Long Time, No Post!

Eeek! it's been a while since I've last posted! So much holiday madness, and so many pictures to share!  I'm about a month behind, so be expecting cuteness in your mailbox now that things have settled down a bit.

With all the talk about Ishaan's outfits on the last post, you might be wondering what Amaani wore to that wedding. 

Amaani wore this cute little number that my dad brought from India.

 

Isn't she just gorgeous!(Amaani's pretty cute too)

And she also wore this outfit from Simrin and Chaku Masi in California. (Ishaan is beginning to think California is synonymous with 'not here'; since we talk about it so much.

We had a lot of fun- Since so much family was attending, it was great to let the kids go for a bit and enjoy the festivities!

Mama Made: Pocket Pants

Lately Ishaan has become obsessed with pockets. And I mean clinically obsessed-- it's starting to effect his daily functioning. He stuffs them full of all his precious toys (I guess the ones that he doesn't want Amaani to play with). He won't sleep until he has all his clothespins and what not with him. His pockets get so full that his pants sag below his diaper and he has trouble walking. I'm hoping this is a short phase. 
 
Ishaan has a gigantic tantrum if his pants don't have pockets. As he is only two, and as quite a few of his pants are homemade, we only have a few pairs that have pockets. When those are dirty, or not warm enough, we end up leaving the house looking like this:

We put a pair of 5T shorts (thanks Smita Mami!) over his pants. The shorts have the biggest pockets in the house.  Note that he also has a man bag for his acorn collection.




 

We had a wedding to attend this weekend; and he certainly wasn't going with shorts over his pants. What to do? I decided to make him two pairs of pocket pants.  The dark brown pants have inset pockets in the side, and the light brown pants have patch pockets going along the front.

I somehow managed to go the entire weekend without taking one good picture; but here they are in action. 







I was so excited to see him putting things in his pockets over the weekend. Maybe it will be ok if this phase lasts a little longer.

An apple a day....

 Our little 'Mani was sick last week.   I woke up late Friday night and realized that she was burning hot. We've been lucky so far with very few sicknesses for both the kids; but that also means that I still panic when the temps start hitting the 100's.

 Since we were up all night; my parents came and took Ishaan in the morning. (Did I mention that my parents are awesome? I called them at 7 am when Ishaan woke up; and I swear by the time I said, "Mommy, I need your help", they were already in the car. They, along with Niki and her fiance Aneel dropped everything and babysat for the rest of the weekend). Amaani stuck on Kartik like gum on the bottom of a desk for the rest of the day.

Here she is eating yogurt-- I had the pleasure of having that puked on me an hour later.  Twice.

Unlike Ishaan, Amaani was just very, very lathargic when she was sick. We could barely get a smile out of her. She didn't even have a bit of that theplu that my mom sent.



Not to worry, though.... she's fine now. She's active, and back to causing trouble. This was taken on Monday:

We cannot keep her in her highchair-- she just wiggles out!

I know this is the first of many colds and stuffy noses that we'll weather with her, but I am so thankful for the good health that she does have.

Mama made: First Quilts

I have a backlog of projects that I'd like to show off on the blog; so I'm going to try and post someta project every week. This one I just finished recently.

This is one of the oldest; longest running projects that I'm posting here. When I was pregnant with Amaani I got it into my head that my kids HAD to have hand-made quilts in order to feel loved after the 'new baby' came. Those of you who have been pregnant will understand the combination of urgency and insanity that is nesting.

Kartik and Ishaan ended up driving an hour with me to find the fabric for the top , and I made my sister come to joaans to pick out the backing... and then I dragged my poor mom back there next weekend so I could get a price adjustment on the stuffing.

I wanted to have the done by Ishaan's first birthday, Christmas (2010), then when Amaani was born... but I'm happy to have finally finished them.

They are the same quilt pattern, in different colorways.  Here are close ups of my favorite fabrics in each.

I quilted straight lines for Amaani's quilt but I got brave and 'drew' a bunch of stars on Ishaan's using the sewing machine to match the star fabric on the back of the quilt.

It took for.ev.er. I was so happy when I got them downstairs and showd them to Ishaan and Amaani. Amaani loves hers and has been using it all weekend. She gums the binding and wipes her nose on it just like I hoped.

Ishaan took one look at his and said "No, mama... I don't like it no stars." in this sing song voice like I was the toddler, and he was the adult.


I'm just going to wait another week and show it to him again. If he still doesn't like it-- I'll sleep with it!

Holding Hands....

I've long lamented that I can't get a picture of both my kids in the same frame. At first, Ishaan could barely be near Amaani, and now they can't share a square yard without fighting ("s/he's poking me!!!")

A few weeks ago, I took my new camera out to a field nearby our home with both kiddos to kill some time.

I told Ishaan to sit with Amaani in the grass and hold her hand so she wasn't scared. I'm a genious! They actually played well together for a whole 10 minutes. 

I'm not crazy about how the pictures turned out techinally, and I'm certianly not loving Amaani's diaper showing, but I do feel like I was able to capture how sweet they can be together.

The cuteness actually lasted quite a bit; even after Ishaan decided that this holding hands business was boring. He decided it was far more fun to throw grass in Amaani's hair. 

Luckily she thought it was pretty funny...

I have a lot to learn about my camera, but I'm glad it gives me an excuse to get out and play with these two munkins.