Happy Holidays

We took Ananya to visit Santa Claus this year, as we have done every year so far. Her first year (6 mo. old), she was fascinated by Santa, last year (1 1/2 years old) she cried her heart out and refused to sit on Santa until Pooneet and I joined in (so Pooneet ended up sitting on Santa's lap!), and so we were definitely a little nervous about what our experience this year would be like.

But this year, Ananya loved Santa! She happily sat in his lap, said "Merry Christmas" to him, and when Santa asked what she wanted for Christmas this year, she replied "Candy!" (poor deprived child) and so he gave her a candy cane and she couldn't have been more thrilled :)

Happy Holidays to you from our family!

Fun family updates!

We have a bunch of exciting news to share!

Pooneet, Ananya, and I are moving this week. We have LOVED living in San Francisco (Pooneet and I for over 5 years!) and Ananya is such a city girl, but we wanted to live closer to family and friends so we're moving to Los Altos.

We are also expecting baby #2! Ananya loves touching my tummy and saying "Mama has a baby in her tummy" :)

And we just found out that we're having a girl! Yay! My dream growing up was to have a sister, and so I'm thrilled that Ananya will get to be a part of such a special relationship. Pooneet is a little nervous about raising two girls - he says no boys are ever allowed in our house! But I also think he's going to be totally worshiped by his Goel girls :)

So in light of all this fun baby news, we changed our blog address to this one and hope you come back and visit to see what we have been up to!

xoxo,
Pooneet, Aditi, & Ananya

Our family album

We just made a photo album from when Ananya turned 2 and we spent a day at Crissy Field. Here's the album for you to see!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Welcome to the world, Baby Avani

Our close friends, Sid and Sarah, had a baby girl and now Ananya has a new little friend to play with!

Here is a picture of all of us with Baby Avani:

Yosemite family reunion

My side of the family (actually, my mom's side of the family) spent a fun-filled weekend in Yosemite. 12 of us stayed in 1 house, and we hiked, walked, napped (me/Ananya), cooked yummy food, ate yummy food, and caught up on all kinds of fun family gossip :)

Ananya had a blast, getting lots of attention from all her aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and even going on a few "hikes"!

Here's a video of Ananya in her hiking backpack:


And another video of my dad taking Ananya into the cold water from a waterfall. She hated it at first, but ended up loving it and spent more time in the water than the rest of us!


Here are some pictures from our weekend:

Baby Wyatt came to visit!

One of my best friends in the world, Rebecca, came to visit one weekend with her super-cutey-pie son, Wyatt and, with Eemo, we had a fun-filled weekend in SF. Ananya had so much fun with Wyatt, ordering him around, showing him how her toys worked, and sharing snacks with him, while poor Wyatt was stuck drinking out of pink bottles, wearing pink bibs, and playing with lots of pink toys. Poor guy! We went for walks, ate sushi, played in multiple playgrounds, went to Crissy Field for all of 5 seconds because it was freezing cold, and, when the kids went to bed, had fantastic girly nights of fun :) We can't wait to play with Auntie Becky and Wyatt again!

Here's a video of the two kiddies on a merry go round:


And here are some pictures from our fun weekend:

Slideshow - Ananya, Age 2

We got professional photos taken of Ananya when she turned 2. Here's a slideshow that our photographer put together for us!

2nd year photo shoot

Last month, we spent the morning walking around the Presidio and playing at Crissy Field as part of Ananya's 2nd year photo shoot with one of our favorite photographers, Veronica Suh (http://www.verosuh.com/blog/).

Here are some proofs that we just got - more to come later, but for now, I wanted to share these with you!

It's good to be home

After a whirlwind couple of weeks, we're finally back home and even though things have still been insanely hectic, it's still nice to be home.

Ananya's Ammama (my Avva, her great-grandma) is visiting from India for the summer, so we've been trying to see her as much as possible. We also had some family in town from India after the wedding, so they came up to spend July 4th with us. And Ananya's beloved Eemo came to spend the day and help out since our nanny was on vacation - Eemo took great care of Ananya (and her mommy!) and in turn, Ananya showed Eemo how to scroll through photographs on her Blackberry!

NYC fun!

After Pooneet's sister's wedding, the 3 of us flew to NYC for almost a week to attend Atish Uncle's wedding. We had so much fun, although we almost melted in the insane heat! It was so hot that there were no horses allowed for the baraat. My take on it is if it's too hot for horses, it's too hot for me :)

To combat the heat, we ate a lot of ice cream, played in Central Park every day, visited Bryant Park and had fun in the reading area and carousel, and saw lots of friends and family. Thanks to the heat, we managed to get Ananya to sit in her stroller again (phew!).

