Farm animals party

My daughter's first birthday celebrated last weekend had a farm animals or Baryard theme. My sister and I cut out farm animals, made out a barn, tractor and arranged the same on the table to give a barnyard feel. The cake was specially designed to match the barnyard theme. (actually the bakery did not have exact barnyard cake, so had to give specific instructions to the decorator)

 We also made masks of farm animals and handed the same to all the kids. Guests really appreciated our "DIY" efforts. 

 We played 3 games ... Tail the donkey, Musical chairs and Memory game. The last one was for couples and it was fun watching the parents struggling to remember the list of barn animals they had just seen.

 Food was excellent ... vegetable pakora, chips, water melon served as starters ... Navratan Korma, Dal Makhaani, Naan, Veggie Biryani and Raitha was the main course, Curd rice and Carrot Halwa rounded the menu. Guests really enjoyed the food ... the sad part was we had ordered more food than required fearing shortage. Thus ended up eating the same food for the next 3 days. 

 We had neatly arranged the return gifts in gifts bags. It comprised of a piggy bank (of different farm animals like cow, sheep, duck, pig etc), a craft toy making set, candies and a thank you note. Overall I was quite satisfied with the way we celebrated the birthday.

 Hubby would have preferred summoning someone to entertain the kids I guess... so the next year it will be his way perhaps :) 

24th May - First birthday party

We had our younger ones' first birthday party over the weekend. I was truly amazed and touched by the willingness demonstrated by some of our friends and family to help out . Within minutes after lunch, family and friends helped us clean up the hall and pack up everything (left over food and presents, decorations etc).

 

 It felt really good to be surrounded by such supportive and generous people.

THANK YOU ALL !!! 

2009 - Indian Cabinet Ministers

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Complete-list-of-Cabinet-ministers/articleshow/4590365.cms

 a good list to be aware of !

Milestone ....

 My older daughter has crossed another milestone ... she can ride a bicycle.

 The look on my husband's face on the day she achieved this milestone was priceless. And she achieved this feat on May 5th 2009 ... much before her 5th year birthday ... due in July.

 We bought this bicycle as a present for her second year birthday. At that time, it was too big for her to even sit on it ... her feet were left dangling in the air if we did manage to put her on the seat. For the first few months after the purchase, she avoided going anywhere close to it. Hubby kept encouraging her to get familiar with its parts atleast ... but she would have none of it.

 After pleading and persuading, hubby managed to teach her to ride the bicycle a week before her 3rd year birthday. This was with training wheels though. 

 Ever since, she loved riding her bike and was quite comfortable riding it to grocery stores, library, parks etc. So it was only a matter of time that her training wheels were to come out. 

 This time though it did not take a lot of effort on hubby's part ... she was quite familiar with the parts and could reach the ground with her feet. But she did whine when the training wheels came out ... eventually she learnt to balance and now can't stop gushing about her feat. 

 Congratulations my dear daughter ! You have reached another milestone !

The same milestone your mother reached when she was 10 years old on her BSA SLR. If you are someone like your mother, you'll continue to love riding your bike for many many more years to come !

POWER OUTAGE

Its amazing how life comes to a stand still in the US with a power outage. This morning, with no warnings there was a power outage in our area. A very rare occurrence for sure. We were already tossing in the bed around 5:30am because of the humidity when the power went out. That woke me up instantly.

 I am known in the family for waking up from my deepest sleep within a second the fan in the room is turned off. It was already dawn .. but I didn't know what I could do being awake. So I lay on my bed. The things we missed:

* A fan to keep the room

* Stove to make fresh tea

* Stove to prepare breakfast / pack lunch

* Lights in the hallway / bathroom

* Garage key since the opener wouldn't function

* My cordless phone

* Internet connection

It was almost our entire morning had come to a halt. Thankfully the power resumed around 7:40 am and we were back to our normal morning routine.

Swine Flu

 The news of swine flu is all across the country currently. I got a scare of my life when the teacher from my daughter's school called up to tell me that the school was going to be closed for the next 10 days.

 I rushed to pick her up from school. There were TV crew members in the school campus and the Principal was seen assuring worried parents. I ran to my daughter's class. The teacher wouldn't give much details about the suspected student. But she assured that the student was a suspected candidate and not a confirmed one. She also mentioned that the student did not belong to the class my daughter studied. In fact that student was not in the same wing. (wonder what that means)

 But I drove back home with my girl ... all tensed up.