little one

What a game...

The little one invited me to her school play and yet again, I had to say "Sorry darling. I have an offsite meeting and won't be able to make it. Will have mom and grandma come and video tape it and we will watch it at home!"

She made a sad face that I cannot forget and said "Fine. You have never come to a single one of my plays!" so you have to make it up to me somehow?"

The make it up was to play two games of "Ticket to Ride" back to back with her and Jr. and a game of Sequence just restricted to the two of us!

Usually when we play with two players we stop with 3 sequences. Today she said "I want this game to be special! so let us keep going till we finish the board... "

So off we went till the entire board was done and we had no more cards left to play and what  a game..

I won by the score of 8 sequences to 6 on my last play where I got two sequences which was pure luck and she was kind of upset for a second but her mood changed when she saw the board and realized that we had played one great game.

Life's little pleasures.. what can I say!

Caricatures continue..

One more year rolls by.. the IBM Childrens Christmas party was today. Daddy Narayanan did not go for the first time in 6 years but San took the kids and got the Caricatures done by Big Al.. This has become a family tradition now and has survived six years! Guess we can go as long as they are still considered kids..

They did have fun taking pictures with Santa, face painting etc. etc.. but for once Daddy has to beg Mommy for photos to put in the blog..

Leaving you with the sequence for now..

My cute babies are growing into pretty young ladies! Why? Why? Why? What is the rush? 

Missed the party because the entire day was spent in the Yoga room. Yes, entire day from 9:15 to 7:30 for a special event where a world famous Yogi came and gave us pointers to improve our postures to a small group of people at BikramYogaSanJose. It was enlightening and deserves a separate post!

The season is here.. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

Kids crafts

The kids have been celebrating their brithday multiple times.. with classmates, family, family friends, grandparents only special, dinner at their favorite restaurant on their actual birthday etc. 
Here is a photo from yet another celebration at home!
Wish I had lighting like this at the bowling lanes...

They got  many gifts most of which are arts and crafts stuff. 
Jr. loved this dairy which she promptly bling-ed (guessing that is the right term for it?) 
Today they started working on decorative bangles where you do the decorating yourself. After 30 minutes of going nowhere, they asked me to come help. They were trying to "glue" the ribbons to the plastic bangle and the whole thing was a big mess.  So I asked them to wash the bangles and start from scratch. 
Me : Where is the instructions? 
LO : We threw it out!
Me : GO and GET it, NOW!
Jr. : Here it is. 
Me : (after reading the instruction and figuring out that you are supposed to start with the double side sticky tape before doing anything with glue). You have not even opened this packet with the tape! Why?
Jr. : We don't need the tape.
Me : Says "who?" It says here in the instructions that you have to start with the tape.. why didnt you read the instructions?
LO : It has TOO MANY WORDS!  Who will read that many words. It is not simple instructions!
We finally did restart the project and they did a great job of following the instructions step by step. 
This is what happens when your kids get used to EULA's which run pages long and they just get used to clicking "I agree" on the one hand and have instructions that are "Step 1: sticky tape. Step 2: wrap Step 3: Glue".. 
Today my job is done in this house. Have taught kids something very important.
Always start with the instruction manual!