Happy Diwali

It is always difficult when Diwali comes in a weekday and you are in the USA. They should declare it a holiday at least in Cupertino!

Wishing you all a wonderful Diwali!

May this Deepavali bring you light and joy.

They made the Deepams (Dia's) as part of their art class. The little one is going through the "conscious phase of posing for photos" now that she is a "tween" aka "big girl"! 

As far as I am concerned, they will NEVER be big girls.

They are growing up though. Finally did a collage of them in a third nice dress this year..

Cannot believe this year is coming to an end in a few more weeks. Have to post a lot of thoughts and pictures. Will get to them before end of the year. 

For now, time to enjoy the sweets and savories made by MIL, and enjoy the smiling faces all around! 

Happy Deepavali! 

A quiet halloween

Today we had a quiet halloween. Given it was on a weekend, was expecting at least a dozen kids to show up.. we didn't have a single kid show up for trick or treat this year. Guess that is what happens when the road has no street lights and the few school going kids all move over to the community living complexes nearby to trick or treat with friends.

Thanks to travel, didn't carve pumpkins this year. 

Jr. and the little one did go out with their friends!

apparently her friend  was "thing 1".. the whole thing was lost on me. at least I should have got a picture of her with her friend and captured the "things".

The little one was a cat. 

The kids did their dressing up by themselves and also shopped for the raw materials or reused old costume pieces. Guess they are both growing up to the point where we don't have to interfere in the halloween department. 

The best part of halloween? They came home and said "Appa, we know you like Twix. So every house that had Twix in their candy, we picked Twix. we will put it in the fridge and you can eat it this week!" 

That was priceless ! 

The girl with the golden sax

This year, Jr. decided to play the alto saxophone at Golus instead of singing songs. She practiced the weekend before and played three or four small pieces.

She looked majestic in her half sari and the saxophone matched her dress like another jewel!

Jr. has been teaching herself these pieces. Not that confident yet on her ability to play south Indian classical music. We are all encouraging her to practice more. This year her teacher has promised to help her with understanding the complex notation as well as making it easy to play these pieces. Next year, she might play the entire songs.. 

Here is a small clip from this years Golu at a friends place..

She made us proud just for trying!