Category: Holidays

Holidays

Happy Thanksgiving

nainadg

 

I am grateful for my son- every minute, everyday, always.

This year I am grateful for my community-

playgroup moms who talk potty training, playdates, timeouts, with me 5 days a week,

girlfriends who are happy to spend a night in drinking Sangrias and to take impromptu trips to Forever21.

mashi and didi’s (aunties and sisters) from my bengali community, who give me traditional recipes and invite me for delicious dinners.

Student’s from J’s lab who invite us to keggers that still keep me feeling like I’m still 25.

Guys who watch football with me and are willing to share their infinite knowledge and trivia of the game. Extra shout out to the ones who make bad jokes and strong cocktails

My cousin who is no farther than a text away and is equally happy to discuss Real Housewives of Miami and Bun’s cold with equal enthusiasm

My friends who are far away physically but share their lives with me via text, facebook and instagram

My parents, my family, my husband who are always there to pick up any of the balls that I may drop.

Today I’m cooking a meal in all their honor, for all the grace they bring to my life

 

Family, Holidays, Life, Love, Mommyhood, Toddler

Sickie Valentine!

nainadg

This is not the Valentine’s day I had planned for. No hearts anywhere. I tried making Bun a heart shaped egg but he rejected it like he has been rejecting most food. We are sick, Bun, J and I so all three of us are spending the day indoors sniffling and bundled up and watching way too much tv

We are not going out to dinner, we are not exchanging valentine’s and I had to cancel Bun’s valentine’s day party. But its okay, because, there will be dinner this weekend and a cupcake for Bun tomorrow and many more parties to come. Because I’m lucky enough that I get much more than valentine’s and hearts from these two boys of mine. Today, and everyday.

Happy Valentine’s Day. May yours be less snot filled than ours

Holidays

2012

nainadg

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Happy New Year!

I am starting out 2012 a little bit behind on blogging and life in general but it’s a new year and I am optimistic that not only will I catch up but life and blogging will have improved in 2012.

To embrace the spirit of new and different this post is being published from the wordpress app for iPhone. Woot woot!

Looking forward to all the potential that 2012 brings! Cheers

Holidays, Toddler

Christmas.1

nainadg

Christmas is so much more fun when there are kids involved- even toddlers who don’t quite get it! I’m just going to get straight to the visuals.

J and I woke up really tired on Christmas morning, since we went to bed really really late because we stayed up practically all night on Christmas Eve. When Bun woke up that morning we just brought him into bed with us and let him watch a few Yo Gabba Gabba videos, I snuck down and got him a cup of milk too, just so we could sleep a little bit more. We ended up heading downstairs almost close to 8:30

And Then This happened:

Photos!!!!!

And of course more photos!!!

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Notes to Self about Bun and his Christmas as a 2 yr old

Me: {Points to presents under christmas tree} What’s under tree Avi?

Bun: A Twee Kirt (Tree Skirt)

Repeat a variation of this conversation almost every day we had the tree up. We have been watching the Christmas episode of Yo Gabba Gabba on heavy rotation and they mention putting a tree skirt once for like a second and it absolutely captured his imagination. I secretly think he would have been just happy if we told him the tree skirt was his present instead of the train table

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Bun pronouncing Christmas as “Grizmuz”

Bun saying “Thanks Santa” and then following it up with “Welcome Santa”

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Bun’s obsession with the “Dog” Stockings. We had stocking up by our fireplace and my mom also had them up at her house. My mother being the overachiever  had  stockings up for the two dogs as well. They had little paw prints on them and were really not spectacular in any other way especially compared to the other ones. But it caught his fancy, he was obsessed with talking about “Yaya Tocking” and “Maggie Tocking.” He didn’t really even mention or glance at the other ones, even his own.

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After the excitement of the presents had died down. J and I were cooking our big christmas brunch in the kitchen while Bun played with the Train Table and looking through our kitchen doorway and seeing the absorbed joy on my kiddo’s face was just an amazing feeling.

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Take more pictures of details and self. Stuff no one else in my family seems to care about. give directions if needed.

Baileys in our christmas morning coffee and I think we are definitely going to have to make this a tradition.

Put the tree up sooner next year

Bun365, Holidays, Mommyhood

Pumpkin Patch {Ganyard Hill Farms}

nainadg

Its not october if you don’t visit the pumpkin patch! Just for the record, I’ve only felt this way, since I became a mom. We went to our annual pumpkin patch trip on sunday to Ganyard Hill Farms in East Durham. We visited last year and we couldn’t wait to take Bun again this year, especially since we knew, he would enjoy it so much more.

The skies were blue, the weather mild and the air was crisp. A perfect day to spend time with some goats, walk through a corn maze and go on a hayride.

We got to the farm around 11:00AM and the first thing we did was check out the “Goots” Bun was super happy to feed them “Coons” and pet them through the fence.

The Hayride was next and we got a seat right behind the tractor. Toddler Mind = Blown

It was the first time for me at a corn maze and this was a really simple one, designed for kids. But this was my favorite part of the day. We let Bun run ahead in front of us and pick which way to go. I wish I was able to capture his “Dis a way” on video but my Blackberry video did not quite get it.

Isn’t my boy beautiful? I think so! These are my favorite photos of the day.

Since Bun had such a fabulous time on the Hayride, we thought he would enjoy climbing on the tractor. Wrong!

