Two Little Indians

Here's Miss Maggie in the Indian dress I bought her yesterday (over her Snoopy shirt).

And with jasmine in her hair.

One of the best things about this outfit is that it's cotton, so not only easier to clean but much less expensive than silk. And also, she's adorable.

Self-portrait.

Here I am in my sari a few weeks ago.

We're going shopping this weekend with the goal of finding a turban for John.

One Little Indian

Dalton wore his Indian outfit to church on Sunday. He was quite popular in it (though he's quite popular without it as well). He had no problem wearing the pants, shirt and vest, but we left the scarf off. What a handsome guy.

And here's a picture Maggie took of me feeding Dalton a milkshake.

This Little Boy

This is Dalton.

This is Dalton with a mouth full of pomegranate seeds.

Oh, the cuteness. Oh, the boy.

Preschool Activities: Letters X, Y, and Z

Letter X is for Xylophone and X marks the spot. We did a xylophone coloring page and played with the xylophone from Aunt Rachel. We also made a treasure map. We crinkled paper and painted it with turmeric water. I made a map first because Maggie wouldn't draw anything, then she took my ideas and made them her own.

Letter X is for X-ray and Letter Y is for Yarn. The q-tip X-ray activity is one I got from Ember's preschool stuff. Maggie's looks more like a robot. For Y, I cut out a Y shape and punched holes for her to sew in. After two days of trying to get her to work on it, I finally finished it with her helping me.

We also did some Yoga, but Tasha's yoga picture is much cuter. Yoga bums!

Here is Colette with her Zebra puppet for Letter Z. Sadly, we don't have any white paper bags, and Maggie was so uninterested in the Letter Y crafts that I didn't even try. But this was so cute!

I took the kids to the Zoo to see the Zebra this week, so that counted for our activity. More about the zoo trip (Bannerghatta Zoological Park).

Z Is For Zoo

I planned a zoo trip for Maggie for our last alphabet preschool activity. It's an hour and a half drive, and we had to wait for our friends (who got stuck in a festival), so we checked out the unopened amusement park in the parking lot. This train is a good example of things in India that look like they aren't operational. But are. Like buildings that you think "that store must be closed" but of course it just looks run down and trashy. And a bit scary.

Maggie on the merry-go-round, dangling well above the ground.

The hand-cranked merry-go-round. A couple of the drivers came over and pushed the kids around on it.

Many different kinds of deer.

Dalton in the safari bus. He enjoyed his great view and waved to all the animals, making "grr" sounds at the carnivores.

This picture is of a crocodile and a dead deer. Click and zoom in at your own risk.

Snuggly sloth bears. There was a truck in front of us tossing watermelons overboard, so the bears were gathered around for a snack.

Sleepy lion.

And even sleepier tigers.

Last time we didn't visit the Butterfly Gardens, but we checked it out this time. It's a bit of a walk, then you have to walk back to the zoo because the Safari bus drops you off there. The entrance was the coolest part, except maybe the AC exhibit at the end.

Maggie taking pictures of the butterflies.

And making sure they turned out good.

Z is for Zebra!

My friend Misty and her baby Lia - same age as Kyli. And a 75 year old elephant.

Highlight of the trip: feeding the baby elephant bananas.

Dalton wasn't scared.

Dalton Knows His ABCs

And Maggie sings them twice in 20 seconds. Warning: There is crazy-loud static the first bit of Dalton's video (ironically, the ABC part. It goes away at D).

St. Patrick's Day Crafts

Here are the St. Patrick's Day crafts and activities the kids and I did this year. Mostly Maggie. Dalton posted for a photo with the leprechaun footprints, and played with the rice box, but Maggie and I do a lot of these kinds of things during naptime.

Leprechaun footprints

and Pot O Gold hunt!

Homemade rocks (learning about the Blarney Stone)

St. Patrick's Day Rice Sensory Box (and how to dye rice)

Shamrock Shape Exploration. We used teardrop, shamrock, and heart shapes and playdough, paper and fabric mediums.

Painting Green Pepper Shamrocks

Maggie and I are wearing the same shirts we wore last year.

Hmm, green frosting and a chocolate face? Must be some delicious mint brownies around here!

Bangalore: Wonder La

We took a trip to the Wonder La amusement and water park outside of Bangalore in celebration of Maggie's birthday. It was $30 for us all to get in.

There were lots of small, fair-type rides and a few thrill rides. Dalton was too small for nearly all of them (including the lazy river, whatever!), but he cried on the dinky train ride, so just as well. There was also an assortment of big water slides, but we didn't do any of those.
Flying Jumbo.
Splash!
Termite rides. Inside a giant (fake) termite mound.

Nice underwear ads, huh?

Just like amusement parks in the US now have people posted everywhere to take your picture, this park has guys with water proof cameras roaming around! Pretty awesome since I forgot to put the memory card back in the camera. We bought a CD of all the pictures for $12.

Oh, did you think we were exaggerating about women swimming in saris? I was the only woman wearing a swimming suit, and nearly the only one even in shorts. Of course, plenty of men were swimming in their clothes, too.