Priya Singing and Calling Her Cousins

Here is a cute video of Priya. At the beginning of the video she is singing "Ba Ba Blacksheep". I caught her mid song. Then she picks up the phone to call her cousins. You can hear her say "Hi Bai". That is Gujurathi for "brother". She has much to say before calling out to our dog Sona. That is when she says "B" - one of Sona's nicknames. Enjoy.

Priya's Birthday Party - Wallace Family Edition

In late March, Grandmaman and Pappy were kind enough to join me and Priya in Eastern Oregon in the small town I work in every other month. While I spent all day at the hospital, Priya got to spend some quality time with her grandparents. She also got them both sick! I made it through the week only to get the cold the following week back in Portland.

Back in Portland before my parents left we took the opportunity to throw Priya a birthday party. That way her grandparents could watch her not eat cake! There she is acting like she really wants the cake in the first picture.





Heck, she even played with it a little bit with utensils. Don't be fooled though. None of it was making it into her mouth. I did manage to smear a little bit on her face and give her a chocolate cake mustache!



I will post the pictures from the Patel family party in Houston soon....

Priya's 2nd Birthday Party

I cannot believe Priya turned 2 years old last Friday. Time flies. We had her party at our local park, Wallace Park, on Saturday. The day started out cloudy and we spent the morning and afternoon watching the skies, hoping for the sun to come out. Sun breaks would be followed by a quick drizzle. Even as I was setting up the party in the park the clouds were thick. Then as if I had planned it perfectly, the sun came out right as the party started. It was a nice semi-warm spring day and the party was a lot of fun.

Just like any visit to the park with Priya, the party started with some swinging. Priya loves the swings. She has to hit all of them - the baby swing, the seat swing, the big kid swings, and the tire swing. Watching her on the tire swing with her friends was very cool. She is getting to be a big little girl!

After spending plenty of time on the swings and the playground, it was time to bust out the Pinata! I couldn't find a bat or good stick so a rake handle would have to work. Mom gave Priya a hand, but that donkey wasn't in much trouble at Priya's hands.

Soon the bigger kids took over and the donkey was fearing for it's life. The boys gave it a good effort but the girls did the real damage. First, one girl knocked off one of the ears. Then she delivered the death blow and knocked the donkey in half (that is our heroine on the left in the picture below!). A riot ensued:

Once the pinata was destroyed and we took a moment to enjoy the fruits (well the cheap candy and toys) of our victory, it was time for cake. It looked much better than it tasted:

We all sang Happy Birthday and then Priya helped me cut the cake. I have to remember that not everyone eats as big a slice of cake as me, especially the kids. I was ridiculed repeatedly for doling out massive slices. As usual, Priya didn't eat any cake. Someday....

It was a great birthday in the park. Priya had a great birthday weekend. We all spent the day together on Friday, including Nani who is in town. Saturday we had the party. Sunday she went with Mommy to see Sesame Street Live and had a blast. This was also her third birthday party of the year. We celebrated twice before with both sets of families. I will try to post those pictures soon.

Rhododendron Garden

It has been a rough month. It seems Priya caught every bug under the sun. Bronchitis, cold, flu, viral gastroentiritis etc... That last one she shared with everyone. Not fun. That is why there has not been many pictures to share. But, we are all healthy for the moment.

Last Friday was a nice day in Portland and Priya and I had the day off together while Mom was at work. So, we headed to the Portland Rhododendron Garden. Priya got to work, playing with the dirt:

She was rocking her Puma track suit and new Nike kicks. Looking good amongst the blooming Rhododendrons.

The flowers weren't holding her attention. The ducks sure were though. She ran around saying "Qack, qack". She also threw rocks at them. Maybe I should have bought the duck food?

I managed to find some flowers with rocks in front of them. She told me to sit - that is her big thing right now, getting everyone to "sit, sit". So, while she played with the dirt and rocks, I snapped pictures of her in front of the flowers.

