Happy Tamil New Year !

Time flies. We are at yet another Tamil New Year this weekend. The girls dressed up nicely to celebrate. San also did a marathon effort in the kitchen this morning to make some amazing food. I must have added 4-5 pounds just at lunch and to compensate for that did three hours of hot yoga instead of the usual 90 minutes.

The back is also hurting after being squeezed in cramped quarters on long flights next to oversized folks whose bottoms spread laterally into neigbouring seats. My strong recommendation to the good folks who make the 74(+)7's and Airbus equivalents is to create a solid barrier between seats instead of the hand rests. Then again, if a skinny guy like me is suffering, it cannot be too great for said oversized folks. As usual I digressed at the first paragraph.. Tsk!

Where were we? Ah, the new year! Got back home just in time to see the cuties dress up and have fun. To celebrate the new year, I got myself a pair of Bose headphones that are expected to do wonders for future air travel. Don't ask me what Bose has to do with Tamil New Year. It has as much to do with a Toyota or Ford Car sales event has to do with Memorial day! 

This year we celebrate the girls growing older by one more year and the fact that they still pose for daddy when begged to do so.

Had to capture the earrings she is wearing.. they are made of Terracota apparently! 

For once I wished there was a picture of me with the kids to post! Maybe we will take one over the week. 

Happy New Year to all of you. May this Tamil new year bring peace and happiness!

The camera comes out, after a long time!

The girls were dressed in matching colors today. This begged for a backyard photo shoot!

The matching outfits reminded me of an old series of photos that were taken years ago!

Jr. is not the same model that she was a few years ago. She either smiles by covering her face or she has what she calls "smiling my way", which I don't understand at all.

The little one loves to pose, but she is so distracted that her eyes move away from the lens to something behind me or around me in a fraction of a second. This must be the impact of being on the iPad all the time, I tell myself. After calling out her name and saying "look INTO the lens" a few dozen times, get a clean shot if lady luck shines on me.

It has been more than two months and there are two snaps of them in the camera. So we made up for it.  Once Jr. got into it she started doing funny poses for me. These days the sum total of fun in the faces of the two kids seems to be a constant. If one is happy, the other one becomes mellow and vice versa. Have not figured this out yet.. but given time, will figure out a fudge factor in that equation.

The dresses are a little on the orange shade, but the backyard light and lens has the white balance adjusted to make them show up like pink! iPhone photos show up as orange. Now I have a new challenge to work on.. understand what is going on with color balance!

Hope the trend continues and they pose for more photos. 

We are nothing but caricatures…

Another year rolls by fast. The usual "IBM Childrens party" is enjoyed by the family. The kids and San dress up and Daddy Narayanan wears the same sweater yet again for the 7th year in a row for this party. Given that this is his only sweater, that is no surprise! 

The kids have this routine down nicely to the point where they know which lines are easy to get to and which ones need strategy. Feels like we are doing Fastpass lines in Disney at times, the way they race back and forths..

As usual, here are pictures..

Well, that was a picture of a picture. The original is one of our best Santa Photos and is definitely going on a frame!

Jr. picked an angel with a Halo

The little one picked a Reindeer. It came with a Jewel.. and her mole on the cheek nicely blended in as a spot on the reindeer!

This year, we went to BigAl yet again and he looks at me and goes "How many years is it, this time?" and I said "7 in a row!". The line at the Caricature stands are long and usually you have to go to the next artist open. Thanks to this blog and the pictures, I pull up the previous years collage, show it to the Organizers and go "Can you please let us go to BigAl? The first two years was coincidence. The next four was not.. Please ?!" and they warm up to us and go "fine! we will let you wait for BigAl"

Jr. saw this and went "Are we using this like the ruler on the wall to see how we are growing up?! That is crazy!"

Merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday to all of you!