As mentioned in the last post, one of Deven's favorite Christmas presents was a musical Thomas the Train toothbrush, which plays the Thomas theme song at surprisingly loud volume for such a tiny thing. Encouraged by his sister, Deven has taken to playing the song over, and over, again, each time "dancing" when he hears it.
Based on the video below, I fear some awkward moments during future school dances, but at least they've got enthusiasm. Perhaps Deven's dancing moves will improve once he figures out how to get his feet to leave the ground. :-)
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Sunday, January 08, 2012
Closing Out the Year in Pictures
It's been a while since we posted pictures from all of our various comings and goings (since before the 4th of July!), so below is a random assortment of pictures from the second half of 2011. Definitely for true Team Dholakia fans as there are a ton of them...lots of great moments to remember!
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Holidaze 2011
Taking another trip back in the time machine, here is a recap of the holidays...now backdating properly so things are less confusing. :-)
2011 did not disappoint with another wonderful holiday season, even though we managed to take far too few pictures to document all of the fun occasions. We started off by spending nearly a week up in Oregon for Thanksgiving, which gave us plenty of time to try new recipes, hit the zoo (which you have nearly to yourself when you're there when it opens and it is rainy and cold out), and even get in a little bit of wine tasting. The highlight was definitely our family Thanksgiving dinner at Julie & Randy's, featuring some amazing food and lots of kid antics. Sonia and Deven were active participants in building the barricade to the living room, which involved dumping every article of clothing, toy, and pillow they could find to wall off the room. Needless to say, the adult clean up crew was required to put everything back in order.
Somehow we managed no pictures of the great living room wall, but here are a few from the trip that we did manage to take.
After Thanksgiving, we returned home to discover that somehow it was almost Christmas and we were completely unprepared. Thankfully, we have one of those blasphemous (to Oregonians, at least) artificial Christmas trees, so we quickly put it up and not-so-quickly put up lights on our house (the latter involving more than one trip to Costco because apparently we can't do basic math to determine how many strings of lights we needed to buy) and overnight we were in the holiday spirit. Sonia in particular really got into the meaning of the season, which for her is requesting potential presents from every catalog that came in the mailbox. Which, as all parents know, is about 5 catalogs per day during the holiday season.
A new tradition we started this year was going to the Nutcracker ballet in San Francisco. Sonia was thrilled to have another occasion to wear her fancy holiday dress, and even more excited when it turned out that cousin Maya and Melissa were sitting right in front of us (an unplanned coordination, which is pretty remarkable given how large the auditorium is). Note to self: next year smuggle in flasks and juice boxes as the intermission lines were crazy, and chugging champagne before you have to rush back to your seat is nearly as enjoyable as it sounds.
For the holiday itself, Grandma and Grandpa came from Portland, and Uncle Kevin came up from Los Angeles, and Dada and Bebe drove down from Tracy so we could all celebrate together. Santa and his elves were very busy Christmas Eve when Santa delighted Sonia and Deven by bringing them both a "mini" trampoline and a train table. Santa must have mistakenly thought we live in a big house! But, the rather large additions to our family room were well worth it based on the beaming smiles that lasted for days. I don't believe Deven was more than 3 feet away from the train table for at least the first week it was in our house.
While Christmas was a true highlight, New Years was a bit of a lowlight as I rung in the new year slightly sick (two years running!), and for the first time ever called it a night long before midnight. But, we managed to rally to attend the Fiesta Bowl to watch Stanford lose (alas) in a heart breaker. But, it was great to see so many good friends in Phoenix, even if the outcome was not what Andrew Luck probably had in mind when he stayed one more season. I suspect next year we will not have the luxury of worrying about which bowl we'll be in, but you never know.
