New Years 2012

We were home for New Years. which was so nice after a long xmas haul. Paul had work that day where he worked from home. 

The sky open! the sky is open!

This past week, Syona had the holiday week off at home with baby kyran and us. She didn't know that it was going to be mama , dada time- but she seemed very happy to be home, at least she got very close to us

She'd wake up and cry out "the sky is open"- daylight is here. Good way to wake up at 7 :)

Mickey and Minnie-d out

So being the obviously semi-naive and over-ambitious parents we are, we literally did 5 XMAS parties in a row, I went to work on Dec 26th and we left that night to disney. I was slightly overwhelmed on the trip, but it was really fun to see how excited the kids were, esp at midnight in the hotel with two lil rascals running amuck screaming with glee and playing with each other as we waited for our room. We got the 5 day hoppers.

Day 1:
Slept in. Had a great complimentary hot breakfast buffet, went swimming (as Syona could not absolutely wait) and went into the California Adventure park later that afternoon. Had Kyran in his XMAS tree Mickey shirt and had Syona in her minnie mouse ears and minnie shirt. SO FUN! Got the kids some cotton candy and explored CA. It was a pretty modern park with a whole CARS exhibit area that Kyran liked.

Day 2:
Slept in again, went to Disney. Took syona to meet the princesses, had her dressed up as rapunzel. She loved it! Also went to Toon Town, kids had fun playing the various things to see there. Watched fireworks at night. This was the best. Kids catching snowflakes with their tongue.

Day 3: Disney. Took the kids to Small World. They loved it. Paul took the kids to Mad Hatter party at CA. Syona watched an Aladdin show, she is now old enough to sit through a show we learned. Kyran absolutely loved the Monsters INC ride. We rode it 3 or 4 times. Syona really liked it too. We saw the band play again that night outside again. Had Syona bring her Rapunzel doll, I think it was this day.

Day 4: Dragged the kids up at 6AM to make magic morning. With a 5-day hopper, we get one morning to get in the park an hour early. So with Syona kicking and screaming saying "noooo I don't want to go to disneyland. I want to go to hotel room!" We had both of them with head flashlights that we got them and gave to them the day before, and they had so much fun wearing it! haha

WE bought annual passes, as we did not want to waste the $50 lost, so we ended up spending like an extra grand. I guess we will be going all year with family through the year. YIPPEE

XMAS 2012

It's been fun getting ready for the holidays with two lil munchkins in the house. A 1 year old and a 3 year old totally believe in the magic of xmas and can sense some excitement blooming around. Of course all the present shopping was a nightmare as always, and we probably over-bought for the kids (A-gain), but its fun. For syona, we got her a lil cute puppy that barks which she loved and Kyran got a train set (that Santa ordered from Amazon which ultimately came late), so instead he got a spanish book with a steering wheel on it. hahaha.

We have been keeping up with the tradition of spending XMAS morning with just the 3 and know 4 of us, which is a nice way for us to wake up with the munchkins and have special time with our kids. For the afternoon and into the evening, we had a fun family party. Mommy and daddy flew in from India, so that was a nice xmas present. i think. and we had nikita's family, rupal's family (minus 1)..., Bhabhu and Baiji, and for the first time ever, Bhaven's family! It was fun to have a cousin/parent night and watching the kids open up a plethora of presents.

XMAS EVE 2012

This year we spent XMAS eve at George's house. It was fun to hang out with all of Paul's family and for the kids to play with their cousins, chloe, bryce, lucas, miles, lauren. It's nice having a 3 and 3/4 year old because she just runs upstairs and plays with the big kids and we can semi-relax for at least part of the night. Even Kyran likes to follow and be with the kids also, it's very sweet. Of course the kids had more presents which they adored, pizza making play set, mini piano, a beautiful xmas book with elaborate pop outs. 

Kyran's Last Day Action DAY

Kyran had a good run at Action Daycare. Miss Fatia was such a excellent caring nurturer for Kyran as we transitioned him from baby to toddler in a school setting. The teachers were really sad to see him go. We are excited that Kyran will be at My Dream Academy with Syona now! hurray! Memories of Kyran at Action Day: Running to you when you pick him up, Syona so excited to go get him and help get out his lunch box from the fridge, Kyran pointing to his lunch box when it is already out, Syona and Kyran running outside laughing hysterically, Kyran toppling over because he is laughing so hysterically! Happy happy times.

