Our favorite family golden froggy got broken about a month ago while Aanika was playing with him on the court. We weren’t sure quite what to do as he has become part of our family over the years. Nick took it upon himself to figure out how to restore our precious but shattered golden frog. He found potters glue to painstakingly put back each piece. Once that was completed he filled in all the cracks with putty and finally added a finishing golden touch with a fresh paint job. Our golden frog is back watching over our beautiful home again. All is as it should be. #blessedfamily
Author: gundara
Valentines 2017
We joined the kids for their annual school family Valentines Dance this year. It was pouring so everyone was crowded into the gym. Jatin had fun dancing with his friends and we managed to get a family portrait taken! Aanika was a little cutie pie as always with the classic buns that our lovely babysitter Jenny whips up in under 2 minutes! For valentines at school this year Jatin had to write personalized notes to each of his classmates which was very sweet. He got back some notes that had a consistent theme of being a great friend, being very funny (class clown ??), and very sweet! Aanika also worked with me on personalizing valentines for her classmates. We used the beautiful paper from Neeru’s wedding cards and made handmade heart valentines this year with Aanika’s stamp and drawn A’s as her signature. All in all a lovely valentines day….but in our house Valentines is year round 😉
Harry Potter Legos – Diagon Alley Finally Complete!
It’s been 3 years since I received the Harry Potter Diagon Alley City Lego set as a gift. I managed to build 2 of the 3 buildings over the last few years, but this last one Gringotts Bank was taking entirely too long. Luckily Jatin darling is now old enough to handle more complex builds. He has been helping me slowly put the building together. I went up for a break, and to my surprise I came down to my kiddo in his adorable red bathrobe finishing off the building on our bar top! Finally, our Harry Potter Village is complete! #teamwork #motherdaughterduo #harrypotterlegos Oh and yes, that’s a vintage Omnibot in the background. (Next project 😉
Brody Gundara’s 1st Lohri
Christmas 2016
Christmas was lovely as always this year. The weather actually felt like winter time should with rain and tons of wind. My goodness the wind was crazy! Anyhow – we decorated the house, played plenty of Holiday movies and music and hung out together. This year Christmas Eve was quiet just the four of us at home, and then Jatin, Nick and I headed to San Diego for Christmas Day to celebrate the Booter’s 15th Wedding Anniversary and new home. Aanika’s favorite lovely Nani came and stayed with her while we were gone. We had a lovely time at home and while out and about in San Diego. Jack Elf Gundara showed up and bounced all around our house during the holidays as well. Hard to believe the year is almost over. We’ve had a lovely, busy, awesome year. Here’s to many more!
Gingerbread House Making 2016
We decided to make Gingerbread “Graham Cracker” structures this year instead of purchasing a kit of any kind. Jatin and I made mini camping tents as our main structures plus one log cabin. Jatin and our neighbor Mark decorated their village while Aanika ran around and continued to take a stash here and a stash there of the candies 😉  The boy’s creation got swarmed by ants within 1 hour of being completed…but luckily we had already gotten the footage on camera! Happy Holidays!
Kid’s School Winter Concert
The kids performed in their annual school winter concert. Jatin was in 4 featured songs with Chorus and 4th grade and Aanika performed 2 songs with her class and the 1st graders. Mommy (Nani) and I were pleasantly surprised that our Aanika darling stayed on stage for the entire performance even after she spotted me in the audience. I found out later that her amazing teacher had a small Elsa doll stashed on stage for Aanika to keep eyes on 🙂
Enjoy the video below!
Thanksgiving 2016
Well another holiday season is upon us and as Thanksgiving is one of our favorite’s we invited our beautiful family over for another Thanksgiving Dinner this year. Cooked // Not much (but I did make my spicy chicken soup that weekend!) Chose to enjoy the family more, and focus less about too many dishes and the stuff that usually keeps me on my feet all day! Baba Sweets for lunch with the fam, dinner catered by Lulu’s Restaurant for dinner along with Mac N Cheese from Mommy! Rinky’s samosas, onion pakoras for appetizers. Gulab jamuns along with some mango cake and apple and pumpkin pies for dessert. More importantly though was that we were all together. We’re blessed and thankful for our beautiful babies Aanika and Jatin and for our amazing family. Jack Elf Gundara showed up at the end of the weekend from the North Pole to check on the kids. Jatin had a blast sleeping over at his Dadiji’s house after Aakash’s birthday party celebration and the plant life were happy as it poured for a day after Thanksgiving. Happy Holidays!
Halloween 2016
Halloween 2016 here we come! Okay, so Jatin and I have been reading and watching all the Harry Potter Films again 😉 so it seemed like a pretty natural choice for him to transform into Harry Potter for Halloween this year! We bought his Hogwarts robe from the costume shop, and then painted an old clip on tie from his closet red and gold and I knocked out the lenses from a cheap pair of gold rimmed glasses and finally we made our own wands out of rolled up paper, hot glue and paint. AMAZING! His costume was awesome and he really did great acting the part and casting spells when needed!
Jatin’s 9th Birthday!
Jatin just turned 9 this week and to celebrate he wanted to have his friends over for a party. We started the evening off at 5pm on a Saturday with a game of basketball between Nick and Fianna on one team against all the boys! We then played a game of murderer and as soon as it got dark we proceeded to a night time scavenger hunt throughout the yard where about 100 of Jatin’s action figures, mini soldiers and Pokemon toys were placed. Each team of 2 had 1 flashlight, and a bucket to collect the toys. By the end of about 10 minutes the team with the most toys found won a prize. Post scavenger hunt the kids were ready for some pizza, chocolate oreo cake which was then followed by a much anticipated Super Smash Bro’s Tournament. There is a video documenting highlights of each event throughout the evening below as as well as some of my favorite stills from the night. Overall 9 year olds are awesome and fun and really LOUD! 🙂 Key players: Jatin, Aanika, Fianna, Farhan, Michael, Eligh C, Diego, Aakash, Kyra, Sarah, Jonah, Mark, Peyton and Harnek. Happy Birthday Jatin! We LOVE YOU!!!!