Avi's "cheese!"

He takes a mean self-portrait. (He was getting bored of watching us make paper airplanes at the science center today when he took this in case you were wondering).

And one more with chocolate, just for fun (taken by Daddy).

Truly Blessed.

Ryan and I just got back from a 'mini-break' in Hershey PA and I was so reminded of the many things we have to be thankful for.

My dad and brother drove there with us on Sunday so we could see the park and Chocolate World together before dropping us off for the night.  Despite all the dire predictions, there was only a few hours of light snow there.  Just enough to be beautiful. 

We tried to get as much good fair food as we could before retreating from the cold.  We ended up with kettle corn (made in a real kettle!), homemade chips, apple cider punch, fries, and s'mores.  The s'mores were definitely the best part.

We took Avinash for a quick carousel ride and then let him try the balloon kiddie ride (at his own request).

Turned out the ride was for kids only and he kind of freaked out when he realized he was alone.  I think he calmed down after a few seconds, but kept the fake tears coming everytime they ride came round the corner and we came back into his view, ha!

And, thankfully nummies make everything better!

Luckily the chocolate tour was indoors and overall a better experience.  Avi loved everything about it and was so excited to point out the singing cows and all the nummies to his Nanaji.  I love that special bond that he has with my Dad.  Also, at one point he just walked through the chocolate store looking straight up saying 'Wow!" over and over again.

Then it even started snowing as we were leaving. It was so gorgeous.

Avinash took this picture of Ryan trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue.

And quickly learned how to do it himself!

When we were leaving, Ryan and I were bracing for the worst with Avinash.  Amazingly no tantrum was thrown.  He very calmly stayed in the car, eating grapes, chatting with his Nanaji and Anuj.  He even learned to call my brother 'Nooj' Mama this trip.   

I love how comfortable he is with my family.  I love the immense amount of joy that he gets from being with them. 

I love that he runs around and wrestles with my brother all the time.  I love that my brother is genuinely excited to see him all the time and goes out of his way for him. 

I love that he is constantly squealing in delight when he is home and goes back and forth between my parents constantly. 

I love that he knows his grandparents will always take care and goes to them when he is hungry or tired.  Apparently he slept better with them last night than he has all week with Ryan and I (he is too big for his crib now and doesn't have his own bed here). 

I love that when we are in Houston, I always have to call my parents at Avi's request.

I love that when he picks up a calculator or pretend phone, he always says that he is trying to call Nana or Nani.

I love that he demands to look at the picture albums so he can see my family's pictures all the time.  I am not sure if he enjoys pointing out himself or Nana more.   I love that my parents come visit so often and we have tons of pictures of them in the scrapbooks. 

I love that he wants me to show him pictures on the computer as well.  He will also sit and watch slideshows of our family pictures too.

I love that when we go on car rides, Avi always does a roll call and worries about anyone who is missing (Where's Nani??) and then will scan parking lots for any look-a-likes.  It was pretty funny when he called a parking attendant who had a white beard Nana even though my Dad was driving at the time. 

I love that my Dad is always offering me extra portions of pizza, ice cream and whole milk -- for the baby.  I love that my parents always take care of me and my health too. 

I love that my mom will come after working three days straight and make delicious paneer and chile, from scratch, play with Avinash and offer me a back massage! 

I love that my husband planned this spa getaway for me to help me relax.  I love that he will stand up for me against people who try to bring negativity into my life for no reason.
{I also really love the picnic basket he got me to replace the cheapy one I got years ago.  One kings lane, baby!}

I love that Avinash is such a spiritual baby.  He loves doing aarti, can recite a few words (but mostly just hums along to the tune) and says Om whenever he sees a match lit. 

I love that new baby is kicking all the time now and is almost 28 (!) weeks.  It is so exciting to think the baby is likely two pounds and will be here in less than three months!!! 

I love that new baby will also get to travel to Disney World and Disney Land before that time.  So excited to spend time with family in LA again.  I love finding excuses to go out there, this time I didn't really have one but decided to go anyway, ha!

I am just feeling so blessed to have such a wonderful, loving and caring family who takes care of me and my baby!!!  It just means the world to me and I wanted to express it. 

{What can I say, I get a little stir-crazy inside my own head since I haven't scrapped in weeks (gasp!).  Also, sorry about the lack of pictures, I have taken lots lately but will have to wait until I get back to Houston to upload them.}

I always loved Christmas Eve best...

I always loved Christmas Eve the more than the actual day.  Usually it is when we decorate the tree, finish wrapping presents, watch a movie and put cookies out for Santa.  I think the anticipation of Christmas morning can be more enjoyable than the actual gift-unwrapping itself.  That was definitely true this year.  Though, mostly because we had both days all wrapped up in one since my mom has to work all Christmas day so we decided to unwrap gifts tonight after dinner.

I have found lately that it is cheaper to travel on the actual holiday, but I made sure to get back to Allentown before Christmas Eve. 

We had a special dinner out after getting picked up at the airport at L'angolo in South Philly last night.  It was so good to have real Italian food again.

This morning we went out for breakfast at Denny's (we won't talk about the blatantly bigoted service there...). 

We braved the mall for last-minute shopping and gift buying.   My mom and I used every single Macy's coupon we had while Ryan and Anuj bought out the men's department.

