Jan 19, 2011

India 2010


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December 29, 2010 - January 11, 2011
Air France CVG - ORD - CDG - MUM
Pune Marriott Hotel & Convention Centre
Senapati Bapat Road, Pune.

Nov 27, 2010

Roasted Rack of Lamb


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I made roasted rack of lamb for dinner last night. The two racks were marinated for a few hours in a mixture of Pinot Noir, worcestershire sauce, soy sauce and some vinegar. The racks were then coated with a dry rub made from coriander, salt, pepper, paprika, chili powder, cinnamon, cloves, all spice and sugar. I pan seared the racks for about 2 minutes on each side on high heat and then roasted it in the oven at 350 F for about 12 minutes for a medium finish.

I added the remaining marinade to the drippings and reduced it to a glaze which went very nicely over the lamb.

Nov 21, 2010

Nov 20, 2010

Halloween 2010


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Pictures from Halloween 2010.

The D90 is here but I have not taken any new photos yet.

Nov 14, 2010

Nevin - 2 years and 5 months

Nevin is growing up so fast that it is getting hard to keep with him and all the things he does. He is constantly talking up a storm (hmmm...I wonder who he gets that from ;)). He mispronounces a lot of things but we don't bother correcting him because we think it sounds cute! He says BALM for barn, MAWNSTER for monster, and says PICK MY UP for "pick me up". He went for his first Disney show, a Mickey Mouse Magic Show at the US Bank Arena, and he loved watching all his favorite toon characters come to life. He was a little overwhelmed at first, but then settled in and enjoyed the show. Nevin is also becoming much better at playing the drums and can hold a pretty steady 4/4 pattern on the high hat and snare. He loves going to his Nana and Nani's place on the weekends and much to our surprise and delight he willingly spent his first night away from us a few weeks ago when he went along with them for a "sleepover" :) - a spontaneous "date night" opportunity for us!

The weather has been great this fall and Nevin loves playing outside on the swing set, kicking the ball and jumping on the neighbor's trampoline. He enjoys going to his daycare a lot and has a lot of fun participating in a variety of activities with his friends. He particularly enjoys his "Webby" dance class where he gets to pretend like being animals from the jungle and the barn. The best way to entertain him on the weekends is to pretend like he is in his dance class at school again with Pooja being the teacher and Nevin and me the students :) His current favorite DVD is "Barnyard" movie with Otis the cow, Pip the mouse and the rest of the animals in the barn. His current favorite songs are "Pichle Saat Dino Me" from the movie Rock On, and "Iktara" from the movie Wake Up Sid. He listens to these two songs in a non stop loop really LOUD as we drive him around. If I try and trick him and lower the volume even a wee bit, he immediately yells LOUDER from the back! He recognizes quite a few songs now and we play a game with him where we hum the tunes and and he tells us which song it is. He also was Superman for Halloween this year, and enjoyed a fun filled Halloween weekend.

Side note; my Nikon D40 fell to ground and the flash unit broke :( I have a Nikon D90 on order, so expect to see a lot more pictures here. Stay tuned!!

May 17, 2010

Nevin - 23 months


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Nevin will be celebrating his second birthday next month. He has grown so much over the last few months and continues to surprise us with his antics. He is also becoming naughtier by the day, but I suspect that maybe a direct result of our collective spoiling of him :)

Nevin can now string 2-3 words together in a sentence which we can understand about 80% of the time. The rest of the time we either pretend that we understand him or go through the mutually frustrating experience of trying to figure out his 2 year old vocabulary. Some of his classic phrases are “all done” and “walk away”. “All done” could mean anything from “I have had enough of this food” to “get me out of this chair/stroller/place” and “walk away” means that wants to be left alone in his effort of doing something (usually forbidden) by himself! For some reason, Nevin chooses to stay mum in the presence of friends and/or strangers much to our chagrin ;) We are also trying, albeit in futility, to teach him Hindi. Neither one of us speak Hindi conversationally with him and I guess this will need to change if he is going to learn a second language. He does say some words in Hindi like “neeche” (which literally means “down”) when he wants to go downstairs or wants to get off his stroller/high chair. But he uses the same word when he wants to go upstairs too… to him the word just means a change in his current location/position :).

Nevin’s favorite toys remain his stuffed animals. He has a veritable menagerie in his play room and he absolutely adores playing with all the animals. He can easily identify the various animals and can also make their sounds. His pronunciation is not the best and he calls an elephant “epeechay” which we find very cute so we never bother to correct him. He always amazes us with his ability to group the animals in the same way “they came into his life”:). God help us if he sees one animal and we cannot find that animal’s friend/s i.e. the ones that we bought at the same time. He is also very particular about how they are stored and will get mad if we put the wrong animal in the wrong “barn”. The easiest way to get him to go to bed is to tell him that all the animals are doing “night night”.

His favorite food remains cheese pizza (light cheese) and pasta although he does eat rice and chicken, and some other Indian food that we prepare for him. He does not like anything sweet but has recently shown some interest in eating cookies especially oatmeal raisin and some Pepperidge Farm varieties.

