Went to our favorite Mandalay beach resort in Oxnard this year for the kids spring break. Had a gorgeous presidential suite so the kids had their own room. Gorgeous beach balcony views. Went with the flow: beach, pool, pizza, relaxing. It was a lot of fun! Perfect type of vacation for our crazy unique family.
Aanika and Jatin performed in this years Germain Holiday Show 2017. Jatin was on double duty because he performed with both chorus as well as 5th grade and was an announcer! I learned my lesson this year and hid from Aanika during her performance and she did much better! Ms. S was giving her chocolate throughout the performance to stay up on stage 🙂
Aanika posing after a successful performance with her classmates!
Snapshot of Jatin and Fianna during the Chorus performance!
July 4th this year was quiet and perfect. We did not in particular and just enjoyed the house and relaxed in the pool. Before it got too hot the boys played a bit of basketball outside and then we hit the pool late afternoon for a few hours. We also finally got Nick to join the Pottermore site where he was sorted into the Gryffindor House. I am a Slytherin and Jatin is a Hufflepuff. Â Some day we’ll find out what our Aaniku is!
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 😉
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!
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!
Okay so in our attempt to get a gorgeous photo of Naya, Jatin and Aanika we took them to a portrait sitting at the mall! As you can see my kids are big hams and love the camera. Our darling Naya wasn’t quite as excited! Still a lovely memory of the hectic, fun filled time we live in. A few of my favorites below.
We started Thanksgiving day out by taking the kiddos to the park for some fresh air and fun! Aanika loves the slide now and Jatin and Nick played Frisbee and some Basketball.
In the early evening we hosted Thanksgiving Dinner at home. Post dinner we played some life which quickly changed to Monopoly because it’s such a better game! We are blessed to have such a loving, warm, compassionate family. Life is great. Happy Thanksgiving!
We are blessed to live in such a nature rich environment that we have started introducing Jatin to the surrounding beauty of our neighborhood. The air was crisp, clean and the sun was shining. So rather than be cooped up at home this morning we decided to go exploring for a Holiday Hike / Run in our back yard. Jatin enjoyed it so much that he asked if we could do this every week. Let’s bring in the new year fit, happy and enjoying the sunshine.
Jatin and I created a unique set of “Gingerbread” Houses this year. There was actually no gingerbread involved! One house was made of graham crackers and pretzels. The next one was built with a sugar cube foundation with accents in chocolate wafers and the third was made of graham crackers and colorful licorice. Jatin had such a fun time designing and creating our unique candy city this year that he requested we don’t ever go back to buying the mini village kits like previous years. That’s my creative kid!! Willing to put in the extra time and work to build something creative from scratch!