Thank You!

Arya had a Fairy Party for her 6th birthday and we had such a great time. I still need to post photos from that, but in the mean time I wanted to post this sweet thank you note that she gave me after the party. :) She was writing them for her friends, and after she was done she brought this one to me.

In the note, she says thank you for the Do and Discover, which is the science kit that we gave her for her birthday. She also says thank you for the cake and the pixie juice, which I made for her Fairy Party. I just took lemonade and put a little green food coloring in it to make it bright and colorful to match the decorations. I put a sign on it that said "pixie juice" (Thanks for the idea, Pinterest!!) and the girls loved it!!

Here's the back of card. If it is hard to see, Arya is on the left (labeled "me") and I am on the right (labeled "Mommy"). Arya's background is pink because that is her favorite color and my background is green because that is my favorite color. :)

She was absolutely thrilled with the science kit, which lets you do all sorts of science experiments. She had seen a similar one in a catalog some time ago, and mentioned periodically how fun it would be to have a science kit, but she was really surprised when she opened it. I wish I had her reaction on video...she just kept saying, "I can't believe it! I can't believe I got a science kit!!!" By the way, this week she told me that she decided she wants to be a chemist because she loves chemistry! (The kindergarteners periodically go participate with the high schoolers in chemistry class and get to do all kinds of fun experiments. Arya LOVES it!)

Arya Loses Her First Tooth!!

Tonight Arya lost her first tooth!! The day after her 6th birthday (1 week and 1 day ago), she noticed that her front bottom tooth (on her right) was starting to get loose. She's been wiggling it all week, and a couple of times throughout the week she has bitten into something and forgotten about her loose tooth - making it more and more loose. Tonight I could tell that it was about to come out. Arya was so excited!! (Meanwhile, I have felt a little sad that my baby girl is old enough to be losing her baby teeth!!)

Tonight we had to make a trip to the Indian grocery store in Indianapolis to pick up supplies for the restaurant, so we decided it would be fun to go for a walk along the canal. We were hoping to get to go for a pedal boat ride, but ended up arriving 14 minutes after their cutoff time of 6:00p.m. (Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us take a boat out even though they were still open until 7:00p.m.!) Arya was so disappointed. She couldn't understand why all of the other people were still out boating but we were not able to boat! :(

We still had fun at the canal. The kids loved seeing the fountains and the big goldfish, and blowing the fluffy dandelion seeds that they found. They also loved yelling "ECHO!!" and listening to the echoing sounds whenever we went under a bridge.

After our visit to the canal we headed to the Indian grocery store and Arya and Alex found some guava candy (like the kind Hama had brought them from Toronto). We bought it and went to the car to wait for Rajeev to finish picking up supplies. The kids both had a piece of the hard candy and before they had finished it, Arya's tooth just popped right out! She couldn't believe that it was so easy. It didn't hurt, didn't bleed and was not traumatic at all! She was so thrilled that she even begged us to tell the guy working the drive-thru at Wendy's (where we picked up dinner) that she had just lost her first tooth! So cute! :)

It was a busy evening and Arya and Alex were both asleep in the car by the time we got home around 9:30p.m. I guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow night to leave the tooth for the tooth fairy since Arya didn't get to put it under her pillow. I am sure that the tooth fairy will understand!! :)

Alex Feeds the Ducks

Weatherwise, we have had a very strange end to Winter and beginning of Spring so far. We have had extremely warm weather very early (at least a week of temperatures in the upper 70s and into the 80s in mid-March!) We have been able to spend a lot of time outside and (aside from really bad allergies!) this has been GREAT! Rajeev and I are trying to get ready for the Mini Marathon and we've loved being able to run outside.

This afternoon, Alex and I went for an outdoor run, and decided to stop at the duck pond to see the ducks. We brought some crackers and Alex had so much fun feeding the ducks...especially since there were 3 little ducklings that followed him all around and were very curious! He was so excited that he was actually jumping and dancing around with the little ducks. It was so sweet. The ducklings kept following us as we got ready to leave, but eventually we got them to go back toward the pond with the other ducks. I was afraid we might end up with 3 new pets!!

I had my phone with me and snapped these photos that I had to share. :)

"I like her."

Yesterday, Arya went back to school after 2 weeks of Christmas vacation. Alex and I were out doing a couple of errands in the morning and when we finished around 10:30a.m., he asked if we were going to go pick up Arya. Our conversation went something like this:

Alex: Are we going to go pick up Sissy now?
Me: Are you ready to go pick her up?
Alex: Yes.
Me: Well, she is not finished with school so we can't pick her up yet.
Alex: Well, I want to pick her up. I like her. :)
Me: Do you miss Arya?
Alex: Yes. I miss her.