The corn pit was only mildly successful! He really disliked the texture the first few minutes and he was really concerned about the mess. But eventually he relaxed into the corn and even walked around in it.

Bun was getting tired and fussy, so we finished up with some pumpkin photos

Another Pumpkin Patch visitor was nice enough to get a few photos of the three of us!I love how these turned out, especially this one! I posted another one here, if you are interested.

Notes to Self:

– Bun’s shirt is from Children’s Place

-Bun no longer says “pum pums” He actually says Pumpkins. This makes me a little sad, because I died of cute, every time he said pum pum

– Next year, do not pay attention to the weather report and wear short sleeve shirts

Bun365, Football, Holidays, Mommyhood, Week in My Life

Pumpkin Patch- A Week in My Life Sunday

nainadg

This is the last post for Adventuroo’s Week in My Life Project. I’m going to keep this post short, not because I didn’t get enough pictures like Friday and Saturday, but because I got too many! And yesterday was such a fantastic, busy day where I was out and about and hanging out with friends that I haven’t had time to go through and sort the photos yet.

I want to do a separate post for our Pumpkin Patch visit so I’ll post more pictures under that.

Sunday morning J, Bun and I had a Thomas the Train party in our bed. Bun watched Thomas on my laptop and J and I tried to sneak in some more sleep.

We also had a mini dance party afterwards in our jammies to my new favorite dance song- Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People. Wish I had my camera for that but it was a fun impromptu moment that I’m going to cherish

The rest of the day can be summed up from my Facebook Status yesterday

Naina DG
Headed to the pumpkin patch on this perfect Fall morning and then football in the afternoon- Go Cowboys!

The pumpkin patch was so much fun and so was football! The Cowboys lost, but it was still a fun afternoon with friends and the toddlers out partied us all!

And Week in My Life is done! I was really apprehensive about doing this challenge, but, I’m so glad that I did.

Sitting and going through photos at the end of the day was a such a meditative moment for me. It helped me focus and take in all the bits and pieces that make up my life. Who knows what my future holds,  Next week can totally suck, but my Now is filled with happy moments – big and small and these are moments that I could never ever have imagined for myself.

Bun365, Family, Food and Drinks, Holidays, Mommyhood, Week in My Life

Dinner With the Family- A Week in My Life Friday&Saturday

nainadg

So my original plan of doing Friday and Saturday separately for Adventuroo’s Week in My Life project is not going to happen. None of my pictures from Saturday is worth posting,  So I’m just going to jot down what we did on saturday at the bottom of this post. Sunday’s post is going to be skimpy too, but you’ll have to read it to know why.

Friday and Saturday were both busy days for me, it as mostly running errands, dealing with a tantrum-ing toddler and getting craft supplies busy

Friday night my parents invited us for a family dinner to celebrate Bijoya- the last day of Durga Puja. My mum cooked an elaborate dinner and we ate and ate and ate some more after we were already full

My parents have a toddler size camping chair on their deck for Bun and he loves to sit in that and look at my mum’s plants.

Bun and his Dee

 For Dinner, we had Stuffed Puris- fried bread with spices and peas stuffed inside, goat meat curry, Baked Fish in a cilantro and Coconut sauce, chickpeas chilli and rice and dal

My dad found this chocolate wine and decided to open this as a dessert wine and it was interesting. I like wine and I like chocolate, but I don’t think I like them together in a bottle.

But despite the negative review all around, we still finished the bottle. Now wine is ever wasted if my family around

After dinner, Bun read some books with my dad to get the bedtime routine started. And then since it was getting late, we said goodnight to Dee and Babu and headed home.

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Saturday Highlights

* I bought supplies for Bun’s Halloween costume

*Went to look at houses with my parents

*J, Bun and I took a family trip to the Verizon store at the mall to see if the Iphone 4S was in stock- it wasn’t

*We ate some Chick Fil A at the food court and then wandered around and saw some diggers and bulldozers.

*After Bun went to bed, J and I hung out and got caught up with our DVR and then I went to bed.

Holidays, Toddler

Easter! Easter !

nainadg

I am an Easter Newbie. I didn’t grow up celebrating easter because unlike Christmas it somehow didn’t spill out into the global secular diaspora. Although I do remember getting Good Friday and Easter Monday being a holiday at school but it was mostly a spring break of sorts.

So egg dyeing, easter bunnies and baskets were very foreign to me.  But this year, it was all different.

We dyed some eggs. Bun didn’t really care for it too much but J and I had a lot of fun

Our favorite easter activity was to go to a Easter Egg Hunt at the Horace Wallace House in Chapel Hill. The house is the office of the Chapel Hill Historic Preservation society and is situated in one of the prettiest corners of the triangle.  Unfortunately, the day was rainy and cloudy and muddy, but we still had a lot of fun at the hunt

OMG!!! Ugggggs as Bun would say.

He doesn’t say OMG but he does say Ugggs for Eggs

He was very serious about recycling the eggs, he didn’t really want to put them in his basket

Trying to open Ugggs

You can see some of the details of the Wallace House

Where’s Bun?

I let him taste un watered down super sweet lemonade.

After most of the legitimate participants had finished the Egg on a spoon race, they opened it up for all the babies and latecomers. So Bun decided to participate

That meant , I had to hold his arm up and walk alongside him

He did go around the full course though and only dropped the egg 4 times.