New Years Eve

Spending time with my favorite peeps. I was given strict orders that I may not post this pic on fb so I won't. Haha

Happy Christmas Eve

While laying down watching the snow fall Anjali said "God is great, God is good, and now we think him for the snow" I just loved that! We've had great fun around here today. After breakfast the elves delivered a present of play doh and a play doh cake maker/decorator which provided a morning of fun. In the afternoon gifts from aunt Lishie arrived and it started to snow! The first time the girls have seen snow since they were babies and they played on the balcony for a good 30 minutes. I talked them into coming in for hot chocolate with marshmallows and their gift from Lishie. They played with those for quite a while and then we all bundled up and headed outside to build a snowman and throw giant snowballs at one another. Ha! Tonight is lots of baking in perpetration for tomorrow.

Happy Grinch Day

Last night we watched the Grinch movie and had green grinch cookies and green grinch punch. And there's also a picture of our view of downtown Baltimore from our room the other night.

December Fun!

Oh my, isn't that just darling? Finally, the girls are starting to sit still long enough to snap a really quick picture. As soon as you're done they'll jump up and say "let me see" and giggle as they look at themselves. We've been busy with some fun winter and Christmas activities during the day.

One day we decorated sugar cookies. Vaishali mostly enjoyed icing.

My little artist also busy tasting the icing.

And then on Saturday we spent the day at the harbor in downtown Baltimore. Dinesh had been here before but this was my first visit and I loved it. So much to do and see there. I can see us spending lots of time there in the summer when it's much warmer. We walked around a bit and then spent a few hours at the National Aquarium. It was a lot of fun watching the girls get so excited at all they seen there. At one point when we were sure they were tired Daddy asked if they were tired and Anjali replied "no I'm not tired" I think she was really enjoying herself. We left there and walked to a candy store called It's Sugar that had giant candy. Think 1 pound Reese cups;) Yes, I'm still thinking of those Reece cups but I didn't buy any, sigh. The girls however did get their own little bags of candy. We walked the rest of the way to our hotel in downtown for the night and the girls enjoyed their candy as soon as we walked through the door they ask for it. Later in the evening we went downstairs and had dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. Such a fun day.

After dinner I gave the girls some new pajamas with feet in them and they happily posed for pictures. Vaishali is not this much taller than Anjali, she's just sitting up and Anjali isn't. Tonight we enjoyed Happy Grinch Night which I'll explain tomorrow sometime in between my baking.

 

 

Christmas and Flurries

I can't hardly believe Christmas is in just a few days. Being that it's my favorite time of year I don't want it to be over. Today was so exciting; we seen flurries! The girls got all dressed up and ran out onto the balcony, put their tongues out and tried to taste the snow, and then began to sing Christmas carols at the top of their lungs. It was a hoot! I had to drag them back inside after about 30 minutes.
We have a lot to look forward to in the coming days. We're planning to meet some of Daddy's college friends in Pennsylvania tomorrow, then on Monday do lots of yummy baking and open stockings, and then a quiet day at home on Christmas with presents and lots of cooking. Then on Wednesday the boys are flying in. Yay! I can't wait to see the girls faces light up when they get here.

The City View

One more month left in the corporate apartment and I thought I would share the one pretty thing about city life here in Baltimore, the view at night from our balcony.

Our December Wall

With less toys around here in the apartment it's much easier to entertain the girls with whatever I choose. So I put together this letter and number wall with a Christmas theme using worksheets from 1plus1plus1equals1.com The girls are having fun playing with it each day and it helps us to review new letters and numbers. I was so excited yesterday when we went to the grocery store. We were in aisle 3 and Anjali looked up and said "look momma it's a 3 and over there is a 4"! Sometimes it seems like you can tell them this is a "3" a hundred times and they look at you like okay whatever, but then when they're ready they'll point it out to you and that really excites me when I know they've understood all along.

Christmas 2012

This year Christmas will be spent in the corporate apartment here in Maryland. Since we'll be moving into our new home next month and bringing things in and out of this apartment is kind of difficult this years Christmas will be simple. I did all of the shopping in 2 fairly quick shopping trips and one short evening of wrapping. I like simple. Now I'm free to enjoy the rest of the holiday month.

Election Day 2012

Election day is such an exciting day to me. I've logged many hours watching Fox News and CNN during the campaign. I went out to vote for Mitt Romney early today, and I've got some hearty chicken soup cooking in the crock pot so that I can spend most of the night watching the election coverage. The girls will be participating being Romney cheerleaders and coloring pictures of the US flag.

Happy Halloween!