We tried (and failed) to put Avinash in his new Santa suit.  We only searched everywhere for one actually in his size.  He ended up in his red-striped PJs with an elfish hoodie.

It still looked pretty good though!!

Avi helped Ryan wrap all of my gifts which he mailed here to my house.  He resisted being wrapped himself however.

Mom took me for a few more maternity clothes and then we went grocery shopping for dinner tomorrow. 

We all posed for family photos in front of the tree.  Avinash wanted to use the 'cheese' too and kept snatching the camera off the ledge while we were waiting for the self-timer.  Hopefully we got at least one usable photo.  I think my favorite is the one where Avi is covering his face with his hands, Ryan's squinting, Anuj's eyes are closed and I'm only half sitting yet.

My mom gave him his own digital camera and he set up on the ledge and tried to get us all to sit down for a picture again.  'Cheese!'

We had a great Indian food for dinner after that, with homemade paneer and everything.  I'm still feeling stuffed and barely able to move after all the food.

We watched old-school claymation holiday classics all night.

We sat down under the tree to open presents after that.  Avinash was acting so precious after opening one gift that I asked my Dad to set up the video too.  I think waiting to open the presents while he did that was pure torture on Avinash.  He was dancing up and down in so much anticipation.  He grabbed as many gifts as he could from under the tree and started giving them to my mom. 

Anuj loved taunting Avinash over his gifts.  Avinash started shouting 'mine!' for everything.  He was so adorable.  He would shout 'mio!', grab the gift, tear off the paper and then exclaim 'wow' for everything. 

For the most part he gave the gifts to the person we told him to but would always help opening up the wrapping paper. 

I was blown away by my gifts this year, especially my new wicker picnic set!!  It is huge and gorgeous.  Luckily we bought Ryan a new Lacoste jacket this morning.  I framed a set of Ramayan prints for my parents.  My mom got back the watch she left in Houston last time she was here, ha!  Ryan followed my lead and wrapped up a pair of her glasses for her.  We got Anuj a Toy Story 3 DVD just because of the deep emotional connection he's always had with his toys.

He kept looking for more and more presents to open, shouting nen! and pointing under the tree.

He and Anuj broke his new remote-controlled car within minutes.  He loved crawling in and out of his new elmo tent.  And of course, at the end of it he found my old nearly-30 year old baby computer and started playing with it under the tree. 

Hope you all have a Merrry Christmas Eve too!!

26 weeks

I had to go for another ultrasound on Monday because the baby was measuring a little small at 20 weeks. Luckily the growth seems to have caught up and is now in the 40%-ile. I'm really happy that I got to go for an extra ultrasound because the tech took a few 3-d shots for us.

Of course, just like Avinash, the baby would not move its hands off its face during the ultrasound. She tried to get a few pics anyway.  I like this picture a lot because the baby looks so peaceful and sweet.

 

I kind of like the 2-d picture of the face as well.

We have been busy...

Dancing to Christmas music with Daddy at the Zoo this weekend.

Checking out the botanical gardens in Austin and showing off my rapidly expanding baby bump ~25 weeks.  Can't believe I still have at least 3 more months to go!

And making lots of important phone calls at the hotel to Nana, La-La/Elmo and "babies".  Mostly telling them about seeing a train, playing with other babies and eating nummies.

Taking regular trips to the Children's museum, but sometimes we see more interesting things just on our walk there than inside!

And getting ready for a visit from Grandma this week, then heading back to Pennsylvania for Christmas!!  Avinash has been back to his sweet self and just needs to regain all the weight he lost and start sleeping through the night again.  I think we both still jump whenever we get to close to a dog, but that's okay for now.

Project Class Winner!

I had a little surprise at Two Peas today, I am the November Patterened Paper Class Winner!! 

 

This is my winning layout.  I cut out the banner on a Webster's page and used some pictures from this spring.  This was probably one of the happiest times of my life.  The garden in front of the art musuem was full of azaleas.  We had just moved to the museum district and life was pretty perfect.  I was so happy to be home from work while it was still light out and we all headed over to the park together before dinner.  So nice to relive these happy memories.

 

Feeling festive!

I love decorating for the holidays. At home it feels so cozy spending cold nights cuddled up inside with lights twinkling all around. We don't get quite the same effect in Houston. And even though we were too lazy to get a tree here, I'm really happy with the final look.

I actually had the lights up since Diwali in the living room. I got a really beautiful ornament garland and threw in on top of our ladder rail. Gives it quite the mantle effect.

I added these colored lights to our entrance way as well.  I wanted to put up more lights and this was the only place I could find to hang them.  Avinash has been so transfixed with them.  Here's hoping he doesn't try to put them in his mouth (anymore).

Ryan and I spent the last few nights making these paper ornaments.  Not really having anywhere to hang them I sort of scattered them around the apartment.  Some are in vases in the kitchen and a lot are just hanging out on the bookshelf. 

Don't worry I had Hanukkah stars too, which I hung on the windows.  I like how they look during the day but the picture didn't turn out great.  I also got this cranberry bead garland that is now dnagling from some light fixtures.  As well as icicle lights I put up outside on the terrace.  These are totally outshined now by our neighbors displays, but I still like them even if they can't be seen outside.

And that is my little Christmas tour of our apartment.  Goodnight!