New Car Seats!

This past weekend we stopped by and picked up a new car seat for Sean since Rhea was starting daycare this week and we were i car seat short. Rhea was so excited about cheta's new car seat. Aji had it in the family room before installing it and she was busy trying to climb on it. She was so happy when i sat her on it.



It was her favorite toy for the night!

Rhea is 11 months!

Our lil girl is so close to turning 1. Its amazing how fast the past 11 months have flown by..its been such a wonderful experience...

Rhea is such a cutie pie....she has so much energy and is always so cheerful...she always has a smile for us. She loves to walk...she will go around the ottoman holding it for support. She also loves it when we hold her hand and walk her around. She seems to want to talk a lot and communicate. She already has a few words to her growing vocabulary. he r first word was Tata. Whenever she hears the garage door open..she thinks someone is heading out so she'll wave her hands and gently say Ta-ta, ta-ta...I wish I could record it and play it here...the other words are Dada and mama...and also a host of babble...like mum..mumm..mimm..huh..huh..ha...ah etc. Music continues to be a first love. She goes ballistic when sean does the prayer before meals which is a song. She starts clapping hands and grins from ear to ear 

Aji taught her to say hi too but she says it so gently its almost a whisper :) The funniest though is when you ask her a question...doesn’t matter what question - she will nod her head up and down as if to say 'Yes'. I think she understands a question from our tone and immediately she will start nodding...its hilarious. She has also learnt to give us a kiss - a wet one at that! She will come close to your cheeks and then stick out her tongue and do a small lick :) the best part is that she will be at your cheeks for some time..its like she doesn’t know when to end the kiss:) She is so silly :)

Happy 11 month birthday to you my dear vave!!

Family Portrait time!

Dressed in Overalls!

Brr...its cold!

The weather the past few days can be aptly termed 'Biting Cold'. The highs have been well close to 32-33 degrees farenheit which is 0 degrees celsius and the lows have been as cold as sub zero farenheit.

Old man winter definitely knows to get his message across. He must be smiling away and blowing all those heavy winds our way as we sit and freeze. he seems to be asking 'So who's the BOSS?' and we mortals can only shiver say back 'YOU ARE!!'.

Now if only spring could make a big dash and save us from this misery.....

KEEPING FINGERS CROSSED...
KEEPING FINGERS CROSSED...
KEEPING FINGERS CROSSED...

Mom, you're the best!

yes...those words are from Sean...needless to say i was flying high for next few hours..

Let me give you the full story...Daddy and Mummy spent the weekend at Anishchayan's house. So it was just the 4 of us this weekend. Needless to say we were busy bees. We had some errands to runa dn since it was biting cold we decided to take turns. So saturday morning after i fed the kids, i managed to bake cranberry bread before i stepped out of the house. My mission of the day (as sean always says) was to get Rhea a winter jacket and some clothes in prep for her day care debut on the 15th. I had been out for about an hour when aji called me and passed the phone to Sean and he said - Mom, You're the best!!!

I was almost in tears..aji explained that they had been down in the basement playing and when they came up they were all hungry and they delved into the bread. Sean loved it so much he immediately proclaimed -


Mamma, is the best because she makes all the yummy things!!!


I love you Sean! You definitely know how to make my day!!

Fun time...

Today evening we had so much fun...Sean got his favorite prop...the hat that he uses to pretend like he's a train engineer...he even got a spare one for rhea...she was clearly amused by all this and we had a lot of fun...I had a great time trying to capture the moment...it was hilarious...all of us were hysterically laughing for no apparent reason...Love such simple pleasures of life...

Mommy & Me

Since i hardly post any pictures of me with Rhea i thought i should post one...so here it is...



Picture of me and Rhea early this week!

First Snow of the Season..

The way this winter was shaping up we thought we'll never see any of the 'white stuff' this season...the weather has been so much like spring and so less like winter even nature got fooled to some extent...we saw quite a few cherry blossoms in bloom and the daffodils woke up from their hibernation hoping to add color to the dreary world....alas...winter decided to make a late and grand entry and thwart everyones happy plans...

Today we got our first snow of the season...the weather the past few days have been seasonable...mighty cold I would say since we had gotten used to the occassional 50's and 60's. We are not expecting a huge accumulation this time but it is slightly more than a dusting...Sean seemed to be the only one excited about the snow and has been wanting to step out to make a snowman...maybe we can convince him that its not a great idea..i have to admit it looks beautiful outside but only till the moment you have to step outside...

Here's a view of our deck and our front yard...

Our deck

View from the front door
Now if only there was a way for my daffodils to get the message and get back in the ground. Hopefully they wont face premature death and can manage to make it to spring. Here's hoping that spring makes an early arrival..

Collage of Memories

Few pictures from the last few weeks...not in any chronological order...


