Acorn

C2 was so excited with this little acorn.... I have no idea what happened to it though after she brought it home....

Cheese

It is so hard to get a decent photo of K1 nowadays - since everytime the camera is out he starts making silly faces or sticking his tongue out...... Took this one at Kennedy Space Center last week, and I LOVE it !

Back

Mango Dreams is finally back - my website person finished the changes yesterday and got it back up. What's left to see is if I get any orders through the website :-)

Yarn

My yarn for my Skull hat orders arrived today. Opening up the box of yarn is always exciting.... The thing with cotton yarn is that it is dyed in lots - so there are always color variations from one dye lot to another. Hence every time I get an order of yarn in - I hold my breath when opening the box - hoping that the colors have turned out just the right shade I want them to be....


And this time the hot pink and lavender are just right..... it would have been nice to have the army green a little lighter though.....

Flying fingers

Didn't check my email for a few days while I was on vacation - and when I checked in I found I had some crochet hat orders..... I haven't been getting ANY orders and now suddenly I have 20 Pirate/Skull/ Punk Rock hats to make for Mahar and a couple of hats for an order through Little Angels Boutique . So my fingers are going to be flying for the next 2-3 weeks while I finish up these......

Orlando

It was a fun week in Orlando - lot of sun, fun, sweat, rides, lines, princesses, surprises,....

Our first visit to the "Magic" that is Disney...... Of course the most magical moment is when you come back from your Disney vacation to see your bank balance magically reduced....

The kids had a nice time, mostly, though K1 said he preferred Legoland in CA. Maybe because there are no princesses to be found there.

Some photos from our Orlando trip

Busy

It been a busy day today - with volunteering in Kindergarten, then rushing home to keep aside things to pack for our trip, working on another write up for the school newsletter, helping C2 with her Math, and finishing K1's Fred costume for Halloween.

SIGG

The kids SIGG bottles arrived ! I love the soccer ones ......

Heritage Doll

K1 brought home his first homework project - we had to make a "Heritage Doll" - a doll that reflects your heritage. We worked on it yesterday - here's the doll wearing a कुरता पाजामा . We still have to do a write up about his heritage which he will speak about in front his class .

Soccer blur

It was quite dark when I took this (and without the flash) ... so it ended up a blurry action shot. This was after K1's practice. C2 was playing soccer with him - quite cute since she was so enthusiastically playing, and it was especially surprising since she hates anything to do with sports.

Evening at the Park

K1 had soccer practice, and while he practiced (or is it practised ?), C2 played on the slides and swings, W helped coach the team, and I stayed with C2 and got some more camera practice :-)



It was such an overcast evening - but it did not rain....

Tired from all her playing....

K1 literally 'in action' in this shot :-)

The Crown

I got an order on Sunday for this crochet crown hat . I was quite surprised when I got the email from the lady who ordered it, since I haven't listed anything in ages on Ebay. I finished it up yesterday and it went in the mail today.....

And I visited Mahar Dry Goods the other day to see if any of the hats I sent them in summer have sold, and found that this Girls Punk hat is sold out.... There were only 6 of them - so its not a big deal, but I was happy at least some of them are selling !

Angel

Finished C2's Angel costume. Its probably the messiest sewing I've ever done. The fabric is white with silver glitter all over it. Since she's only going to be wearing it twice - for our neighbor's annual Halloween party, and then to go trick-or-treating, I did a rush job on it.... I can't believe how messy it turned out !


C2 seemed to like it when I showed it to her......

Workbooks

C2 doesn't get much homework in Kindergarten, plus the homework she gets is finished in a couple of minutes - since its learning to write letters, and learning sight words, whereas she is already reading books, and can spell most words from K1's 2nd grade spelling list... She started going for "enrichment" last week in school - where they pull her out of class for 20-30 mins once a week. Last week she did some logic related worksheets, which we thought was nice and challenging !

To keep her challenged at home, now that we have stopped Kumon for both kids, we picked up a few workbooks for both of them over the weekend. C2 was really excited & started on hers after school.

Cookie-rock

My second time ever attempting making chocolate cookies - and probably the last. The first time I tried making them was 3-4 years back - why do they make the recipes look so enticing ? I measured, and poured, and mixed and finally dropped spoonfuls on the cookie sheet. Go to see 10 minutes later and instead of beautifully formed cookies - I had ONE big giant cookie blob where all the cookies had joined up. The edges of that gi-normous cookie got hard while the middle was undercooked.

This recent attempt was better - the cookies remained separate (yes I try to learn from my mistakes.....), but took longer than the recipe stated to cook. They look horrible, but the taste straight out of the oven was yum. But now 24 hours later they are as stiff as rocks :-(.

