Never pick your middle aged dad to help with assignments

Jr. learned that lesson over the weekend when she asked me to videotape her baking for a school assignment. Given she wanted a "high quality" video, I used the 5D for the video shoot while being worried that it had a focus issue. Luckily shot it with the 70-200 mm lens which seemed to work fine. 

The only mistake she made was in picking me to do the video. I stressed her out with a lecture on the value of money, trying to be perfect, not waste things, be fast etc. Pretty much micromanaged the thing and lectured her. It is not easy to work with me or work for me.. or live with me for that matter. So while watching this video I realized that I owe my wife, kids, friends and colleagues and especially my boss an apology for being so pushy and demanding and being obsessive compulsive in a lot of ways. The only people who are immune to this influence are my yoga teachers and yoga buddies. 

At the end of it, the cookies came out very tasty. The little one helped big time in being moral support for Jr. as well as coming in and providing her expertise in fixing mistakes during the baking process. 

The smiles say it all! 

Backyard fun

This post starts with an apology to Pavan Uncle and Deepti mami!

They visited the kids a few months ago and gave a gift. As is customary in the house, gifts are always opened at a later day. This one went to the garage shelf, thanks to San who doesn't believe in reading what the gift actually is before hiding it from the kids.

We reserve the right to hand over the gifts on days when the kids have to be bribed for something. We run out of bribe gifts and hence this rule! As it so happens, this gift was Christmas trees to be made of cookies which had an expiry date for the frosting and the cookies.

We still let the kids make the cookies with frosting, sprinkles, etc. but instead of eating it, placed it in the backyard..

Now that we have enough critters that visit us every evening and make it practically resemble the Fairyland projected in the latest Snow White movie. The kids and grandparents enjoyed watching the birds and animals come close to us to taste cookies..

It was great to watch them come and devour the decorated cookies, one piece at a time..

We are truly blessed with this 20 foot hedge that defines our backyard that makes any summer evening a pleasant evening!

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