Welcome to 2009 & India trip

Wish you all a very happy new year 2009. 2008 has been fun and we hope will be lot more fun with Kedaar.

We went to a 5 week India trip on Nov 21st and just returned last week. This is second India trip for Kedaar with the first being when he was 4 months old.
Kedaar thoroughly had fun during the trip with grand parents, cousins (rutwik, Sunny,Pavan,Padma), relatives. He quickly got adjusted in terms of activities, meeting people etc though he had some trouble with change of weather, milk initially.We also visited Tirupati this time.He talked to every one without fear and impressed them. He also started speaking more Telugu words, sentences than he did when he was in US.
Some of the cute/interesting things about this trip.
1. Kedaar saw his first movie in theatre during this trip. The movie is "Vinayakudu". He saw the first hald nicely saying "big TV" "big TV". Hot got little bored by second half and made me stand outside for the rest : )
2. Kedaar's top most interest in this trip was going in auto. Starting from the first day, he managed to sit in auto by himself. Irrespective of how many people were in the auto, he wanted space for himself without sitting in lap and would look at buses, other autos going on the road. Even in night sleep , he dreamt of "go auto".
3. Kedaar's next top interest was going up and down in the elevator that was just before the door in my parents apartment. His day started with "wear shoes" to "go elevator". He also exactly remembered the floor where my parents stayed in. My brother's son Rutwik,sister's son Suny taught him to do "balle balle" dance which he would do as a routine while he was in the elevator.
4. Some other fun activities he did are making chapathis, stand on stool before the wash basin and wash hands continuously,cleaning the house with broom, putting "muggu" before the house,helping grand mother with vegetables,sitting with grand father for "Puja" time,going for piggy back rides on every one,going on motor bikes,"go out" with every one who is ready by holding their hands nicely, watching melam (procession) from the apartment,"putting hands to take "Vaddu" in tirupati (Kedaar says "la" as "va", so he said "vaddu" for "laddus"),looking at buffalos and counting them,putting the clips used while drying clothes in different shapes,swinging by standing, sitting in wood easy chair.
5.Kedaar travelled in different types of transportation during this trip. We went in train to Kurool (Kedaar always wanted to go into "choo choo train" whenever he saw Thomas train videos), returned from Kurnool in a bus, went to Tirupati in car, went on motor bikes with uncle and pedananna and finally went on autos almost daily.
6. Some Telugu words he uses very cutely these days during and after the India very cutely aer "Oka kshanam mummy","ayyayyayyooo","chichichicheee","sarigga" ,"pattaledu","battalu","thaggindi?","cheyyi thiyyi mummy"etc.One more cute sentence he started speaking recently whenever he falls down or cannot get up etc is "I am falling doown, can you help me daddy/mummy".
Here are some pictures from this trip.

Kedar turned 2

Kedaar quite handsomely entered into age 2 on Nov 8th.We had a birthday party at home that day with Elmo theme. We also celebrated his birthday at his day care on the previous day. Kedaar had a lot of fun being a birthday boy while doing things like blowing candles, cutting birthday cake etc.
Many Happy Returns of the Day Kedaar. With your cute acts, you bowled over many.

Kedaar's blog book

Just like last year, we printed Kedaar's blog as a book.
You can see a preview of book at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/283134/0504c402720fa51c70e3093bab0a1d84
It took us ton of effort this time with crashing blurb software,
but finally it made it to publishing with Neeraja's determination.
Kedaar will cherish the memories when he grow up.

Beautiful fall colors

Fall colors are realy beautiful in Seattle. Most of the roads especially in our house community (Issaquah highlighands) and Microsoft are the best palces according to me to see colors.
Here are the pictures we took today with Kedaar and fall colors.

Kedaar and friends pictures

Halloween in Issaquah

There was a celebration of Halloween in Issaquah Highlands this weekend.Kedaar didnt wear his Halloween dress, but we went just like that to check out the celebration. There were lot of activities for kids and Kedaar had a lot of fun with them. The most intresting one for him is the pony ride. He did the pony lide very nicely with smile and was not scared at all to sit on it. We plan to go there again tomorrow for some more time/ Here are some pictures/a video from that occassion and few other pictures we took in fall colors recently.

Kedaar's Seattle Day Out

Kedaar wanted to go in a bus whenever he sees one. When local festival, issaquah salmon days happened, he boarded one and
continued to live on that experience. He says "go by bus go by bus"
whenever we see a bus on the road. So, yesterday we took him to
Seattle in a metro bus. We got down at westlake center, looked at a small waterfall, saw the shopping mall, took monorail to go to Seattle Center. Kedaar loved the monorail and enjoyed the most while sitting it in the first seat facing skyline.