During this trip, the rascal that has been emerging in Ananya decided to come out in a big way...amongst other rascally things, she took a ballpoint pen to the white leather couches in our condo and went to TOWN on them. After hours of Pooneet running around to find anything to help and a few more hours of rubbing all kinds of different things on the spots (cologne, baby wipes, 409), he finally discovered that cheap hairspray does the trick. The things we learn the hard way!

Here are some pictures from our trip:

Week of fun

Ananya had a really fun time at her Priyanka Bua's week of wedding fun! So many aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins came from all over the world, and Ananya had fun learning their names, ordering them around, playing in the bouncy house that Dadi and Dadu bought for her, wearing really cute Indian outfits each day, and watching and participating in all the fun and craziness that is typical of Indian weddings! Here are some pictures from the week:

Ananya's 2nd birthday!

Ananya had a FUN 2nd birthday - an awesome party at Peekadoodle with all of her friends and family (pics to be posted soon) - and then celebrated her actual birthday at her Dadi and Dadu's house with her cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and great grandma :)

Connor's 3rd birthday party

Ananya's friend and first kiss - Connor - recently celebrated his 3rd birthday with an awesome party of fishing in a pool, hitting a pinata (which Ananya didn't really get the point of), and having a fire truck and firefighters come visit! So much fun!

Honolooooloooooo

Pooneet, Ananya, and I traveled to Honolulu with some friends for a quick weekend getaway. Here are some pictures from our trip to Pearl Harbor, the acquarium, hanging out with AJ Uncle and Ray Uncle, dinner at Nobu with AJ Uncle's family, and beach time!

My Bua's Bridal Shower

Ananya had a fun time at Priyanka Bua's bridal shower at her Dadi and Dadu's house. Here are some pictures of Ananya with her Mansi Bua, Aayush Bhaiya, and us!

Two more pics from the weekend

I couldn't resist adding these!

Outdoorsy weekend

Ananya had yet another lovely weekend, taking full advantage of the great weather and the oodles of attention from all of her visitors! On Friday, Anju Mausi came for the second Friday in a row to play with Ananya! Us girls spent the afternoon at Crissy Field, watching all the kites fly, and then went out to a yummy dinner. Ananya has so much fun playing with Anju Mausi and every morning she asks, "Anju Mausi coming?"



Dadi and Dadu came up to spend the night and we spent Saturday wine-tasting in Russian River Valley. It was SO beautiful outside, we were all feeling so relaxed, and Ananya loved spending so much quality afternoon time with her grandparents. She loved singing songs in the car, running around the wineries, and having Dadi and Dadu take her around the wineries to see dogs, trees, birdies and to feed her yummy snacks. Albert, Cheryl, Connor, and Chloe met us for lunch in downtown Healdsburg, which was an added bonus to the trip.







Avva and Thatha spent the night on Saturday and on Sunday, we went to the SF Zoo to meet Bert and Ernie. After spending a 1/2 hour in line to take a photo with Bert and Ernie, Ananya took one look at Ernie and burst into tears and screamed for the duration of the oh-so-brief photo shoot. But you'd never know it, given how she's been talking about how she hugged Ernie (not true) and she said hi to Ernie (not true either!). Thatha and Avva then took Ananya all over the zoo, where she saw peacocks, flamingos, rhinos, lions, giraffes, penguins, and even grizzly bears. Aila, Zayan, and Baby Kenza joined us at the end of lunch, which was so fun, and we went to see the lions and rhinos together.



Slideshow of pictures from the weekend...

Sweep sweep

Ananya loves the broom that my Avva in India gave us to bring back home. She loves hugging it, holding it, and sweeping the house! It's never too early to train kids these days :)



With Tenzin

Coffee is yucky

Ananya hates the taste of coffee. She always asks for a taste, but she always has the same reaction. And then, for some reason, she forgets and asks to taste coffee the next time we're drinking it!

Some firsts

Ananya just created her first grammatically correct sentence a week ago! She was in her Thatha and Avva's backyard, walking the grass, looking at the trees...and then she said...

"Where are you, birdie?"

Back at home in SF, that sentence has changed to "Where are you, plane?" and "Where are you, copta?" (for helicopter).