Thanksgiving 2012

For Thanksgiving this year we went to Grace's house. Paul and I made two pumpkin pies out of fresh sugar pumpkins and sugar cookies that looked like Turkeys. Poor Kyran has been sick on and off for a while, and had a slight fever that afternoon. He spiked up at Grace's house to around 103 which is when we took him back home. Poor baby. For the time that we were there, it was fun hanging out, saying what we are thankful for (I said I am thankful for all of our health and our time together), as some of the members of our family are tragically not with us, that these are precious times and we must cherish them. Syona looked really cute this night, as well as my lil kyrnie. I am so thankful for my family.

Kyran and Syona Learning

Kyran has had good awareness of his surrounding for several month. You know this when we ask sYona to go get her shoes, and he shows up with her slippers. However, he has taken a bit more time in  stringing together words to describe his surrounding. Outside of bao-bao, muma, dada, he now can  readily say things like car (which he likes a lot), up/down, ba, ba-nana, nainai, dadu. Today, I did notice that he pointed out moon and star on a book that he has not read, which pleasantly surprised me. He has grown in other ways- instead of being his usual easy going nature, he now has much more of a temper when he doesn't get his way, sometimes throwing food, and certainly crying out loud when he doesn't get his way. That said, when he is in good mood, and just wants to communicate a NO, he has the neatest little shake head shake to say what he doesn't want.

Syona on the other hand is learning leaps and bound. She can basically count to the biggest number she knows, one hundred- in english. In spanish, chinese, gujrathi, she definitely has it up to 20. She is quite adept at knowing when she does something wrong (and also when you don't follow your own rules) and at relating things she learned from a book to what she is going on in her own life.

Halloween: a princess and a batman

It was our first year trick-o-treating in our new neighborhood! We brought the kids home from school and got them ready in their costumes! I decided to let Syona indulge: I curled her hair, did her makeup, dressed her up, probably even sprayed some perfume. She was a DOLL. We quickly threw on Kyran's costume, minus his cape since I think we lost it at the Action Day Halloween party. Kyran was all over the trick-o-treating. We had them packed up in the double stroller and did the in and out thing. He would hobble over to the front doors and mumble out his own rendition of "trick-o-treat" and get the candy and look in his bag every time to see what he got. After going down the street and back down, we fed the kids a quick dinner and then drove them over to trick-o-treat at my mom's house. It was really cute when people would ring the doorbell, kyran would give candies to the kids out of his candy bag :) We let them eat a lot of candies that night, and then I basically made Paul take the rest to work so it was not in our house.

Halloween Parade at MDA

Syona's parade at MDA! It was fun! We had Syona wearing her rapunzel outfit with her long blonde hair. I had Kyran with me that day and he was in his Superman Outfit. It was cute how Kyran was sitting next to Syona in their costumes before the parade started. Syona did a few rounds walking around the parade, of course she had to keep sweeping her long blonde hair out of her face.  When Kyran and I left, she was really upset and didn't want us to go, but then Miss Sintia said Syona could help with the music and she was better and let us leave.

Kyran Growing up.

The little bugger is 15 months now. I can’t believe it. His words are: Cheers, Muma, Bobo, daddy, dada, more mum mum, mumm, mmmmm mum. He likes to blow when his food his hot, phhhhhhhhhhhhh. He giggles and giggles like crazy. He loves to chase Syona around the house. And he loves to be chased and tickled too. I just adore him. He cuddles with me on the couch, on the carpet, in my arms, in bed. No matter where we are, he just wants to be on me, next to me, held by me. He loves when I rub his back and anticipates little tickles on his sides. When he cries, he lowers his head and puts two fingers in his mouth. Hahaha too cute. He understands when we say you take him, or put him sleep or I’ll take syona. He knows to stand his ground and cling on and not give up without a fight.

100 Piece Puzzle

Syona put together her first 100 piece puzzle the other day. We set out our jigsaw puzzles on the dining table, so she can just work on her puzzles and have some nice quiet time before bedtime. Hasn’t really helped, she still is up like crazy til at least 10.  She is really good at these puzzles now though. The 24 piece ones are just too easy. The 63 piece ones are challenging but she actually likes just doing the “biggest” puzzles so the 100 one it is.