Dada, I love the view from up here

Basement picnic for Dada & Sean

Appachan and Ammachi with their lil darlings!


Gramma & Me all smiles


Appachan and Ammachi with the kochumakkal on X'mas Eve.

Striking a pose before rushing for X'mas mass


With Ajoo and kids on Xmas eve


Too tired to hit the bed


Dada's biggest fan!


Me and my teddy :)


Brother & Sistah

Rhea is 10 months old!

yes...i'm a little late with my 10 month announcement...but hey better late than never...

So here is our little boog at 10 months old..as happy as can be even though she has a ear infection!


Just now she was sitting on my lap happily and the Tv was on in the family room. She heard the title song for 'Kutties choice' a kids program on Surya tv that has a very catchy title song with lots of kids dancing. She loves that song and as soon as she heard it she wriggled out of my grasp and crawled as fast as she could to the family room. When i caught up with her she was grinning from ear to ear and clapping hands...you had to see it to beleive it. We have one HUGE music lover here...wish i could catch her whole reaction on tape...it was hilarious and unbeleivable at the same time...

Heart to Heart Career talk

I know...too early for this one...but it was so good to hear Sean's rationale for his career choice of the moment :)


TRAIN LOVER

Today on our way to school, Sean was pretending to be on a train and said,

Mama, I'm sitting on a train.

Me: Where are you going on the train?
Sean: To the Noth Pole
Me: Who is in the North pole
Sean: Santa
Me: What is santa doing in the north pole?
Sean: he is going to give gifts for all the nice boys.

Me: Sean, Santa is not going to give gifts all the time...only during X'mas time.
Sean: But the boy in the polar express train ....the train driver helps him and ...

Soon he lost his train of thought and kept talking about trains in general and he announced,

I WANT TO BE A TRAIN DRIVER!!

Me: Sean, what do you want to become when you grow up?
Sean: I want to be a train driver
Me: Are you sure? What about becoming a Doctor?

He didnt want to disappoint me, so he said,

Sean: I want to be a doctor and a train driver.

however soon he changed his mind...(it was as if he couldnt betray his true love)

Sean: I want to be a train driver because i love trains. Baby can become a doctor.
Me: Why?
Sean: Because baby likes doctors...

Yeah buddy with all the recent Dr visits you would think that she LOVES doctors :)

I love these conversations with him and I hope I'll rememeber to share this with him in a few years when he has something new lined up for his career...

Thats my favorite thing in the world!!

This is Sean's favorite quote. i think he picked it up from Little Einsteins...Leo is his favorite little einstein and he wants to have a baton just like Leo and conduct.

These days anything we ask him he might say -Can i do this mama...its my favorite thing in the world...

I wonder if he really knows what he means...well, do we all really mean what we say all the time...atleast it sounds cute when he says it :)

Look at me- I can stand all by myself !

Rhea has started to stand all by herself now. She's been doing it for the last couple of days and can last upto 10 seconds before she falls flat on her butt. She does it with ease too as if she's been doing it for awhile. Pretty soon she is going to figure out 'walking' and then it'll be fun.

Sean has a lot of fun playing with her these days. She is always following him and her favorite spot is under the dinner table. Did i tell you what her favorite hobby is these days? - Picking up all the all the tiny bits from the floor and putting it in her mouth. For some reason she thinks that everything is a snack..she doesnt even stop to see what she has in her hand...as soon as she spots something she'll crawl fast and get her hands on it and in lightning speed it goes in her mouth. She even gets pretty mad when we try to get it out of her mouth. Looks like we have Ms stubborn in our hands.

So these days we have to constantly watch her...lets also say that the house is much cleaner these days since we are constantly vaccuming the floors...AAh there's always some good that comes out of every situation right!

Grooving into 2007!

This time we decided to host the New Years party at our place. The planning for the event started in the previous year itself...well the last few days of 2006, so here's how it all unfolded, Once the venue was decided, the next thing everyone wanted to finalize on was the cuisine..Indian Chinese was the unanimous choice and so aji placed the order at our next door Minerva restaurant. We also decided to do a secret santa for the kids and all the parents picked up the lots. The last thing on the list was to decide on the games and that was settled towards the very last.... The day before the party is when we though of the kids menu and Shankar and Bhavani graciously offered to pick up the fetuccine alfredo from Olive Garden. We started thinking about games and music and once again shankar offered to put together some jammin songs in time for the party :) Our trusted cleaning lady had a family emergency and was out for almost 4 weeks so what do we have in our hands...a very dirty floors and a broken vaccum cleaner..a trip to Costco solved that problem and soon aji revved up the vaccum cleaner and put it to work hard...Vrooom...Vroom..Vroom…