It was just so sweet, and I wanted to jot it down so that I could remember it. :)

Arya Starts Kindergarten

Arya started kindergarten this week! I cannot believe how quickly the last 5 years have passed. We found out in June that Arya would be going to Burris. Around July, we learned that kindergarten was being extended to full day rather than half day. Then a few days before school started we found out that all elementary grades would be adding an extra hour to the day!! This makes Arya's school day 8 hours long, which has been quite an adjustment. She has been doing great, but has clearly been exhausted these last few days. (We stopped having her take an afternoon nap about a month before school started in an attempt to get her tired and to bed earlier so that she could also start getting up earlier. We definitely made progress, but it has ) She has today off due to faculty meetings, and I think that the break will be good for her as she continues to transition to her new routine!


Rajeev, Alex and I all walked to school on Monday for Arya's first day. Parents were invited to stay for story time. Mrs. Huffman read The Kissing Hand, a sweet story that made all of us parents get teary. :)


As for kindergarten itself, Arya seems to be enjoying it. On the first day she used the following words to describe it: great, amazing, fabulous, and perfect!

She has two friends from preschool in her class and she has made friends with a couple of other kids too. She loves the playground. She seems to really like her teacher too. She liked playing with the parachute in gym class this week, getting to check out a book from the library, playing a game in class to get to know the names of different students, and learning to read the phrase, "I like to..." (She is ready to read a different book in class though because they keep re-reading the one that just uses lots of different "I like to" phrases (I like to read/cook/munch/etc.). I explained to her that seeing the same phrase often will help them to remember how to recognize those words, but she still says she'd like to get a chance to read something else though! Too funny!)

She has taken her lunch to school this week and seems to be happy with that. (Just for record keeping purposes, school lunch is $3.20/day. I think it was $1.10 when I was in middle school and $1.35 in high school.)


We've also continued our attempt to walk to and from school whenever possible. Parking is limited and traffic is busy, so walking has been a great alternative (especially since we've had nice weather). It takes about 7-12 minutes to walk to school (depending on whether Arya and Alex are walking too or in the stroller). I usually make it in 7 or 8 minutes when I walk pushing the stroller, but we make a lot more stops to look at things along the way when the kids are walking. :) Plus, it gives us a nice time to talk about the day, enjoy the outdoors, and get a little exercise.


I know that this year will hold a lot of wonderful things for Arya, and while I feel a little sad that she is growing up so fast, I'm so excited for all that she will be learning and doing this year. I love this little girl with all my heart. :)

Arya's Artwork

Arya loves doing artwork. About a year ago, when she started bringing home lots of art projects from preschool, she decided to make her own art gallery. :) She asked if we could make it in the basement, where she would have lots of space to hang her projects. She even made a sign and carefully wrote "Arya's Museum of Art" all by herself. (I told her the letters, but she made the sign on her own.)

In her free time, she loves to color, paint, and do any other kind of art that she can! Even her teacher, Mrs. Sterrett, has noticed and commented to me about how much Arya loves art.

I wish I could keep all of her artwork, but there sadly isn't enough room! I wanted to scan a couple of pictures that she has done lately just to remember what her drawings look like at this point. These are from the last couple of days.

The picture above is of a jungle scene. From left to right, you'll see a moose (with antlers), an orange fox (with a white tipped tail), a squirrel, a bunny (with long ears peeking out from behind a bush, and a monkey (in the tree). I was also surprised to see that one of the trees is drawn to look like it is behind the moose...without going through it! Way to creating depth, Arya!


The second picture is Arya's idea of the cow jumping over the moon. Hama drew the star outlines for her, but she did everything else in both of the drawings. I love seeing her come up with ideas and making pictures to show us what she is imagining!!

They only had horses back then, right?

We have had to have a lot of dental work done lately. Arya made her first trip to the dentist, only to find out that even though she brushes every day (often with our supervision too!), doesn't drink much juice or eat much candy, she has multiple cavities. It seems to me that it must be at least partly a genetic thing. :(

Meanwhile, I had an infection above the tooth where I had a root canal in 2007 and I had to have an apicoectomy a couple of weeks ago where they go in through your gum and remove the infection. Awesome.

All of this talk about teeth has led to various discussions lately, including one last week which involved Arya asking about root canals. She asked me about why I had to get a root canal and I told her I'd had one on the tooth that broke off while I was still in the hospital after she was born, and the other on the tooth that I knocked loose in a bike wreck when I was 9.

Arya has been learning to ride her bike this month (and really wanting to try without training wheels), so I think that the bike story intrigued her. She wanted to know more. I explained that I had fallen off my bike and hit my tooth on the road. She looked surprised and the following conversation took place:

Arya: [surprised and worried] Were there cars coming when you fell on the road??!!
Me: No, fortunately, there weren't any cars on the road.
Arya: Oh, good!! Oh, yeah, they only had horses back then, right?
Me: [Unable to hold back the laughter!!] No! We had cars back then!! I'm not that old!!
Arya: Oh, didn't you grow up in Nepal? They don't have cars there. Only horses.

I had to explain several things, including the fact that
1) I didn't grow up in Nepal.
2) They do have cars in Nepal, not just horses!!
3) We had cars, even when I was a little girl.

Oh, it was too funny!