Sadly for us, he has lost interest in all TV shows for the most part and will only stay engaged for a few minutes at a time. This poses a huge challenge for us when we go on long drives or take him out to restaurants where in the past we would pop in his favorite DVD and take a break while he stayed calm for 20 minutes. I know, we’re evil :).

We are looking forward to taking him to Miami over the Memorial Day weekend at the end of the month. He has flown with us a couple of times already but not in the recent past, so it should be an interesting experience. His grandparents have taught him to associate the planes flying in the sky to his Maasi (aunt) in ATL, so now whenever he sees one in the sky he says “Maasi Atlanta” .
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Feb 11, 2010

Nevin at 20 months




Nevin is 4 months shy of being 2 years old. He is growing by leaps and bounds and continues to surprise us with the things he learns on a daily basis. He makes all sorts of animal noises now and will even say "Moo" while passing through the dairy section of the grocery store when he spots the cow on the milk containers. Sometimes he will randomly wake up in the middle of the night and regale us with his entire vocabulary of 15 some words :) He also comphrehends simple commands like "sit", "stand" (although he somehow only does this while pretending that his box of wipes is a chair) and "throw the trash". He loves to eat pizza ("peepa"), pasta ("poopa") and chicken ("cheekin"). His favorite toys are his soft toys and other knick knacks he finds while he rummages thorugh our cabinets. He also loves music and will groove to any music that has a good beat. His favorite seems to be a Punjabi Bhangra song called ""khao piyo aish"". Nevin loves to hang out with all our friends and his favorite person is Rahil. He recognizes everyone and is able to point out to the right person when you call out their names. He even knows that Nana (grandfather) and Bobby (my father in law) are the same person :)
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Oct 27, 2009

Diwali 2009 show and some random pictures


Pictures from the Diwali Dhamaka show and some other random pictures I found on the camera along the way.
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Aug 19, 2009

Nevin: Q3 2009



Nevin is now 15 months old. He vocabulary is still primitive but he is able to let us know that he is thirsty, hungry, sleepy, etc in his own baby language. Along with knowing the different parts of his body he now also knows the sounds that different animals make... cows go moo, ducks go quack quack, sheep goes baaa, and the best of all is the rabbit where he kind of clicks his tongue on his two front teeth!

His gross motor skills are rapidly developing and he can easily pick up and throw a soccer ball, pick different foods and feed himself, etc. He does not like sweet food or juices. He does not like drinking milk but he likes to drink water. His current favorite foods are chicken fingers with garlic bread, tandoori chicken, chicken curry with rice and yogurt, lentil soup with rice (khichdee), cinamon rasin toast and crispy veggie sticks.
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Jul 22, 2009

Nevin showing off his skills....



Here is Nevin showing off his listening comprehension skills. He knows where his head is, he knows where his nose is, he knows how to fold his hands like he is praying, he knows how to burp, he knows how to fart and he tries to sing along to a cheesy Bollywood number!!
Link to Video

Jun 15, 2009


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This is our new deck. We started this project about 2 weeks ago and it was ready just in time for Nevin's first birthday party.

Jun 2, 2009

Nevin: Month 11 ++ and Hetal's Wedding


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Nevin is about 2 weeks short of his first birthday. As we speak, his aunt Aarti and Pooja are shopping for his party! We're building a deck and hopefully that will be finished by the time his birthday is here. Nevin also attended Hetal and Sunny's wedding (another first) and had a blast!!

May 9, 2009

Nevin Month 11


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Nevin is a few days short of being 11 months old. He is now able to climb up the stairs all by himself. He stands up by himself and balances pretty well. It seems like he is only a few weeks away from being able to take his first few steps. Nevin visited his cousin Tony in Ann Arbor last week and had a blast playing with all his cousin's toys. He also celebrated Tony's 4th Birthday at Jungle Java in Ann Arbor. He was a champ during the 4 hour drive to Michigan and did not trouble mommy and daddy at all :) His mom and Aarti maasi (aunt) are making big preparations for his 1st birthday party and the planning for the event is well underway!!

Apr 22, 2009

Nevin: Month Ten


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Nevin is 10 months old. In this month, he celebrated his first Easter and attended his first birthday party at Akhil, Sonali and Aadit's house. He is crawling all over the house now and gets into all the nooks and crannies that he shouldn't be in. Nevin will show you his tongue if asked and will also brush both his hands together and shake his legs when you say "hands" or "legs". He knows the difference between a balloon and a ball :) His favorite TV shows are Clifford and Sesame Street, especially the theme song of Sesame Street. It sometimes looks like he is trying to sing along with it!

Mar 21, 2009

Nevin at 9 months


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Nevin is 9 months old. Here he is just after getting his second hair cut ever. Nevin has started crawling now and is not afraid of exploring all the space around him. We are working on baby proofing the house. He now knows what a ball is and will run and get the ball if asked :) He also looks at the TV every time someone says "Clifford"!

Feb 13, 2009

Nevin @ 7 months

Nevin is 7 months old. He sits up by himself, makes a whole bunch of sounds that sound mostly like gobbledygook, he knows where to look when you say FAN or TV (thanks to his grand mom)and he loves watching Sesame Street!

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