And of course C2 who wanted chocolate cookies, which inspired me to make them, will take 2 bites of a cookie per day. Which means these will end up either as trash or as cellulite on you-know-whose-you-know-where........

Super Bee

In C2's kindergarten class, everyday one child gets to take home 'Super Bee' if they display Super Bee-havior. C2 brought Super Bee home for the 2nd time this school year (she also got Super Bee on the first day of school and was so proud !).

Super Bee ate lunch with us and C2 drew a pic of Super Bee while waiting for her lunch to get ready.


Here's Super Bee sitting at the table and posing patiently for the sketch by our renowned artist :-).

After lunch while I was figuring out the easiest way to finish off the Angel costume, C2 was reading a book that I had received from my parents for MY 9th birthday. That makes this book 25 years old..... (shhhhhhh.... don't tell the kiddos how old I am - C2 still thinks I'm 23)

Brrrrrrrrr

We've been enjoying summer like heat so far. But today we got a whiff of what lies ahead - it was so cold but C2 still wanted to go out and play in the evening (with the other kids who were out playing). So off she went, all bundled up.



K1 braved the cold and wind for 5 minutes and was back in.


I started on C2's angel costume / dress. Worked on it for about 30 mins today - and its almost done - plain and simple. My kiddos are not really into the costume / dressing up part of Halloween . While all their friends know exactly what they want to be for Halloween - K1 and C2 have to really think hard to come up with something. They absolutely LOVE the trick-or-treat part of Halloween though ! Here's a crazy photo from last year :-)

Fred and an Angel

I went fabric shopping to buy fabric for the kiddos Halloween costumes. K1 wants to be Fred from Scooby Doo , and C2 wants to be an angel. We picked up her wings 2 weeks back, now I just need to make her dress before next week's Halloween party.

The kids got in some last minute playing - after their baths and before they went to sleep. And I played around with my camera settings - shooting without the flash, with just the overhead lights in their bedroom ...


C2's baby was already ready for bed :-)

Columbus day

The kids had a day off from school on Monday because of Columbus day. Some of their latest work - C2's drawing, and K1 made a "boat" with Lego blocks.

The three of us also played some UNO. C2 is so cute when she loses - tries her best to hold back tears. Thankfully she has stopped her excited gloating when she wins - like she used to do till some months back.

After the kids were in bed, hubby & I played a game of Scrabble. (Thanks G for reminding us about Scrabble - we haven't played in ages). Despite 2 bingos - my expert "scrabbler" hubby still won ...... like he always does...... :-)

Generosity

After Mass on Sunday they handed out baby bottles for us to fill with coins - a collection drive for a crisis center here which provides help to pregnant women in need.
K1 chose a blue bottle and C2 a pink one.
When we reached home they were playing outside with their friends, and after half an hour I heard someone rush in and the sound of coins being filled up. A few minutes later K1 came upstairs with his bottle all filled up. He had emptied out his whole collection of spare change to donate - which he had been waiting to take to the bank to put in the coin counting machine & receive $ notes to put in his wallet .....
He had even counted it a few weeks back in excitement - $33.50 and written it on a slip of paper and kept it with his coin box.



And every night at prayer time - C2 prays for the children in Sudan who we packed food for 2 weeks back - and asks whether it has reached them yet......

Blast from the Past

I've been doing a lot of clearing up since I haven't got back to crocheting yet. The other day I was going through pics on our computer and came across this one from over 4 years back. C2 is trying her best to do what big brother is so busy doing......

This pic is now the wallpaper on my desktop. K1 gets an embarassed smile everytime he see it......

Google

I just love Google - they are so innovative. My blog's name is MangoMirchi - Mirchi in Hindi means chilli. Google obviously recognises languages, because it gave me the option of writing my blog in Hindi too...... Here goes :

क्या आप सब मेरे दोस्त है ?

:-)

I have to say - Google's Hindi spellings are a lot better than mine !

Soccer

Its Saturday today - which means soccer for K. It was fun watching them play - they won 5-0 !


And little sis sat watching the game for exactly one minute before she went off to play on the swings......

Fridge Art

Our 5 year old loves reading "The Boxcar children" mystery books. She drew this after reading one of the books.

These books are interesting but I personally prefer the other favorites of our kiddos - Enid Blyton's Famous Five books. Maybe because we read them in our childhood too ......

Green thumb

Gardening. It just doesn't come easy to us. After 4 indoor plant deaths in 3 years, we bought this "easy care" plant:

Its been 2 years and it is very straggly and doesn't look anything like the picture, so I was quite surprised to see 2 little flowers growing on it today!

And then....... we've been enjoying these cherry tomatoes grown by our neighbors. We have so many that I've been using them for cooking besides just munching them raw.....