The girls were all ready to go trick-or-treating about 30 minutes before it got dark. We decided to go with our warmer costumes since it was a little chilly today. Vaishali is a bunny and it reminds me of the bunny costume in the movie Christmas Story. Anjali is Tigger and she was so cute at every house we went to when the door was open she said "Trick or treat" with a big smile on her face, and then she would thank them before leaving. She has watched so many Halloween cartoons she knew what she was doing and she was in to it. Vaishali is a little unsure of new people so she would hand me her bucket every time we approached a house and then as soon as we turned to walk away she would ask for it back. Jacob went with us too and Bubby went with his girlfriend Holly in the neighborhood. After trick-or-treating we all went to Golden Coral and we decided Halloween is the best night ever to go there because it's not busy at all.  

October Collage

Birthday & Fall Party

On Saturday we went to Grandma Linker's Halloween party which she enjoys doing every year. Bubby was a coal miner.

Jacob said he was a Jester. I'm not sure I know what that is but I think he looked more like the joker from the Batman movie. We have a huge bag of costumes at home which the boys have collected just over the past few years, but they decided to just paint their faces. Oh well, I guess it was more comfortable for them to play football, horseshoes and such.

The girls had four costumes to pick from that I had bought at the tot-trade sale back in August. Vaishali chose Red Riding Hood and Anjali the Ladybug. A couple days before this we were watching a cartoon on the disney chanel and the Little Vampire movie come on. It wasn't really something for their age and I turned it off after maybe 10 minutes, but in that amount of time Vaishali understood what a vampire was. So, while her costume actually is Little Red Riding Hood, she wanted to be a vampire. She kept running around twirling her cape and growling saying "I'm a vampire".  

 

From Halloween party to Birthday party...

 

The girls birthday isn't actually for another week, and I plan to have another little celebration with my sister and nieces next weekend, but Daddy will be in Maryland most likely. So, we decided to have a party with just the six of us today. It's been a fun day so far. We got the girls a big train table and Daddy and Bubby put it together last night while the girls were in the bed. This morning they woke up and were excited to see it and played with it for hours! After lunch we had cake. Anjali wanted a blue cake, her favorite color, and Vaishali wanted a pink cake. I made them two separate strawberry cakes one with pink icing and one with blue icing and sprinkles. It was yummy and fun. We managed to take a video but no pictures. I'll be sure to do that next weekend.  

 This picture is from last night when we got home they wanted to play with the leaves. It's so hard to get pictures of them together, they just don't seem to want to pose.

 

And one picture from this morning. They enjoy loving on Twinkle but I'm not so sure she likes it, lol.

 

 

Pumpkin Patch

I hurried to get a few pictures of them in together before we left the house. Vaishali is trying to put her arm around sissy, but Anjali thinks she's just trying to tickle her.

I remember the boys always wanting the biggest pumpkin they could find, but the girls both said they wanted a little pumpkin. I thought it was cute Anjali saying "I want a wittle punkin mommy".

Anjali is so in her element here sitting down to pet the pigs, and Vaishali says "it's stinky mommy".

A little late but I still wanted to post this picture of Jacob's first day of 7th grade at C.C. Griffin Middle School. He was so nervous and worried he wouldn't remember where to go as this was his first year of changing classes. And, sure enough in the second week of school he found out he spent the first week in many of the wrong classes;-)

 

 

Children's Museum

Some time back we visited an awesome children's museum that was just perfect for the girls age. The girls love fire trucks and here Anjali is putting on the fireman's hat before she goes into drive the fire truck.

Jacob went with us too, and although he probably wouldn't admit it, he had fun too.

Collecting eggs in the farm area...

...and milking cows.

Jacob in motion on the balance beam.

And just because they want to be like their big brother Jacob, they had to try it too:-)

 

My favorite area was the kitchen cooking area. I think it was Vaishali's too. While daddy and me sat at a booth the girls cooked up stuff and brought it to us. So cute.

I wonder what they're cooking? Whatever it is I'm sure it most certainly has something to do with chocolate.

Anjali making music and Vaishali and me in the background playing with moon dough.

 

A little on stage time.

 

Vaishali teaching Jacob how to drive a race car.

The biggest train table ever was lots of fun!

Just look at her face, is she having fun or what?

Last picture, we were playing in an attic space that was decorated with an african theme. Vaishali dressed up in some of the dress up clothes but she was not having that hat; it was a tad too hot up there. There is a lot more there but we were busy playing. I hope we get to go there again on a weekday when it's not so busy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guess what...

We're expecting baby number 5!

*Image from freeimagesget.com