***
Ananya just went to her first dentist appointment yesterday. The dentist was so kid-friendly, gave Ananya a TON of stickers and a toy..and Ananya thanked her by screaming the entire time. No joke. The entire time. But at least the good news is that the dentist said she has good strong teeth :)

Maui Wowee

Pooneet, Ananya, and I recently went to Maui for a lovely week of fun in the sun! Our friends Cliff, Helen, and their son, Gabe, joined us for the whole trip and Ananya's favorite Ray Uncle and AJ Uncle flew in to visit for the weekend. The trip was fantastic - we spent our days swimming in the pool ("jumba!"), playing on the beach ("beeeech", "ocean", "saaaaaand"), and eating sushi for dinner ("sushi din din"). Ananya had so much fun running around with Gabe and thanks to Gabe, Ananya finally likes eating eggs :)





Here's a video of Ananya playing in the sand:


And here's a video of what Ananya and Gabe did all day long...run!


Here are more pictures from our trip:

Music class

Ananya has been attending Teacher Janny's music class for a few months now and absolutely loves it! Tenzin and Ananya go every week in the bus, which is half of the fun since Ananya is obsessed with buses. Once they get there, Teacher Janny leads the class in 45 minutes of song, dance, free time with a variety of instruments, and some sort of new activity almost every class. And to top it off, Teacher Janny hands out stickers at the end of each class...it doesn't get much better than that in Ananya's world :)

Teacher Janny recently emailed me and I just had to share Ananya's first written teacher feedback! "Ananya looked so cute today in her pigtails. She is doing so amazingly well in music class these days." Pooneet and I are so proud :)

Easter weekend

What a fun filled weekend we just had! Ananya's Dadu, Dadi, and Guddu Dadi came to play and babysit Friday night - Ananya had so much fun playing with everyone, while Pooneet and I went out for a night of fun with our friends.

On Saturday, Ananya's music class teacher, Teacher Janny, was hosting a special music session, so we invited Ananya's friend Aakash to join in the fun! Music class was great - Ananya absolutely LOVES her teacher, all of the songs, playing with the instruments, and, of course, the stickers she gets at the end of each class :) We then headed to Ananya's Avva and Thatha's house later in the afternoon, where Ananya played in the grass, helped water the plants, went for numerous walks, and learned about/saw/smelled poppies along the way. Avva and Thatha had fun babysitting while Pooneet and I went to a family wedding reception.

Sunday (Easter) was a little cold and rainy, but that didn't stop us from going over to our friend Chirag and Rajita's place for an easter egg hunt! Ananya got to play with her friends Surya and Beyla, saw her cousins Aayush and Vunshika, and made some new friends in the process. She loved finding the eggs and putting them in her basket - and she especially loved one of the eggs that had stickers inside (which she proceeded to put all over Pooneet!)

Here are some pictures from the weeekend...

Weekend of egg hunt, zoo, and bouncy house!

Ananya had a super fun weekend! On Friday, her favorite Eemo came up to visit. In preparation for Easter, Eemo brought Ananya a baby chick, yummy treats, and an Easter egg basket. In appreciation for the many hours that Eemo played with her, Ananya showed Eemo (who works at Blackberry!) how to use some features on her Blackberry! Techie kids these days...

On Saturday, we took Ananya to the SF Zoo for an easter egg hunt. We met up with Cliff (aka. Hey Uncle), Helen, and Gabe who just accompanied us to Maui last week (pictures coming soon). We saw flamingoes, a huge rhino ("rhino biiiiig"), penguins ("pengin jumba" which means penguins swimming), and even went on a choo-choo train.







Then we drove down to Dadu and Dadi's house, where Ananya soaked up the sunshine, ran in the grass, played with Priyanka Bua and Chaitanya Foofa (and said "Foofa" for the first time), and, of course, had a ton of fun with Dadu and Dadi.

On Sunday, we took Ananya to see Avva and Thatha, where Ananya played in the backyard the whole time, ate lunch al fresco, and took a nap (while Pooneet and I went to the magical land known as Target)...and then we headed to a family friend's birthday, where Ananya fell in love with the bouncy house. She bounced around for almost 45 minutes and hasn't stopped talking about "bouncy" this week!



Ananya walking in Daddy's shoes, even though the shoes are on the wrong feet!


Bouncy house

So trendy!