Wedding in July

We trekked up to Lake Tahoe at the beginning of July for Mike and Feng’s wedding. When we got to S. Lake Tahoe, the kids had a good time swimming in the heated pool. I had picked cute little coordinating outfits for them throughout the weekend, so it was fun watching them, dressing them up, playing with them. Syona wanted to go on a boat during that weekend and we told her she could but just not that day since we had to get ready for the wedding. The cute thing is, Paul had been trying this new system to get her to behave by saying everytime she did something good, she would get a gold coin. And she would need 10 gold coins to watch TV. So when we told her she couldn’t go on the boat that day, she asked, how many gold coins would it take? Smarty pants. Kyran loved the sand out by the lake. Kyran had a good time dancing on the dance floor. I think he actually went to sleep in the middle of the wedding reception, woke up and partied it up again. He really liked cuddling on Diana’s bf Joe’s shoulder. Super cute! And poor Paul was out building sand castles with Syona because she felt like the noises were too loud for her at the wedding. Here dada was not every happy with me that I didn’t go look for him. Hahaha I think Paul said he didn’t talk to anyone that night because he was on the shore! Aw, and the whole time, I just thought it was precious!

Kyran’s First Birthday

Baby is 1! He is no longer a baby but we still call him Baby Kyran. It was nice being able to set up a party for him at home. Something I would have wanted to do with Syona but our house was too itty bitty before. The theme was Superhero! We got him a cute little flappy spiderman shirt and he wore it with his Joe Jeans and his Nike Airs- LOL. We got a Spiderman jumpy house in the back that took up practically half the yard. We ordered some Chinese food lunch and of course basically celebrated the fact that we actually made it through another 1 year. The fun part was we did some champagne and OJ. All the kids had little red super hero capes and we had spiderman toys for the giveaways and some puzzles for the girls. I had gotten a nice little bunch of balloons that I had attached to his highchair that we noticed mid-party had floated away without anyone noticing. I am only glad Kyran wasn’t holding on to it, otherwise he could have floated away too. Actually no, his jeans were probably too heavy. Another baby raised til 1. Good times.

Wedding on Dada’s birthday

Kyran sported his tux at a wedding we went to in April. He was adorable to say the least, esp because he started walking. Both kids had a good time dancing and playing at the wedding. They were both sleeping when we got to the wedding, so the ceremony was a breeze since my mom had driven us in one car (since Paul had to get there sooner), so she stayed with the kids while they slept in the car. Kids had fun, we had good food and dada had a good birthday! We also managed to get a good photo out of it!

syona is 3

We had a memorable tinkerbell birthday for syona's 3rd. The night before we hung all of these balloons outside her door to surprise her when she rushed out in the AM.

 I couldn't help but to pull out all the crafty stops and make these cute little flower bands for all the girls.

Syona was decked out in her tinkerbell wings with purple extensions, some fun jewelry and off course tinkerbell glitter.

This year was really fun because Syona knew it was her birthday and was excited to have her friends come over. We had Gabriel (who apparently thinks he is her BF- when he got in the 3 year old class, he would visit the 2 year old class on his way home to give a hug to Syona), Maya, and Riya. Super cute.

We had lots of sidewalk chalk out with tinkerbell stencils. The kids had fun playing games. We had a gift hunt in our backyard, pass the present around a circle to music and open a layer, and let's all do a pig poster puzzle together (to which Syona had enough and had a small tantrum involving having to share the puzzle, she likes to do them herself). That was pretty much the end of the party. I think we all napped after.

Sandbox!

Had a merch sale at work and scored this free sandbox! kids love it. perfect for the upcoming summer months! Gotta keep an eye on the lil one since he eats it. haha.

Bathtime with the lil buggers

We've been bathing them together. Kyran is so fun and easy going and look at Syona. Such a character. It's fun to watch them play!

Cuddling with my two babies

Paul would laugh because almost every time I am holding my two babies like this, I say Paul, take a picture! We are cuddling. I love it. The kids love it. Paul could probably pass on a few of these moments :)

Cute lil Blankie Fairy

We had a fun playdate with our good friends Kendra and Jason and cute lil baby logan at our place! Here are some pics and a story that kendra made of the day.

Syona's First Shower with a Showercap

This was so silly. She loved being in our new shower with a shower cap. It made so much noise when she put her head under the shower and she laughed and laughed.

Baby Kyran First Haircut

We took baby Kyran to get his first haircut. He sat in a little red car and he did pretty good! Much better than the bigger monster. No more long bang in his eye. Hurray! And extra bonus, they had a bouncy house at the hair cutter that day so both kids played :) He looked so handsome and also had his first lollipop!

SYona doing homework

lil one doing homework

She's three and she has homework! Syona has transition to her new class and is doing great, here is a pic of her tracing the letter S. S for syona.