All in all, it was a wonderful holiday season...great food, lots of time with friends and family, spoiled children who managed to be (mostly) on their best behavior, and great memories that are finally posted here for posterity. :-)
2011 did not disappoint with another wonderful holiday season, even though we managed to take far too few pictures to document all of the fun occasions. We started off by spending nearly a week up in Oregon for Thanksgiving, which gave us plenty of time to try new recipes, hit the zoo (which you have nearly to yourself when you're there when it opens and it is rainy and cold out), and even get in a little bit of wine tasting. The highlight was definitely our family Thanksgiving dinner at Julie & Randy's, featuring some amazing food and lots of kid antics. Sonia and Deven were active participants in building the barricade to the living room, which involved dumping every article of clothing, toy, and pillow they could find to wall off the room. Needless to say, the adult clean up crew was required to put everything back in order.
Somehow we managed no pictures of the great living room wall, but here are a few from the trip that we did manage to take.
 |
| Thankfully the play structure did not collapse under the weight of lots of cousins |
 |
| Deven thoroughly enjoying his wipeout from the slide |
 |
| Braving the weather at the zoo |
 |
| Close encounters of the polar bear kind |
 |
| Close encounters of the sea lion kind |
After Thanksgiving, we returned home to discover that somehow it was almost Christmas and we were completely unprepared. Thankfully, we have one of those blasphemous (to Oregonians, at least) artificial Christmas trees, so we quickly put it up and not-so-quickly put up lights on our house (the latter involving more than one trip to Costco because apparently we can't do basic math to determine how many strings of lights we needed to buy) and overnight we were in the holiday spirit. Sonia in particular really got into the meaning of the season, which for her is requesting potential presents from every catalog that came in the mailbox. Which, as all parents know, is about 5 catalogs per day during the holiday season.
A new tradition we started this year was going to the Nutcracker ballet in San Francisco. Sonia was thrilled to have another occasion to wear her fancy holiday dress, and even more excited when it turned out that cousin Maya and Melissa were sitting right in front of us (an unplanned coordination, which is pretty remarkable given how large the auditorium is). Note to self: next year smuggle in flasks and juice boxes as the intermission lines were crazy, and chugging champagne before you have to rush back to your seat is nearly as enjoyable as it sounds.
For the holiday itself, Grandma and Grandpa came from Portland, and Uncle Kevin came up from Los Angeles, and Dada and Bebe drove down from Tracy so we could all celebrate together. Santa and his elves were very busy Christmas Eve when Santa delighted Sonia and Deven by bringing them both a "mini" trampoline and a train table. Santa must have mistakenly thought we live in a big house! But, the rather large additions to our family room were well worth it based on the beaming smiles that lasted for days. I don't believe Deven was more than 3 feet away from the train table for at least the first week it was in our house.
 |
| As she does every year, Sonia monitors Santa's progress online with help from Uncle Kevin |
 |
| Sonia works on making Santa cookies (an annual tradition, despite my resolution each year to just go with store bought) |
 |
| You know you have too many presents when they stop fitting under the tree |
 |
| Santa's cookies, milk, and carrots (for the reindeer) are all set |
 |
| Sonia no doubt wonders how Santa managed to get such a large train table down our chimney |
 |
| You can't imagine how tired Sonia was at the end of the day after jumping on her trampoline for hours |
 |
| A lesson in frugality: Deven's favorite present was this musical Thomas toothbrush from his stocking |
While Christmas was a true highlight, New Years was a bit of a lowlight as I rung in the new year slightly sick (two years running!), and for the first time ever called it a night long before midnight. But, we managed to rally to attend the Fiesta Bowl to watch Stanford lose (alas) in a heart breaker. But, it was great to see so many good friends in Phoenix, even if the outcome was not what Andrew Luck probably had in mind when he stayed one more season. I suspect next year we will not have the luxury of worrying about which bowl we'll be in, but you never know.
All in all, it was a wonderful holiday season...great food, lots of time with friends and family, spoiled children who managed to be (mostly) on their best behavior, and great memories that are finally posted here for posterity. :-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)