McAllen: East meets West Wedding

This past weekend was exciting, a bit stressful, tiring, but oh so fun! Stressful, because we had to make a few arrangements to have Ella dropped-off for ballet practice on Saturday and to school, this morning and because we didn't know how she was going to do without having us around. Keep in mind this was the first time ever that we went out of town without her. The only time I was a bit worried for, was bedtime as I am still the only person who puts her to bed every night and when I'm not around to do that (which luckily, is not too often), there is lots of heartache and crying going on (poor Hrishi!) This time though, mamaie's magic worked on her and she did not cry, not one bit! Yeay! Of course, that made us feel so much better. They played pretend, baked cookies together, played at the park, watched movies, and just had a great time. Aren't grandparents wonderful??

Tiring: we drove eight hours each way, to McAllen, TX where the wedding was.

Exciting: we got to see a very good friend get married to his wonderful bride, caught up with dear family friends, and just got to hang out together carefree.

The wedding was beautiful. Coastal atmosphere and almost perfect weather (90 F but very windy!) Since the groom is from India and the bride is American with Hispanic heritage, they chose to have both Indian and Christian ceremonies. Of course, that reminded us of our own wedding ceremonies and got me a bit teary. (I cry so easily nowadays, maybe a sign of getting older???!!) All in all, we had a great time! The food was delish. Just imagine great authentic Indian and Mexican food, both on the same platter! Let me tell you, it was a royal feast! I should have snapped a photo or two, but I guess I was too busy indulging! :)

Beautiful table centerpiece:



With our good friends, Sumanth and Yelena and their adorable little girl, Bekah hidding behind her milk box :)

The Western/Christian ceremony:


With my handsome man :)

Me, posing for my handsome man:)

(I have to say although it took a huge and very frantic effort to find my dress, I was quite pleased with the result. Finally found something that fitted me well, was modest, and elegant at the same time. Yeay for JC Penny and designers that still have some good common sense! :-) I'm sure I would have probably had more options if I started looking sooner but life is busy as it is and I'm just grateful that I found this dress on Friday, the day before we left for the wedding!!)

Love the table centerpieces... I helped set those up. We also helped with a bunch of other stuff as it was a very "do-it-yourself" wedding. It was wonderful to see how the two families and friends came together to help set pretty much everything up.

They had an excellent Mariachi!

(Obviouls, I took advantage of this ocassion and had Hrishi take wa...aaaaay too many pictures of me! But there was a time when I did not want to be in any pictures so I'm soaking it all in now.)

With my dear friend Yelena. We're related in couple of very special ways (both from Eastern Europe and both married to Indians (stubborn Indians, she'd say! :-))



And Monday night we came home to a a very happy little girl who was so excited to see us! She's had a meltdown on Monday morning before going to school when she heard that we were going to arrive in the evening instead of noon... . She told me about it last night when I put her to bed and said that she just could not "hold" her love and her missing us any more. And she had cried, a lot.

Fun Run/Boosterthon

This kid has been so excited about this, ALL WEEK! Today she finally got to do it: to run, that is! 30 laps! Yeay, Ella! She gave it her all and kept asking every time she completed a lap, how many more laps left until she met her goal (her goal was 30 laps.) I was one of the "markers"/volunteers who marked the laps on the kids t-shirts. It was a fun event and I'm so grateful that I could be there for about an hour to soak in my baby running and catching the spirit of a good thing! I want her to continue to love physical exercise and be excited about it as it' definitely a great thing to be excited about. :-)

With some of her favorite classroom buddies. (Hunter and Harrison, I think.)

Love those red red cheeks!

  And some snapshots from this morning. It's really nice having mamaie and tataie with us:

I love my family and I am so grateful for them! Life is truly wonderful with all its hardships, ups and downs, sweat and tears, and laughs. Driving to school this morning, windows down to feel the crisp and clean morning air, and the beautiful blue skies, I was overcome with feeling of peace and gratitude and excitement for all that is good in my life, in our life. I'm living to see goals and dreams fulfilled which in turn give me continued hope to I can live and see even more dreams and hopes come true.

This and that

Life is great around here... just a few things I strongly feel I need to improve in the motherhood realm. Things that I keep failing at miserably seems like, every day. You know, all that "get ready now or we'll be late", "wear this, please, it's cold outside", "finish your breakfast..." mumbo-jumbo, said in a different tone of voice, with more love, more consideration, more patience. Why can't I just smile more and be more laid-back, why can't I just...??? Questions I need to find answers and resolution to as I feel I need more peace with how I'm handling "crisis" situations such as the ones described above :) I have hope that I can make little improvements day-by-day, and big ones by the end of the year.

Parents have settled in nicely with having us and Ella around. We sure love having them around! Last night we went to the SeaLife Aquarium nearby and had a great time. Ella played the guide for them and they once again were impressed by how much she knows about sea creatures.

I just love how my cute parents always hold hands! :)

This weekend we're headed out of town for a wedding and can't hide the excitement! It'll be the first time that we've traveled alone since we had Ella, and although it'll be a long drive to where we're going, I'm  looking forward to it. I'm also looking forward to a better experience finding a party dress this time around, after nine or ten years of absolutely dreading shopping for one. I know they'll still be challenges with finding something modest but at least the size won't be such a problem. Whew! :) I'll report back with that I bought.