She would not sit still. She was running around the whole time, unless she was throwing things in the water and getting right up on the waters edge. Not very relaxing that part.

A fun day at the garden. She slept well that night. Me too.

Priya Tickling the Ivories

Look for Priya on stage soon:

Houston in March: Rodeo and Warm Weather

We just got back from a week in Texas. Priya and Ami spent the whole week in Sugar Land with Ami's family while I snuck off to Austin for a few days for SXSW. It was Shrayen and Dhilan's spring break, so early in the week we all had a lot of fun outside. Here are some highlights:





Priya loves her cousins as if they were bhais (which means brothers) and that's what she calls them. She was giving them hugs all week long, whether they liked it or not. Dhilan did not like the hugs for the most part! She also loves holding their hands when walking. Priya also got to spend some time with her bhais and her friend Maria Elena at the Houston Rodeo:

We stood in line for this carnival ride at the rodeo only to find out that I could not ride it with her. She was supposed to be too small to ride alone but carnies are not the most strict workers out there. I was pretty nervous letting her ride by herself but I strapped her in pretty tight and motioned for her to keep her hands on the wheel the whole ride. Not surprisingly she loved the ride and had to go again before being forcefully led away upset that she could not go a third time!

Priya loves wagons, this we know. What we found out is that she really likes being in wagons with other people. Everytime she got in the wagon she would pat the other seat which meant - "hop in". Shrayen was the only taker. She even managed to pull Shrayen around in the wagon (I think mostly downhill)!

One of Shrayen and Dhilan's friends had a birthday party on a rare rainy day. The party quickly moved from the zoo to a ceramics painting place. We were not sure if Priya would have fun but she jumped right in and did a great job painting this elephant piggy bank pink and purple.

Priya really enjoyed the warm weather. The first day she kept rubbing her legs because she wasn't wearing pants for the first time in a long time. She especially liked her new skirt.

More pictures and videos are on the way...

San Diego Part 2: Friends and Fun

Sea World had Priya totally exhausted. Although, she was really really enjoying facing forward in her car seat.

After taking a quick rest in the Bumbo it was time to party with some friends.

Tobin and Priya were a handful for me. I guess I better get used to carrying two! Tobin was kind enough to show Priya around his play area:

On our last full day, we stopped by the Snyder house where we had a nice relaxing afternoon in their backyard watching the kids play. We really really need a backyard. We had a great time in San Diego. Might have to come back soon.

Fun and Sun in San Diego Part 1: Sea World

We managed to escape to San Diego last weekend for some warmth and sun (although it has actually been a fairly nice winter in Portland with many sunny days). We visited with some old friends and braved a couple of trips to Sea World. Sea World is super pricey but if you pay a full fare single day admission it is good for a year. Go figure. Priya had a blast at Sea World, especially in the Sesame Street area.

She loved crawling through tunnels. The bottom one moved and she needed a little encouragement from Mom.

I took her on Ernie's Rockin' Eel - basically the rocking pirate ship but it does spins and rocks sideways. These were Priya's first rides and we weren't sure how she would like them. As you can tell above, she was having a lot of fun. She held on tight but had a smile on her face the whole time. Mom took her on the Flying Fishes ride and she loved that one too.

Below is Priya on Sea World's version of the teacup ride. You should have seen Dad's face. It was much worse.

Priya really enjoyed checking out all of the animals as well. It was hard to get good pictures of her and the animals because she was always looking into the displays and the pictures are all of the back of her head. The walrus was one of her favorites. We had to pry her away from this big fella.

More San Diego fun soon....

Priya's Dangerous Sweeping Technique

Priya gets a little bit of OCD from her mom. They both love to clean. Fortunately, Ami is much better at sweeping than Priya. Poor Sona:

Happy Birthday Grandmaman!

Priya's grandmother (Jason's mom) celebrated a big birthday last week. She celebrated on a carribean cruise with Pappy. Priya made her a big card and sent her a video of it.