Operation Christmas

So the buzz around town is that it's a little bit hard to get into the Christmas spirit here. A combo of the warm weather and lack of American commercialization seem to be the main culprits. I'm determined to make sure these kiddos (and me!) have that sense that Christmas is coming, even without the Christmas carols and light up Santas I love about the holiday season. I'm trying not to think about last year's Christmas in NYC with all the snow, the Rockefeller Tree, and Rockettes Christmas Spectacular, but I just did :)

I visited the 2 Christmas stores in Chennai last weekend, filled with a decent amount of Dollar Store-type things at exorbitant prices. I'm hoping we have enough already, but it's good to know I can pick up some plasticy-sparkly ornaments to fill in the gaps if needed! We bought an articifial tree before we left the states and I'm soooo glad since both fresh and artifical trees are available here but outrageously overpriced. (The people I've talked to that resorted to the local varieties tend to laugh in a not-so-amused way about their Christmas trees of yesteryear.) And if all else fails we can just crank up the AC, light an evergreen scented candle, and play the Muppets Christmas album!

First step to Christmas cheer, Christmas lists! I may have cheated and planted some seeds for what the kids might want for Christmas from Santa (especially since I bought Livi's kitchen 6 months ago and it came on our HHE and Oscar has a ton of Transformers and thought he might need to branch out a little).

slide, 2 jumpropes, T Rex, dinsoaurs, Barbie, a kitchen, and my personal fav - "A toy like this", plus a special note at the bottomnear her name "Santa, me love you"

Pokemon cards, transformer, legos, keyboard, matchbox cars, monster truck, jet plane, and a rocket (he added an addendum to include a Nerf Gun and dinosaur)

I had to think fast when we went to find the Christmas lists to add a few more things and they weren't where we left them...I'm not sure if they were put away with other papers or thrown out so I told the kids Santa's elves must have come and taken them to show them to Santa. They were very excited about the idea, and I have to make sure they don't reappear in the house now...

Next weekend - the tree goes up!

All About Me

So, I've decided to dedicate this post to me! I've had a big couple of weeks that warrant a little write up. This past weekend was my 35th, on 11-11-11 no less! We had an amazing weekend in the sun and surf at the Radisson resort near our house. It's about an hour away, and while I'm convinced the AC cut out mid-trip, the car made it both ways (well, the bumper was falling off when we got home, but who's keeping track...). The kids LOVED being in both the pools and the beach. Oscar is a champion body surfer, and Livi had a blast just playing around in the shallow surf and sand. We had 4 other families meet us there at various points in the weekend which was awesome for the kids to have some friends, as well as us! The dinners were scrumptious. So much so that I ordered the same thing 2 nights in a row, jumbo prawns for the record. Yummm...One of our friends brought a cake and they sang Happy Birthday too! Throw in a massage and some beautiful silver jewelry from Oscar and it was a pretty fantastic weekend.

Two weekends ago was another big weekend for me. I wore my first saree to a Diwali event at Oscar's school. The event was nice, with some performances by kids and teachers, but we didn't make the fireworks since the kids (and adults) were pooped. There's a whole lot of pleating involved in putting on a saree and a few safety pins to boot. I have my friend Kala to thank for helping me out since I'd never be able to do it myself! Here's a few shots of the result:

A few pics of the kids from the Diwali Mela:

looking to her big brother for a cue on how to pose for the photos

I love this picture because the kids have been arguing a lot lately and it shows they still are a team. They've just gotten so competitive with each other we have to make sure they have exactly the same of everything..unless there's a color choice involved. In which case Livi will always pick pink. Oscar's current fav is red, but will defer to blue if red isn't available. The trouble lies in when there is no pink, but there is red, which is Livi's second choice. Yes as convoluted as it sounds...hopefully this phase will pass too...although something tells me it's part of being a sibling and we have years of it ahead!!!

But wait, I was talking about ME! :)

So the real event of 2 weekends ago was my Bollywood performance. A company that helps foreigners adjust to life in India has an annual cultural performance as part of a photo competition they hold (Global Adjustments...they're in a few other Indian cities as well). I jumped at the chance when my friend told me about it, not quite knowing what I was getting myself into, but am so happy I did! A 6 min 45 second performance that took hours of practice, both in the studio and at home. Little Oscar has some great Bollywood moves that I will share someday if I can get a fast enough connection to upload video! My bones were aching, my muscles sore, but such a fun experience! It was also great exercise, and a group of us are continuing on with a combo power yoga-bollywood class..starts this week!