What else? After we get back from the wedding, Hrishi is travelling to Omaha for work and some quick hunting with his old buddy, Dennis. The following week will be tech rehearsal week for the Nutcracker. We'll be basically camping out there every day. Busy crazy weeks ahead, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Almost there with my weight goal, 1.8 lbs left. You see, the reason I truly cherish every single pound of lost fat is that this has been nothing but an easy thing for me. Luckily, I've been enjoying the process. Training for the 10K run is coming along well; I did my first 5 mile run on Monday (in 55.31 secs) and I survived it. The first 2.5 miles were tough, then it kind of just happened. At some point it becomes a bit like an "out-of-body" experience: mind detaches from body and is there to either cheer you on or put you down. I chose the first. My favorite part of the run was the last .5 miles where I sprinted (I always do that), go figure! 

Catching the spirit

Yes, there is a lot of excitement going on right now as Ella is preparing for the FunRun/Boosterthon event at her school, a fundraiser they are doing for technology enhancements in their school. I was really amazed at how well she caught the spirit of it, wanting to watch all the videos at funrun.com and get all excited about the goals and the values promoted by this. She reminded me of myself getting all excited about my bootcamp event back in July. The video clips are just as catchy as the boot camp ones! LOL! :) We had several pledges made and are looking forward to her lap runs on Friday. I'm volunteering for her grade run to hand out water bottles and cheers for the super cute runners. When I asked her how many laps she'll run, she said as many as possible, 25! Wow, that's a lot, I said. She then said: I'll rest today and through Friday so I can run my most laps on Friday! Good thinking, girl! :)

I'm proud of her getting involved and catching the spirit of all good things, this being one of them. Pictures to come after the Fun Run event on Friday! I'm so excited! :)

A wonderful, wonderful day!

Today was a very special day, we got to celebrate Ella's birthday with dear family, grandma and grandpa' and it was just lovely! It was such a full day with Nutcracker practice and lots of preparations for the afternoon Princess party, but everything turned out great. Lots of fun was had and beautiful memories were made! I'm just so grateful for all that we have been given and blessed with, for strength, healthy, happy and willing hands and hearts, for all the work and enjoyment that was ours today. Ella and her super cute and sweet wonderful friends had a blast.

I'll let the pictures do the talking... . The party had a Castle/Princess theme. We rented a bunch of princess and knights attire and accessories and the girls had a great time. The knights stuff was for our friends' little boys who unfortunately got sick and couldn't come. It was such a delight to watch these beautiful little girls princess around in the lovely dresses, dance, and play together. After dancing, doing the limbo, and playing "Kiss the Frog", they sat down for a royal feast of chicken nuggets, steamed broccoli, egg rolls, salata de boef (Romanian potato salad), baked sweet potatoes crinckels, french baguette with spinach and artichoke dip, and grapes. Then they danced and played some more, read the "Princess and the Frog" story, opened presents, and had cupcakes. It was a night to remember!!!!!
Dress-up time:



The loveliest bunch:

Limbo dance:

Royal feast:

Princess dance:

Fashion show (this was captured via video but here I was presenting...)

and one more (lol!:))

My handsome King:

Royal story time in the stairwell, and opening of royal presents:

Royal Cupcakes (chocolate and red velvet):

And the happiest bunch!!!!!!!

Thank you so much mamaie and tataie for all the love and help with the preparations today and most importantly, thank you for being here with us!!!

I loved dancing with and being around my Princess and her cute friends! I love having the opportunity to be her mommy and see life through her innocent eyes once in a while. Thank you love for suggesting such a fun birthday party theme and giving so much joy, happiness, and meaning to our lives. May God bless you forever! 

Bine ati venit Mamaie si Tataie!!!!

So welcome home, dearest grandparents!!! We're so excited to have you here with us and look forward to building great memories together!!

Needless to say this little one is super duper excited and happy! She'll get very spoiled with all the love and attention mamaie and tataie are pouring on her. She got a ton of beautiful presents and goodies that she doesn't even know what to do with! :)

And yours, truly! :) (Parents were pretty amazed how Ella knows how to use my phone and take pictures with it too.)

The angel food cake. Inspired by my trainer, recipe by Alton Brown, healthier frosting idea by moi! :)
(The frosting is vanilla pudding.) It turned out great.

Halloween 2011

Ella had a wonderful day yesterday at school, after school, and trick-or-treating in our neighborhood! She was so happy and kept saying what a great day she had and how happy she was!! She got good selection of candy that she can have (we offloaded the chocolate stuff to daddy and the candy bowl outside our house for other trick-or-treaters to pick up. We just loved walking behind her and watching her skip and skip from house to house. When she got tired of walking, she told us it was time to go home as she didn't want to be greedy! (We were talking about what moderation meant and not being greedy, etc. and she picked up on it right away.) That's my girl! I'm so proud of her. She really wanted to see what all the candy she got. And she only had one piece before her bedtime. Love you, sweetheart! Keep it up!

I love the magic of childhood and the way children see the world: beautiful, wonderful, and innocent. More thoughts of childhood in general and my own childhood flooded my mind yesterday when I came across this quote by Eugene Ionesco on one of the blogs I read on a regular basis:

"Childhood is the world of miracle or of magic. It is as if creation rose luminously out of the night, all new and fresh and astonishing. Childhood is over the moment things are no longer astonishing."

I love how she's holding her sucker! :)

We're also so excited for mamaie and tataie's arrival tomorrow evening!!!! Yeay!!! :)