Charity

Charity is something very dear to my heart and something that I strive to develop more wholly, in multiple dimensions, because charity really means much more than giving something to someone in need, it means being more patient, more forgiving, more tolerant, more loving when it's hard to love, etc. And it's certainly one of the traits I want and pray with all my heart for my family to continue to cultivate and spread into the world.

Last night, as Ella was putting her library book back in her backpack, she told us that the nurse announced at school that children are welcome to donate or share some healthy snacks with other children who are not as fortunate to get healthy snacks for school, and that she would like to give some of her snacks. She might have remembered because her backpack always hangs on our pantry door knob or because she was herself looking for dessert in there. :) Of course, I jumped for joy and offered her a couple of options from our stocked pantry. She was so happy. And I was too. It was one of those moments when it hits you just how lucky and blessed you are to be a mother.

 And this cutie pie, to make her momma and daddy even happier, decided to swiffer the kitchen floors and then fold some laundry. I was smiling so big!!

 

A Fall Wish

This child of mine loves to write... all sorts of stories. Today it is a about Pilgrims and Turkeys!!

And a couple of links with Ella's latest jumping work. We're so proud of her!

http://youtu.be/T_fEPstmwYw

http://youtu.be/QzRajcQMygY

 

Miracles

Life is full of miracles if we only take the time and dial ourselves to the right wave length to notice them.

(This is unrelated to this post other than it depicts some deliciously sweet chocolate pumpkin blondies I had baked for the sisters I visit teach at church.)

 

Yesterday was a day to remember. A day that started off nice but soon turned gloomy for me when I realized that my work PC was locked out and that I would probably have to FedEx it to one of the company's offices out of town to get it unlocked. (I had to do this in the past and it was a big hassle.) I stressed out a lot because I was going to have some important meetings on Mon and Tuesday morning and that I was going to be out on vacation after that. Then I started to think of all the ways that I was failing at to be a better mom, a better wife, and a better servant. Then we went to church and all the Sacrament meeting, Gospel Doctrine, and Relief Society talks made it even more obvious to me that I needed to change some things, repent, try harder, and HAVE MORE FAITH, for goodness sake!!! But my spirit was not ready to do all that, I was stubborn and was dwelling on my negatives. Finally, after almost forcing myself to prepare an FHE lesson on apostles at Ella's request, and starting family home evening, while reading from the scriptures and church manuals about the important of apostles, who they are and what they are here for, I started feeling the sweet feeling of repentance washing over me, that it was okay and He understood where I was coming from but that it didn't have to be that way because of His love and infinite sacrifice for me, a sinner amongst millions of others walking the earth... And then the day/evening got so much better and how grateful I am for that.

The stress of dealing with troubleshooting my locked PC this morning was still there and along with prayers I had made all kinds of plans in my head of how I was going to get this resolved. And then something happened.... As I finished my morning chores and sat down at my workstation, I realized that I was logged on and the PC was no longer locked. It was a miracle by all means as I (and Hrishi) have looked at that screen yesterday and the day before and it was locked...! Words cannot describe what I felt! Ella can tell you about the loud sharp squeal of joy I shouted: "It's a miracle!!!!!" Then Hrishi walked in, we hugged, then we went and told Ella why mommy was shouting and hugged her too. Something to treasure and remember. His tender mercies are indeed very sweet.

Why?

Why do I blog? Why do I try to keep this blog in synch with our busy little life? Why so many pictures of us, pictures of drawings, pictures of all kinds of other things?

Well, it's because I know of a commandament that asks us to keep personal and family histories or journals, to record spiritual experiences and not only. This blog is the perfect vehicle for me to do just that. Quoting from "Gospel Truth", "as we record our activities and feelings, we can more clearly see the Lord’s influence in our lives." And it is so, I have a big testimony of it. We love going back and reviewing past years' experiences, and looking at pictures. 

And because I love to write things down somewhere and clip them with lots of pictures as over the years I tend to forget precious moments along with tougher times. I want to remember them so that I can draw strength, joy, and hope from those past experiences, into the present and the future. And because I'm not such a good organizer when it comes to paper, so electronic works best for me. The super nice thing is that I can still get a hard-copy of it all at the end of the year, via the BlogtoPrint feature.

And won't be awesome to have Ella's children and even grandchildren to read through all this stuff??
 

Dentist in the house? and Elections

We have a little girl here who's been working hard on getting two loose teeth out. A couple of days after some hard but careful wiggling according to trustworthy sources, she was able to get them out!!!