I decided on a few appetizers and finally the list was shortened to a reasonable 4 - Pita chips and egg plant dip, cutlet balls for the meat eaters, Patra for the veggies, fruits and veggies served with a delectable cheese fondue and chips for the junkies...i mean the kids.. We had ordered for gulab jamun from Minerva but I wanted to make an assortment of sweet bites. Aji wanted to try something new and different and suggested a trifle. I was wary at first coz I was unsure how much everyone will enjoy it but decided to give it a try. The night before the party Rhea slept with Appachan and Ammachi and Sean slept on the couch as I worked on the Trifle listening to all the songs shanker had compiled while Aji loaded it on the ipod. Aji also helped me cut the congo bars and the brownies that I packed into tiny goodie bags, and I also set the table and we were up till 12:30am..it was fun and for some reason reminded me of my paying guest days in Bangalore when my friends and I used to be up late night chatting and munching and just having fun..

Morning rolled in fast and after all the last minute cleaning and cooking and setting up we managed to dash in for the 12:45 mass. Made a quick stop by party store and got some hats for the kiddo game and some streamers and we were all set..Shanker and Bhavani are always the early birds and they didn’t disappoint this time too...anishchayan made some rockin’ cosmos and soon thereafter everyone rolled in slowly... We had music in full blast and everyone had a round of jiving before we did the kids game..a modified passing the parcel...anytime someone gets the parcel they had to perform....the kids were really good and were outsmarting each other...but the night belonged to Aashay with his brilliant dance moves...we then did the secret Santa and the kid couldn’t be happier...

The Kids strike apose after secret santa!

This followed with more jiving. Dinner ensued soon after for the kids and the adults had the apple dance which was such a huge hit.

Apple dance
After more music and dancing we decided to take a break and everyone had dinner. food was spicy and a tad bit greasy but everyone enjoyed it.

Yum Yum Yum
The trifle was enjoyed thereafter and them more dancing and games followed...we celebrated the new year with champagne and sparkling cider and streamers all over..More dancing followed and we had the white elephant and the 'How well you know your spouse'. This was followed by ‘Patron shots’ …not for the feeble hearts.

It was well past 2:30 am and the kids were still very wired up....we decided to call it a day ...with a goodie bag and a calender for the new year...everyone parted ways.. A great time was had by all!!

The month that was...Shhh..I'm talking Dec 2006..

Its been quite a while since I wrote here for lack of time if not anything else....i dont think i had a busier holiday season than this time around in the last 6 years since our wedding...

Most of it though was because both Sean and Rhea have been down with one virus after another...it was as if we were bombarded with an AK-47 loaded with different kinds of cold viruses....as i speak or write...Rhea is recovering from her first ever ear infection ..she had her last dose of antibiotics today...Sean meanwhile had his dose of antibiotics before the onset of an ear infection 2 weeks earlier. I was very surprised when Dr Rowe diagnosed sean with 'almost an ear infection' since it was his first close encounter with the dreaded beast itself...I really hope and pray that we dont have to go through any more of these with both the kids...Ha ha wishful thinking you would say...but I'm ready to cross all my fingers and appendages in that hope ...although truth be said Sean has already started sneezing again and am pretty sure in the next couple of days...its going to turn into another full blown 'pediacare-tylenol-delsym' routine for us...Uggh...I'm so ready for Winter to be over...speaking of which it hardly feels like winter here..atleast the temps have been comparitively mild...i dont think the viruses got the memo regarding the mild winter season because it has been the sickest winter for us to date. Ok enough of my rambling already...

Well, lemme sum up the last couple of weeks at the Joseph residence,

I was working all through the holidays which meant last minute holiday shopping but I'm glad we got everything done with 1 big 'not as tiring as i imagined' trip to the mall...talk about productivity.

Sean was super excited about Santa's impending visit and I was hoping that he would be equally happy with Santa's choice of gifts for him...i mean he did get everything on his wishlist ..well almost everything...he wanted the train drivers dress(denim overalls), Little Einstein DVDs, Thomas the tank engine PJs, a Spiderman watch(he wanted fire engine - but he didnt seem to notice). Santa even left him sleigh bells with his presents and a steam engine ornament as a momento of his visit!!! Sean was over the moon...his favorite gift of all -the denim overalls...he has been literally living in them...we have to bribe him to put them in the washer. He also got a motorised train set from chechi and sarah and a video game from Alex.

Rhea got a cute butterfly rocking chair and a stuffed bear and a singing goat.She had the most fun though with all the wrapping paper :)

We went for X'mas eve mass and the entire Joseph clan had dinner at our place...we had pig in the blankets followed by chicken carbonara, arugala, beets and warm goat cheese salad and biscuits and finally banana pudding for dessert..