A few pics from the event (these were linked through Global Adjustments on FB along with the video):

patiently waiting for the performance

pre-show photos

the ladies from the consulate

our "troupe" :) 7 countries represented!

some action shots!

can you see how much fun we had

this is where Livi rushed the stage and my security had to grab her

Here's a link to one of the songs we danced to in the new Bollywood movie I've been dying to see but haven't gotten around to yet. It's the first sci-fi action hero film made here. I've heard mixed reviews, but the music is fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FteXhp7MZY

Oscar



oscar was painting this statue with water for good luck

Now for Oscar... Our beautiful boy is doing amazingly well. He got his first report card from school and is doing wonderfully. We had our parent-teacher conference last week and his teacher told us he was a model student and a teachers dream because he always follows directions, and makes sure everyone else is too. That definitely sounds like our boy! His areas of improvement include cutting, coloring and letter formation. :) He's started reading and can identify a lot of words. He can also count to 50 and backwards from 20. His favorite thing about school is recess, and his least favorite is writing. He also likes getting his work done, "so I don't have to do it later." Smart kid.

He was singing in the car today and I asked him what he was singing and our driver told me in Tamil! He sang well enough for our driver to reconize the song and help him out with the next lines. Oscar was extremely pleased to find out he knew more Tamil than I did.

an art project from school

For the first time today, he chose to stay home with Pricilla and finish his breakfast instead of going with me to pick up Livi from school. This is HUGE for him!

His favorite color is red. His favorite food is pancakes and favorite drink is fruit punch. His fav toys are still legos and transformers.

I was looking at Oscar's school schedule and noticed that he gets 3 weeks off from school for Christmas. I asked him what we were going to do for so much time and he tells me," I don't know what you're going to do, but I'm going to play with my toys." Sounds like a plan.

mango mountain, oscar's favorite fruit

He's been having "scary thoughts" just before he falls asleep. We usually tuck the kids in and within 15 minutes, Livi is out to report to us that Oscar is crying. One of us will go in and he'll tell us he had a scary thought about something, usually Captain Hook. (Interesting since we don't really watch the movie or show and only have 1 book that he hasn't even seen recently). We let him know he's safe and we love him, and my recent form of distraction is having him think about his Christmas list. It's worked wonders this past week although I have to get some ideas beyond Transformers, Legos, and Nerf guns.

Today he told me he loved me "too much," I told him that wasn't possible.

Livi

So, aside from all of our outings and adventures, I've been sorely lacking in general posts about the kids. I'll do one for each, since these days they are scarily competitive and would want their own. So competitive that I'd count the words to make them the same if I thought they would be reading this....

safety first as always, and we did make her put shoes on

Our dear sweet Livi is as intensely independent as usual. "Me do!" is one of her favorite phrases. She likes to dress herself and has a tendency to throw a tantrum if she can't get her outfit on by herself. She usually runs to her room or my room to take a minute to collect herself, then comes out apologizing and will let me help her.

She's essentially potty trained herself over the past few weeks. I did give her the underwear to wear, but she took charge. The first few weeks were a little back and forth between diapers, but about 2 weeks ago we stopped and it's been relatively smooth sailing since!

Her favorite things are all still pink, and she loves Barbies and anything with cats (animals in general actually). Her favorite food is rice and her favorite drink is apple juice. She likes anything sweet and is a candy-o-holic!

her advertisement for our hotel in sri lanka, before she ate it

She still wears her Halloween costume around the house and has 3 dresses that are her favorites. The other clothes in her closet make appearances from time to time, but really only if her favorites are all "in the laundry."

She seems to really like going to school, and heads off with her teacher with barely a glance at drop off, but is always first in line and has the biggest smile and hug for me at pick-up!

She's FINALLY started saying her own name, but it usually too shy to say it if someone asks her. She also has decided she prefers to be called "Livi" (as opposed to Olivia or Liv).

She loves matching things. For example, if we're both wearing the same color (if I happen to be wearing pink too) she says, "Match match!" She still starts all of her stories with "One day..."

Along with the competitiveness we hear a lot of "me first!" I need to find the Ladies First story from Free to Be to share with them....