In Seattle center, there are bunch of kid amusement rides like in an exhibition in india. He looked at other kids running for the rides and started crying saying he wants to do the same. We were hesitating a little bit, but sent him on the car ride (alone) and on a merry go around with Chandra. He thoroughly enjoyed both rides giving smiles throughout and didn't show signs of fear or surprise.
Afterwards, we watched a turkish festival in seattle center house and he liked their dances very well. We came back by bus too and
he totally liked the bus experience and the trip, hope we will do
more of these on weekends. Here are some pictures to share ...

Kedaar completes 23 months

Kedaar completed 23 months on October 8th. He now communicates with us only through language. He has built nice little vocabulary and has a word or sentence to talk to us in every context. We have listed all the interesting sentences he spoke in last 3,4 days and the list is already too long. He can also repeat every new word we say. He now a days likes Elmo, cookie monster very much and watches sesame street videos a lot. He also sits at the small desk we bought for him in Ikea and tries to scribble something every day for few mins. He says "Aa", "Aaah" (telugu alphabets) while scribbling as if he is really writing them. He can also count from 1 to 20 and can recognize 1 to 9 numbers. He is also recognizing most of the alphabets.

కేదార్ rhymes and friends

వాట్స్ క్యాంపింగ్ Trip

We went to a camping trip to Leavenworth last weekend. It is an event organized by WATS (Washington Telugu Samithi) and nearly 125 people attended the event. All the families with kids stayed in small cabins (similar to raliway compartments) instead of staying in tents. Kedaar and we ourselves had so much fun during thr 2 nights trip.

Kedaar turns 22 months

Kedaar turned 22 months today. He is just 2 months away from turning 2.
He became very knolwdgeable about whats happening around him. He understands what we speak, he communicates nicely mostly through talking, he plays games, does naughty tricks. I wonder how kids can become so much aware of everything at such a small age.
Now a days, we are not taking videos also as everything he does and talks sounds so casual.He is wonder boy to us and watching him grow is the most enjoyable experience.

Vinayaka chavithi

We celebrated Vinayaka Chavithi on Wednesday 9/3 morning. We went little late to work so that we can do pooja. Kedaar was surprised after he got up in the morning to see the preparations. He asked "deva","deva" (god) and we told him , he immediately learned that the god's name is Ganapathi and he has elephant face. For the next 2 days, the moment he came from day care, his only interest was to see Deva. He also did pooja nicely like putting flowers etc.

Picture People photo session for Kedaar

Kedaar had a Picture People photo session during the long weekend. We took him to a photo session last time in January and have been thinking to once again for almost 3,4 months now and finally went for it.
Here are some pictures from the session.

Seattle Woodland Park Zoo visit

Last weekend, we took Kedaar to Zoo. This is his first time visit to the Zoo. Kedaar had lot of fun at the Zoo looking at all animals. He already knew several birds and animals from books, TV and could speak and identify bear, snake,dog,cat,pig,zebra,deer,cow,fish,sheep,rabbit,meka(goat),spider,iguana,lion,duck,lamb,udutha(squirrel)etc. He was very excited to see all of them real.
Here are some pictures from our visit.

Some words Kedaar speaks

Kedaar speaks a lot now. He is communicating really through
talking now a days and he became expressive too while he talks.
He literally has a word for every occassion. I want to take video
when he says different words, but his talking became such a
casual thing and we just have to hold the video cam all the time
if we have to record them. So instead I thought I will just write
down once in a while the common words and sentences he speaks just
to remember few.

Some of them are "mommy", "daddy", "ammamma", "thathayya", "atha",
"aamu", "kinda paduthundi", "mummy, Diego bagundi TV pettu",
"aeroplane going","bird flying","Nickeldeon Guts","hamma,sree rama",
"light","walking","water","tennis","chettha, throw it","dirty",
"all done","deva","waterfall","nokku garage","fan piinning",
"chanda mama","moon","brush","hand wash","kedu","etthuko"(lift me up),1 to 10 numbers
and alphabets song,hums all the dialogues and songs from his
Barney DVD,various animal sounds,songs from Guru, "twinkle twinkle
little star" etc. The best one among these recently is the way he
says and shows "fan is spinning". Yesterday he suddenly surprised us saying "koorcho pettu daddy" (in the context of asking daddy to make him sit in high chair)
Its amazing that he always has some thing to say to every one in every context.