Everyone was up bright and early X'mas morning anmd after digging into all the loot that Santa had dropped off we went over to Anishachayan's place. We had a heavy brunch..chechi made sure we were all full to the brim :) and i could start to feel the jiggle. We came home in the afternoon and Rhea took a nap..sean stayed back. We went back just in time for more food...loads and loads of appetizers and drinks...by the time it was time for dinner we were all stuffed...there was a huge Naadan spread on the table...oddly enough dessert part of the dinner is a little fuzzy in my memory....Aah coz Rhea was beginning to get fussy by then...it was way past her bed time.....thinking back...now I remember - Chocolate covered strawberries and Chocolate cake.We didnt stay back too late since I had to go to work the next day and the kids were getting very cranky. The rest of the week/month was pretty uneventful as Aji and I were working except for all the getting ready we had to do in preparation for the New Years party at our place...

It was time to say good bye to a fantastic year !!

That in my next post...

Budding Chef

Last weekend me and sean made the ginger bread house. This was our first real prject together and I didnt have my hopes up...sean always wants to help me with whatever I'm doing in the kitchen these days... so i thought this might be fun project to do...I assembled the shell of the house and put all the icing to cement his decorations. Initially he was trying to sneak a candy or two but soon he was engrossed in the decorating..i was very impressed...i did help him with the smaller candy..but its truly his work...here are the pictures of the iron chef in the making with his master piece...

Finger foods...Mmm..Mmm Good

Today evening I gave Rhea her first biter biscuit. Sean was not fond of these at the same age maybe because he didnt have any teeth...but Rhea already is the proud owner 2 pearly whites and she is always gnawing at everything she can get her hands on. So I figured she is ready for some biter treat...and Boy was i right...she was holding to it tight and going at it like it was crack..I'm convinced it is baby crack alright!!..and she sure is addicted. I had to finally almost steal it away from her after she downed almost three fourths of it...just because it is close to dinner time and so that she won't lose all her appetite. Hopefully we can force her to have some dinner tonight....I'll wait another hour to start that battle...

Here are some pictures...


Mom, You caught me!!

Mmmm...Mmm....this is sooo good.

Now lets see how much more I have..

The end result

She has also been getting sneak previews of other foods like tid bits of pasta, eggs etc during dinner time thanks to dada,mamma and cheta..

These are a few of my favorite things!

Yesterday on our way back home, I asked Sean what he had for lunch and he said 'Chocolate'. I knew he didn’t remember coz I'm sure he must have hardly ate any lunch. I had checked the lunch menu on our way out and knew it was 'Fish Sticks and tater tots'. Not one of his favs …

Anyways as we drove home I asked him,

Sean, what is your favorite food? and he said Chicken Nuggets!

Me: What else?
Suddenly he got very excited and said,
Sean: Chocolate!!
Me: What else?
Sean: Pink lemonade! and after a pause he shouted COKE!!

In my mind i kept thinking ...he loves all the junk food ...just like his mama :)

After a few moments he shouted Green Coke.

Me(puzzled: Green Coke?

Sean: Yeah! We have it at home...

I'm pretty sure he was referring to the ginger ale...maybe thats slightly better than coke i thought…with the ginger and all..it must be good for your tummy right?

Anyways as i was smiling at all his fav foods the scene from the movie ‘The Sound of Music’ came to mind when Julie Andrews asks the kids what their favorite things were and then breaks into the song 'Rain drops on roses and whiskers on kitten...these are a few of my favorite things!!'

I wish I could compose a song the same way with Sean’s list of favorite things...he would have enjoyed it so much! He loves music !!

Speaking of music...he is so in love with 'Little Einstein’s' now ...I like them too partly because they have lot of classical music in their shows and their theme song is catchy and I hum it all the time. We didn’t know the words till couple of days ago so I went online and found it and printed it for him and even though he cannot read he treasured that paper like it was his bible and kept asking me to sing it for him all the time. Its amazing that after just 1 day he picked up the lyrics and he knows the song all too well now.I need to record it soon...its verys ute to haer him sing- he's so proud of himself :)

So these days on our way home we sing the Little Einstein song and the he'll say,
Mama, sing the jingle bells song with me mama...

I love the way he asks me...so we both break into 'Jingle bells...Jingle Bells!!!'
Soon after he'll say lets sing the 'Nose song' .

The first time I didn’t have a clue but soon I knew...he wanted me to sing 'Rudolf the red nosed reindeer'...

I love our drive back home these days...i cant wait for Rhea to join us soon...I can tell she takes after her cheta...whenever a song comes on tv she goes very quiet and is glued to it...at the end of it she'll have a big smile on her face :)

Rhea is 9 months old!

Rhea is 9 months today. She had her 9 month appointment today. Here are the stats,

Height: 27 inches (50th percentile)
Weight: 19 lb 7 oz (70th percentile)
Head Circumference: Hmm..i dont remember ...but she is right on target and thats all that matters right!