She is our little alarm clock and will come in almost exactly 5 min before my alarm goes off (6:40am) and climbs in bed with us to snuggle. She's also become a bit of a wanderer at night and will come out of her room 1 or 2 times before she goes to bed (for things like water or a book, but also to let us know if Oscar is crying - I'll elaborate on that in his post!). She gets up at least once a night now too to pee or get a drink of water. Hoping this is a phase that passes soon.

She loves cuddling and plays with her hair when she's falling asleep.

Speaking of hair, she wants "long long haay" and is still growing hers out. She fortunately lets us brush it and the single braid on one side is her hairstyle of choice. I managed to do my first ever french braids as a mommy, and she kept them in for the whole day but is not interested in having them again. With Livi, you pick your battles... :)

UN Day

This is a little backtracking from October....

UN Day is celebrated at all the International Schools and I saw a bunch of posts about it in the foreign service community. Every country gets a booth and a chance to share a little bit about their country with the rest of the school community - food, culture, fun facts. At Oscar's school, the kids each got a little passport for stamps from each country booth they visited. It was pretty cool and amazing to see all the different countries represented in our community here.

The week leading up to it, Oscar brought home a doll that he had to color/decorate in "traditional" American clothing.  Oscar's blue jeaned and baseball hat doll seeing a little sad next to the beautiful dolls made by some Japanese and Indian friends, but I just felt odd doing the native american indian or suit and tie looks that a few others choose. Do we have an American traditional outfit? I kind of feel like I hit the nail on the head with the jeans and hat, but it just pales in comparison with the other countries....any ideas for next year? This was our first of many!

Our cookies and popcorn were a big hit with the kids, but my favorite snacks for the event were the Danish cheese and Belgian chocolates....yummmm.

not the best photo, but I think there's 35 flags on the stage (with the Scottish bagpiper!)

having mehdni done

Love this pattern and I learned it's Finnish!

handing out pennies and cookies!

What we eat

Short little post on the yummy food our cook makes for us. From mexican to indian:

homemade tortillas, refreid beans plus fresh avacado

South Indian idly and sambar

Idly and sambar are my favorite foods here. Idly are the white circles made from fermented lentils and rice. People eat them mainly with breakfast (I like them anytime though) with sambar or chutneys. Sambar is a soup/stew, with pigeon peas (like a lentil I think) as a base and lots of veggies and yummy spices.

Happy Halloween

One thing I've realized about living abroad in such a different culture from our own is that holidays are different. You see what's going on with the local holidays, get caught up in the fesitivities, and learn about the basics. But an American holidays rolls around and you just want to sink your teeth into it! :) Halloween was our first one and we played our part in helping to make some people wonder if Americans are a little off....

Our decorations that filled our tiny 2 BR in Hoboken, barely filled a corner in our old house, but still made enough of an impression to make it feel a little like Halloween. Livi dressed up in her princess dress on a daily basis for the 2 weeks leading up to it. Oscar followed suit from time to time in his Spiderman. Thankfully neither of them tired of their costumes and happily donned them for Saturday nights trick-or-treating around the consulate houses and the Halloween party that followed. Then again for Oscar's school party and one more round of trick or treating at the consulate. Oscar and I were mummies, care of a box of kerlex I ordered. They took a little bit longer than I'd planned, but I was pretty happy with the effect. Next year we're going all out and I'm aiming for a family theme....if the kids cooperate of course.

princess Livi, but who needs Halloween for that?

all decked out for trick-or-treating and Halloween party for consulate

Oz hanging with the girls in his class for Halloween, note that Indian, US, Korea and France and all represented here.

Livi peacefully napping while all the kids ran around her

Oscar's class

I also channeled my creative side this Halloween: sewing costumes for me and Oscar, baking Halloween treats, and organizing crafts/games for Oscar's class. I was a little bit proud of myself so pardon me while I share pics of the goodies...

spide ring cookies, with our dining table setup in background

part of the cupcake graveyard

I don't have any pics from the consulate trick-or-treating, which is probably just as well. The princess and Spiderman were in attendance, but Oscar fell asleep on the way there from school so was a little out of sorts initially. He recovered nicely and even made it into 2 haunted rooms (Livi was having none of those). Livi fell apart from the overstimulation and while she did get into the spirit of getting candy, I carried her the whole way time and it was not a tearless event. Alls well hat end well though and everyone slept very well Monday night, once the sugar burned off....

Next up, Thanksgiving! Glad I shipped my canned pumpkin and jellied cranberry sauce.