Summer Day Outings

Day out with thomas

Kedaar's dream came true :) Kedaar met with Thomas and went for a ride with him.
Here are some pictures of Kedaar taken when went to the "Day out with Thomas" event.
We heard about this through our friends and bought tickets for these back in March.
Kedaar got super excited about seeing several of his favourite characters including Thomas himself, Sir Topemhat etc.



Wild Waves enchanting village Water Park

We went to the wild waves theme park last weekend. We didnt expect that Kedaar would have so much fun there as we thought the rides, activities would probably suit little older kids. Kedaar could get into around 10-12 rides not including water and additionally there is a water pool area with slides etc suitable for small kids. Its amazing and we spent around 6-7 hrs there. kedaar loved it so much , he did all the rides without fear and had a blast in water. Its a great fun for adults too. We are looking forward to go for that one again.

Kedaar Croons

We have been planning to upload this song medley from quite some time now, finally we got time to combine them and put it on web. Kedaar loves to listen to music in car, at home. He is impressively keen in listening music and we often got surprised at his memory, music sense on how he remembers each song he listens and how quickly he decides whether he likes a particular song or not. In the last 5,6 months he had several favourite songs starting with "veerudena" from Avakai Biryani, "ammammoyi" from Konchem Ishtam konchen kashtam, "Jayaho" from slumdog, "Gallo thelinatlunde" from Jalsa. Vivaha bhojanambu from Mayabazaar, sumam prathi sumam from Maharshi, songs from Delhi 6 etc. Most recently hist favourite ones are the choldren songs from Lavakusa, Sruthi Layalu , "takita tadhimi" from Sagara Sangamam and "I am very good girl" song from little soldiers movie. Here is a quick attempt by Kedaar trying to repeat a ouple of his favourite songs in his owne style with tune :-)

Kedaars fun videos & stories

The latest favourite activity for Kedaar is riding bicycle. We bought a 12 inch bicycle for him last year, initially he tried it little bit, but was too young then to do it on his own. Now he learned riding better with small bicycles at day care and now to our surprise he can do bigger one also very easily. He rides it near our home and he also did near the Alki beach in seattle yesterday.
A small video of his new adventure

Riding bicycle-all alone @ Yahoo! Video

Kedaar Nandan first long bike ride @ Yahoo! Video

A small video of Kedaar saying a couple of characters in Ramayana, his most favourite story. We took this video probably around a month back, now he knows so many characters like rama, lakshmana, sugreeva, vali, kaikeyi, bharata, vibheesana etc, but also knows and can say individual stories associated with these characters. He also loves to watch 3 songs from lavakusa namely "rama kathanu", "vinudu vindudu","sriramuni"

Dasakanthudu @ Yahoo! Video

Kedaar's fun with Thomas trains still continuing. Now he is proud owner of 56 thomas&friends trains and still has several in his list. He created a own world with these trains and loves them so much. Here is a video with he naming trains, dancing , shouting and having fun

Naming trains - step2 @ Yahoo! Video

Here is a small video of Kedaar riding his little scooter near our house.

Kedaar riding scooter @ Yahoo! Video

Kedaar likes this "gada" which we bought in India. Watching Hanuman story and going aorund the house saying he is little Hanuman with this is his another new fun activity. If this gada is in some place he cannot reach he very nicely asks "mummy, can you give me that gada, I need to hit something". We never know, the "something" he wants to hit might just be you :)

Round and round @ Yahoo! Video

Kedaar's creative play time

Kedaar Crib Steps @ Yahoo! Video

Tulips 2009

We went to Tulips back in April , but didnt get time to upload them so far.
Tulips were beautiful as usual. It is 3rd time for Kedaar to go to Tulips.
Now a days wherever we go, he wants to run. He event tells us that he wants to run and then starts running. On few occassions (like when we take him to toys shop to buy thomas trains), he acts like a very good boy holding our hands and keeps telling on the way into the shop that "mummy I will not run, I only walk, ok, only walk". Obviously that lasts only till we buy that train. Anyway, running is his favourite activity whether it is inside shop, mall, park etc. Tulips was no exception. He wants to run all the time in the fields and we found it very hard to stop him :)
He also fell a couple of times, but the run didnt stop. He stared at flowers, smelled them, gave some nice poses. Overall it was an eventful trip.
Here are some pictures from Tulips.

NW Trek Wild Life Park

We went to NorthWest wild life trek near Mt.Rainier park today. We went there when Kedaar was around an year old. It was nice and Kedaar had a lot of fun seeing animals and running around with his friends.

Kedaar went to see Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam

Neeraja went to see Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam when he visited Microsoft and got his autograph.

We all went to see him when there was one more opportunity in an event organized by WATS. Neeraja got an autograph again and Kedaar touched the great man with a hi.

Here are the pictures

Kedaar Portrait Session

We finally went to Picture People studio again to take Kedaar's pictures. We have been thinking of going there for 7months and it finally happened. Kedaar gave some nice poses, check it out here

Kedaar budugu

Below is a cute video Kedaar doing a Budugu act (from famous book "Budugu" by Mullapudi Venkata Ramana & Bapu)

Kedaar and his world of trains

Kedaar is extremely fond of "Thomas and friends" series. He knows around 50 characters from this show and can recognize them, can tell stories about them continuously. In the last 3 months or so, he started collecting various trains from Thomas show. Now he has around 25 trains at home and he just loves playing with them. He also keeps reminding us some 10, 20 trains that we are yet to buy every day (mummy, I want harbey, rusty,stepney, petersam etc etc) :)
Here is a small video he telling the names of his trains.