I can't tell you how proud she was to show us her little tooth saver purple box given to her by her best friend at school, Nurse Heggy!!! She even made a necklace to carry around her neck. Yesterday morning, she managed to get another one out, and oh how excited she was!! What I find most amusing and amazing is that she insisted in going through the whole process herself.

The proof: :-)

 

 

 

I didn't write about elections as we do not vote (we are not yet American citizens), and enough of my friends on facebook and everywhere else have been writing and debating about anyway. I'm so glad it's over, I was getting a little annoyed with comparisons and Biblical analogies of who is the bad guy and the good guy. But I enjoyed Ella getting all excited about the elections at school and how much they've been learning about the election process and even "voting" for the real-life candidates, Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama.

They were asked to "campaign" for themselves and why they would make a good president. They also wrote about why their teacher would make a good president. A lot of good and fun things!

 

 

 

 

 

 

C R A Z Y Busy Weekend

We had a marathon-like weekend.

Celebrated our 10th Indian Wedding Anniversay with a delicious Italian lunch:

Then we came home, packed and off we left for somewhere in Central Texas for the Warrrior Dash which turned out to be... an amazing experience: thirteen obstacles on a 5K cross-country terrain, most of them really hard, especially for someone like me who is scared of hights.  You can take a peak here at what the obstacles were like: http://www.warriordash.com/register2012_central_texas.php, hover over the pictures (two of the obstacles are not on the website.) Some of them were much harder than they looked. At any rate, it was really awesome to have Rishi and Sonia, a good friend or ours, run along side and push me when I needed it. You see, my sinuses and cold are still very much bothering me and I had to deal with my cough and running out of breath quite frequently during the race. I'm really happy though that I got to do it as I'd been planning and training for it for almost a year now. Finishing it up brought a great sense of accomplishment. As for the amount of mud and dirty water, it is hard to describe. Let's just say that it took a couple of heavy wash cycle on my washer to get the mud/sand out of my clothes and shoes.  Ella watched us crazy warriors with Sonia's husband who was kind enough and not-as-crazy-as-us, to babysit her while we did the race.

The "Before" pictures:

 

Bull-head/warrior hats! :)

 

 

Goofing around:

 

 

 

 

The Start:

 

 

 The "After" mess:

 

 

 

(As the official event pictures were pricey (they always are), I just cropped some out of the website. They have "do not copy" watermark all over them but considering these will not be published, I think I'm not breaking any laws. :))

 

 

This is before we left town....!! I made sure we had something to celebrate with, haha! :)

After the race we somehow made it back to Houston in record time for Ella's Nutcracker rehearsal. Here we are celebrating our victory in the car!

Then it was Ella's turn to perform. She competed in her second All Horse Show where she got her FIRST BLUE RIBBON (first place, that is.) She was very happy as she was wishing for a first place! We're very proud of her and her accmplishments in the equine field and not only. She also got one second place and two third place in the other three divisions she competed in.

 

First place come in for the pole jump/trot. It's funny as that's where she got fifth place in her first competition. Redemption day, I guess. :)

All tacked up courtesy to Hrishi who did it all by himself!!

Adjusting the stir-ups:

 

Warming-up

 

The three little girls in her division:

 

Showtime (Judges are in the middle of the arena.)




Ribbon-loaded! :)

Of course, the color she was most tickled about was that blue!! :)

Proud Daddy:

Proud Mommy:

 

Rider Extraordinnaire:

 

 

Rocking her Blue! :)

 

The little "shrine" she built at home :)

 

 

 

 

Birthday Ballerina and Rock climbers!!

A birthday Ballerina comes and visits the little ballerinas during their birthday month. (Unfortunately she only comes to those little ballerinas whose parents make a contribution to support the Ballet Company.) Fortunately, we were able to contribute and thus provide Ella with a super nice surprise! She was very excited when this beautiful Birthday Ballerina showed up after class.

 

 

My cute Dorothy:

 

The day was even more special as all got to wear their Halloween costumes in class.

Here with an older group after the Halloween costume parade:

With the little Froggie Ballerina she received as a gift:

 

 

We finished up the birthday month with a rockin' rock climbing party at Lifetime.

 

 

 

It was a grand success, as pretty much all Ella's little guests enjoyed trying their hand at rock climbing for the first time and bouncing in the bounce house. There was lots of laughter, yummy pizza, cupcakes, happy kids and happy parents!!!