful smiles. None can escape her charm.......

The two girlies are having a wonderful time together, doing naughty things, each one following the other, each one laughing at the other's silly things, each one taking cues from the other, to start a new fun thing......it's wonderful........................... at the end of a long day, exhausting, but fulfilling to see them happy.

Sonu's 1st birthday......25th August(late post)

The lil princess turned one on August 25th. The much awaited Big Day happened.Murali was here so it was a celebration anyway. But the grand plans dampened because the lil one wasn't keeping well and was under medication. So, no major arrangements made in advance since we were not sure if she would be comfortable and happy in a crowd. But on the 25th, we thought she was slightly okay so, rushed things, called friends from our apartment, had a decent gathering of 13 kids, a lovely teddy bear cake which we had ordered for the day in any case, a lil celebration, return gifts of insulated lunch boxes for the kids...pretty rushed up, but what is heartening is, the kids were happy and enjoyed their time and the lil princess was everywhere, enjoying the presence of kids around, and giving everyone the pleasure of her company. More than the materialistic things, we were happy our princess had a wonderful time.

May this happiness multiply for her, may her life be filled with many wonderful times, loads of laughter and fun, may she have a healthy, long life. What better gift can we, as parents, give, than, a life our darling will be happy with and proud of. Our endeavour continues, in that direction........

The naughty? innocent? lil pie

Good times together.......

6 months today!!! 25th february

Lil Advaya is 6 months today!!! Half way thru to her 1st birthday........