Ugadi 2009

ABC - Activities Ballplay Conversations

Recently Thomas circus came to Seattle. As kedaar is extremely interested in Thomas stories, we went there. Kedaar had a lot of fun there. Here are few pictures from the occassion.

Kedaar's recent stories

Here are his recent pictures (includes a snow tubing trip, visit to local train station, some photos at home in snow etc)

Its been more than a month since I wrote a blogpost for Kedaar. The most exciting thing with Kedaar in the past 4-5 months I would say is his ability to speak and do
conversations.He understands everything we speak and responds to it as well.He can speak sentences with proper grammar most of the times and we just keep getting surprsed at the vocabulary he has and the variation of his tone based the context , situation.
After coming home from day care, he explains about little things about his day and also different ways he interacted with each of the kids in day care by mentioning their name. His favorite programs are "Dora the explorer", "Go Diego Go" and most imporantly the episodes of "Thomas & Friends". Just like lot of boys, his toys interest is completely around trains, trucks and cars. He knows each and every character in Thomas program and he is not tired watch those episodes even after 100 times. He also likes to read about Hanuman, Krishna, ramayan, Mahabharata.

I just tried to remember few things that he did for this blogpost. Obviously we can never capture his activity in any form. But this is just for my reference in future :)
1. "Good job mummy" when we do something difficult (for him). Also words like "my god", "my goodness"
2. "This is not the time to sleep", "This is not the time to brush"
3. When we give him punishment through "Time outs", he says 'mummy, i want to give a kiss". This is his favorite act to cool people down.
4. Sings "sa ri ga ma pa da ni sa"
5. "Mummy, i want to reach aeroplane, i want to jump and catch it"
5. He knows sevral character names in Ramayana, Mahabharata, krishna story (rama, seeta,hanuma,jayau,arjuna,ksishna,jambavanthudu etc).
6. Saying "No , Never" and laughing cutely like a villain "ha ha ha ha"
7. When Chandra was going on downhill one day and had to do a sudden break, he said "careful daddy, you will get timeout". He knows when he is going uphill and when he is going downhill.
8. We have a poster with good boys habits. He looks at the poster and explain each of the habits.
9. Playing piano and asking people to dance. He has great rhythm and loves music. He can repeat beginning of songs he listens. One of his favorites "hey ta ta, veerudena
nenu korukunna" from "avakai biryani"
10. when we give him water and he doesnt want it , he sayd "mummy, too much water". He also uses "too much" in other contexts such as "I love you too much mummy".
11. One of the things I love is , if we wear new dress or something, he comes and tells "you are looking so cute mummy, you are so nice mummy".
12. he knows how to take pictures with Camera. He closes his eyes while taking picture. : )
13. He has sktechers shoes. He knows what are all his friends are wearing. he sayd "aryan has spider man shoes", "meghna has flower shoes" etc
14. if we aks him somethign lie "are you finished", he answers in full sentences like "Yes, i am finished", "Yes, i do want it" etc
15. he plays with numbers magnets he has. he pus them on fridge and says "everybody go up" , "everybody go down". He also puts sun glasses for all of us and says "everybody has glasses", "nobody has glasses" etc

Few other sentences/activities are below

shh, quiet
Thank you mummy (when you point some medicine when he gets hurt)
Thomas and Percy need to have fishy crackers
i want to put humidifier
Humming the "ringa ringa" song from slumdog millionaire and slowly tranisitioning that song to "ringa ringa roses"
that is a cop helicopter
may be
she is kinda (mix of telugu and English)
diego, sit properly
mummu, u turn faster, i am turning slower and slower
going to fly
putting dress to daddy with towel and saying "daddy has a new dress"
mummy. I will measure you, your nose, your hair
I will eat myself, you dont need to feed me
emily is hitting me (calling mummy with emily character name)
you are emily, daddy is percy and I am thomas (Giving names from Thomas program to every one)
I want to put mountain (with moisturizing creme)
I want pokemon brush
harold - hello thomas
school bus, I want to go school bus
mount rain ear
i dont want to sleep
maiyyabhartha
rakshas! why hit jatayu, why why why, I am going to give you timeout, you are a bad boy
jatayu, I will put mandhu, don't cry
kaikeyi
sita
hanuma
sorry ganapthi, I don't want to mean it
spectacle bear, chinchita,
sloth, sammy the sloth
i want to see booots
air ambulance
ambulance helicopter
I want to go on a plane, helicopter
I want to touch stars
I want to put sarigaa
thomas is my best friend
I want to mix sambaar
I want to switch on the dryer
Are you ok mummy
I am sorry, I don't want to mean it
garbage truck, fire truck, cranky the crane

Kedaar @ Snow Tubing

Kedaar's fun with Bhogi pallu & Kolatam

Some of our friends gottogether and celebrated this year's Pongal at our home. As actual Pongal (14th,15th) was on a weekday. we did Bhogi pallu the previous weekend itself. Last year Kedaar was much younger to enjoy this, but this time he had a lot of fun and thoroughly enjoyed the bhogi pallu program.
We also attended the Sankranthi event conducted by WATS this year. Along with some other cultural programs, they arranged for bhogi pallu & "Kolatam". Interesting thing for us is that Kedaar danced for almost 11/2 hrs during Kolatam program with sticks. He was just trying to imitate what other elder kids were doing (dance with the rhythm and spin). He didnt even want to come home and cried a lot when we were returning from the event.
We should soon join him in some dance/music school :)
Here are some pictures from these ocassions.