Ananya recently got a new headband, which she loves (and which her mommy wishes they made in a grown-up size!). Here are some pictures from Ananya modeling her new hair accessory. Lucky for her, since most of her wardrobe is pink or purple, she can wear her headband with almost everything :)

Morning Routine with Daddy and Elmo

When Pooneet gets Ananya in the morning, one of the fun things they do together is sit on the couch with their own blankets ("bankin" as Ananya says) and watch Elmo (or in Ananya's words, "Elmo La La").

Hanging Out

Here are some photos from February - Ananya eating,hanging out, and going on the bus with Tenzin.

Cousin conversations

In February, Ananya saw Anjali and Ajay at a birthday lunch for Viji Ammama.

Anjali and Ananya had a few conversations. Note that Ananya calls her older cousin Anjali "Baby Anjana" :)





And the kids managed to pose for some photos...

Ring around the rosie

Ananya really loves playing games and singing songs. Here's a video of Ananya doing "ring around the rosie" with her grandparents before demanding to play a game on her iPod!

Weekend of fun

Ananya had a super fun weekend, full of visitors and outings. Priya Aunty came over on Friday and played legos, read books, and pointed out airplanes with Ananya. Then, even though Ananya was sleeping, her friend Aman came over to hang out at night! Ananya got to see her favorite Connor and Chloe on Saturday for a yummy lunch. Connor enjoyed showing off his light saber and Ananya thought Connor's ability to talk in sentences was super cool! She then spent the rest of the day with her beloved Dadu and Dadi, since they just came back from India and she missed them SO much. It was so fun to play with Dadu and Dadi, run around the house, do "jai jai" and, of course, Superwoman! We then spent the night at Avva's house and came back home the next day. Great weekend :)

Daddy snuggles

Daddy and Ananya always have a ton of fun together...here's a picture of Ananya finally getting to be the tallest in the house!

A whole new world

Since Ananya has hit the 90th percentile for height (do we have a future NBA baller on our hands?), we turned her carseat around. She now LOVES being in the car since she can see out of all the windows and participate in conversations with Dada and Mama.

Relaxing weekend

We just spent a lovely weekend in Cupertino - where Ananya had so much fun going to the park, going for lots of walks, and meeting her favorite Zayan and seeing Baby Kenza for the first time! Ananya's parents had an equally good time, making use of babysitting and seeing movies, shopping, and meeting up with friends :)


Lots of love between Ananya and the Verma kids!









When we headed back to SF, we decided that - since at her most recent doctor's appointment, we learned that Ananya has hit the 90th percentile for height - it was high time we turned her carseat around. It was a big move for us - Ananya turned around facing forward and I got to sit in the front seat next to Pooneet. I haven't done that since the day she was born! Ananya loved being able to see out of the front and both windows. New year, new carseat position. Good start to 2010!

India!

We went to India for two weeks at the end of December to visit family and to prepare for Ananya's Bua's upcoming wedding. Needless to say, given all the scary stories we've heard, we were really nervous about how Ananya would manage in India and I was freaked out about the 22-hour flight. The good news is that all our stress was for nothing - the flight was totally peaceful, Ananya made lots of friends, and we even managed to get a few hours of sleep! Once we were in India, Ananya had the BEST time. India is amazing for kids - the sheer number and variety of animals on the street (cows, elephant, monkeys, dogs), the love that family members shower on you, and the yummy yummy food makes for an excellent time.

India was pretty amazing for Ananya. With all of the new sensations and experiences, her vocabulary immediately increased tenfold, she learned new words, sayings, and songs almost every day, and she really enjoyed going to new places and meeting new people. She became a lot more confident and assertive, and really delighted in being the center of so much attention.

We first went to Delhi/Gurgaon, where Ananya got to meet Tinu Chacha, Anchal Chachi, Dada, Aparna Dadi, and her great-grandmother. She LOVED her daily rituals of going outside to watch the dogs, saying hi to the bird that lived inside the house, praying multiple times an hour, eating yummy food, and getting lots of love and attention.



We then went to Bangalore, where we stayed with Aditi's Avva and Ananya met her Satish Thatha, Lakshmi Avva, and Minu Mausi. Ananya had a fun time meeting all her other relatives at the party that MuthAvva threw for her and loved that Baby Avva came all the way from Hyderabad to spend some time with her. Ananya loved roaming around the house, riding in auto rickshaws, taking baths, and ordering everyone to take her "out"!



Some new words she picked up: bhaiya, aaja, jai-jai, om, auto (pronounced "autoooooo")

All in all, even though the jetlag and flight were pretty exhausting, Ananya had a great time in India and we hope she gets to visit again soon!

Here are some more photos from our trip: