Our Tiny Tiger Gets Her Orange Belt

Isha has been taking Taekwondo for about 4 months now and today she had her first test and earned her orange belt. This is her instructor, Mr. Coakley. He is amazing with the kids!! The kids all love and respect him and he makes Taekwondo tons of fun!!!! I am so impressed with how well he deals with all the kids, especially the little ones that have very short attention spans.

So proud of herself. She goes to class three times a week so she was definitely ready for her test today.

After all of the kids have had a chance to do their form there is a ceremony where they all get their new belts. Here is Isha with her old white belt.

Mr. Coakley presents her with her orange belt and puts it on for her and takes her old white belt and ties a knot in it.

Here she is doing her form, Songham 4. The kids have learned all the colors of the belts and the order they are in rank. Isha has really enjoyed making new friends in her class and it has been good for her to learn some respect. I also like that they teach the kids about strangers and what to do if they are approached by a stranger. They also teach them who is a "safe" person to run to. It amazes me how much these little kids can learn and remember!

Congratulations Isha, Mom and Dad are so proud of you!!!

Life Is Going To Get Messy!

Diya has decided that she is grown up enough to be feeding her self full time. Most of the time she refuses to let me feed her and the problem is that she has no idea how to use a spoon yet so most of her eating is still done with her hands. Here she is with a nice warm bowl of cream of wheat that she smeared all over her body and I spent the rest of the day cleaning up!! She will be taking baths more frequently now and it is always fun when I change her diaper because food starts falling out of all kinds of hidden places. The other day I thought she smelled like Chick Fil A nuggets and lo and behold she had a few bites of one in her pocket!! Fun times. I took her to the pediatrician's office the other day for her 12 month check up and she is doing great. She weighed 17 pounds 9 ounces and was 28 1/2 inches long. So she is in the 5th percentile for weight and the 25th percentile for height. I looked up Isha's 12 month stats and she was almost a pound heavier at a year but Diya is almost 2 inches taller that Isha was. I informed Isha that Diya was probably going to be taller than her some day. Isha didn't seem concerned because she said she will always be the big sister. The doctor was impressed that Diya can say 5 words. He said that most kids her age only say one word. I told him that what my kids are lacking in height and weight they make up for in vocabulary. Lucky me!!!

Diya says dada, mama, bye, hi and uh-oh. She loves to wave and clap at everyone. She is still not walking, but she is letting go of the furniture more often and can usually stay standing for a few seconds before she realizes what she is doing and falls on her bum. She has 6 teeth now and is doing a good job using them. The other night she chowed down on a piece of corn on the cob. She is the happiest baby and every day she gets cuter and cuter!!! For the most part her and Isha are getting along pretty well. I love watching the two of them play together. It is really sweet. September is going to be a busy month so we should have lots of fun stuff to post!

Happy 1st Birthday Diya!

It is hard to believe that it has already been a year since Diya was born, but it is true, our baby is growing up!!!

I love this picture. The pure joy on her face makes me so happy. As a mom it is always great to see your children happy.

We had a "garden girl" birthday party complete with sunflower cupcakes with ladybugs. At first I was disappointed in how my cupcakes turned out, but after I got up the next morning and my feet weren't sore anymore and the frosting had hardened I was happy with how they turned out. I am glad that I did them for Diya and hopefully she will look back on these pictures some day and see the love I put into these cupcakes.

I made Diya her own smash cake with lots of pink cake, tons of frosting and few Oreo cookies on top. This made for a great color combination for Diya to smear all over her body.

Diya dressed up in her strawberry dress so that she blended in with the party theme. She even had her very own 1st birthday girl sash!! I figured I had a better chance of keep a sash on her than a tiara.

Diya giving Tony some good snuggles. Just when I think that she can't get any cuter or sweeter, she does!!

Diya loved her cake. It took her a few minutes to figure out what to do with it, but once she did it was all down hill!!! I don't think that the high chair will ever be the same again because it was covered in frosting and cake crumbs.

This is our little neighbor, Ashton, enjoying his cupcake.

Diya and her big sister. We had a great time celebrating Diya's first birthday.

Diya's Baptism

Diya was baptised on August 8, 2010 at the 8:45 Mass at St. Edward The Confessor Catholic Church. Getting Isha to smile nicely in pictures is almost impossible these days.

Mommy , daddy and baby Diya at the baptismal font.

James and Karina are Diya's Godparents.

We are so lucky to have such amazing friends in our lives.

Shawn and Sara drove down for the day to help us celebrate Diya's big day. Sara and I have been church buddies since high school so it meant a lot to me that they were able to be there for the baptism.

Isha and her Godparents, Adam and Laura. Our little group had certainly grown since the last baptism!!

Diya wore the same gown that Isha wore for her baptism.

Diya did a great job! There was no crying even when the priest poured the water on her head. Isha asked me the morning of the baptism if, "that guy was going to throw Diya in the water?" I explained to here what was going to happen and had to crack up at her blunt way of putting things. After church we all went out to brunch and it was nice to sit down with good friends and enjoy a meal together.

Fun In Salt Lake City

We had a few extra days in SLC after the wedding to so a little sight seeing. We spent one afternoon at the Hogle Zoo.

We all took a ride on the Merry Go Round. Diya had fun riding on her cheetah! We took a little train ride around part of the zoo and it was nice to sit down and be off of our feet especially since it was a hot day. Luckily there were misting stations all over the zoo to help cool us off.

Isha and her "sassy" pose!!

Diya and Mommy on the train.

Isha liked the tigers, but she didn't like having to walk. She was frowning in this picture because her feet were tired. We only had one stroller so that meant she had to be a big girl and walk.

Our favorite part of the zoo was Zuri the baby elephant!! She is just a few days older than Diya. We watched as she ran around and played with all her toys. She was so adorable and had lots of spunk!!

Here mom came out for a little bit to check on her baby and to give us a demonstration.

Isha and Diya posing with the huge elephant statue. Diya was not to happy about having the sun in her eyes.

One little monkey checking out another monkey!!!

On another afternoon we took a drive down to the Sundance Resort. It was so nice to get out of the city and see the mountains.

On our way there we checked out Bridal Veil Falls.

Here are a few shots of Isha and Diya hanging out in our hotel room. Poor Diya managed to fall off of a bar stool and got a concussion that required a trip to the emergency room. Poor thing was really sleepy and throwing up. I felt like the worst mother in the world for letting her get hurt, but luckily she was back to her normal happy self in just a few hours.

Isha spent lots of time hanging out in grandma and grandpas room because they had all the fun toys and candy!!

We all spent a day walking around temple square and we were able to get a picture of all four generations together. This was really important to me because I have a picture of me when I was little with my mom, grandma and great grandma and I wanted my girls to have the same thing to look at some day!

So here we are, all four generations of us!!!

Uncle Jamie and Aunt Nicole's Wedding

July 17, 2010

Salt Lake City, Utah

Jamie and Nicole at their reception. They did all of the food for the reception by themselves. We had a wonderful lunch of pulled pork and roast beef sandwiches, pasta and potato salad and fruit and vegetables complete with brownies, cookies and cupcakes for dessert!!! Jamie and Nicole at the wedding ceremony. After the wedding reception we all went to The Copper Onion, where Jamie is a chef, to have more to eat and spend more time visiting with family. I love this picture!! I couldn't as for a better brother or uncle for my girls!!!

Diya got to meet her great aunt Donna, my dad's sister. She also got to meet her great grandma Jeanette who lives in Seattle. I am so glad they were able to make it to the wedding so that we could see them and they could get to spend some time with the girls.

This was the first time that Diya had met her grandpa Jack. She gave him lots of good loves and snuggles!! Plus she enjoyed hamming it up for the camera.

This was also the first time that Diya had met her Aunt Kelli.

Diya and Uncle Marty were best buddies. She took to him instantly and never fussed once while he had here. He is like some sort of baby/kid whisperer!!! Kids just love him.

The wedding was wonderful and it was so nice to have all of us together to help Jamie and Nicole celebrate this great day in their lives.

Graduation Party

Jai's cousins just graduated from college and high school so we headed up to northern Virginia to help them celebrate. Isha and her Aunt Sweetie.

It took Diya awhile to warm up to everyone but eventually she let other people hold her. Anish and Parul finally get a little Diya time.

Diya loves to lean back when you are holding her. I have to be careful because I have almost dropped her a few times when she leaned back and I wasn't expecting it.

The girls had lots of fun being pampered by their aunts and playing with their cousins. We definitely need to head back up so that we can all hang out together again.

Diya is learning all kinds of new stuff. She has started clapping and the other day she finally said Mama. I was so happy to finally hear her say it after hearing her say Dada for months now. Her other cute trick is that she rubs her hands together every time I change her diaper. She is copying me because I use the hand sanitizer when I change her diaper. Smart little cookie!

She loves to crawl under stuff, but then she has no idea how to get out.