Monday, February 11, 2013

The next event of the year was our friend VV's surprise baby shower on Feb 9th.

3 of us D, M and I had a lovely time planning the baby shower over the last 2 month. We all work and have kids so it's a good thing we took it slow. V had a wonderful time at the shower but we had a blast planning the event.

We considered a lot of themes and we narrowed it down to "Cute as a button" in the colors blue, green and orange as she was having a boy. We booked the hall and sent put the invite only 2 weeks before the shower. We planned to order Italian food and booked for delivery of 2 entrees only to the venue. We picked up appetizers - Tomato Onion topping with Bruschetta and Antipasti such as green and black olives, marinated artichokes, cheese balls, sundried tomatoes served with crackers. We couldn't find marinated fresh mushrooms which would have been nice. We also picked up cups, plates, sodas, water, juice.

We knew V wouldn't be dressed for the occasion since it was a surprise so we picked a dress off Amazon for her as well as accessories. Balloons were pre-ordered to be picked up on the day of the party.

The cake was ordered from Balduccis and it was so cute.

We gave picture frames as favors to everyone and gifts for games were a pen and pad for winners.

Decorations were M's responsibility and they were superb. She made banners, lots of cut outs and the cake table looked adorable.

D and I were in charge of the games. We organized 5 games in total. They were all taken from this website and modified. Here are the rules for each game below.


1.   Baby Animals Game - Please name the corresponding baby animal.
 http://www.plan-the-perfect-baby-shower.com/free-baby-shower-game-animal.html

2.   Daddy Knows Best Game - We asked Dad to answer a series of questions. Mom needs to guess how Dad answered each question. Guests can guess along with Mom.

I was inspired by this link and modified the questions. M also created a spiral keepsake in keeping with our theme.
http://www.eventsbyshelbirene.com/2012/03/daddy-knows-best.html

1.     How many diapers does a baby need each day? 
2.     Who will be the first to hear baby cry in the middle of the night? 
3.     How many hours does a baby sleep each day? 
4.     At what age does a baby start sleeping through the night? 
5.     At what age does a child stop needing naps? 
6.     At what age will baby start eating solid food? 
7.     Do you think baby will be born with a lot of hair? 
8.     How many kids do the VVs want to have? 
9.     Who'll be the firm parent, and who'll be the pushover? 
10.  What is the date that you think the baby will be born? 
11.  What did Dad say when he found out Mom was pregnant? 
12.  What is Mom's favorite craving during pregnancy? 
13.  How many times has Dad run to the store to satisfy mom's cravings? 
14.  What features of Dad and Mom do they hope the baby does not have? 
15.  Which of the following is not a kid’s TV Show?
1.     The Backyardigans
2.     Dragon Tales
3.     Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!
4.     Wonderful Land
5.     Bear in the Big Blue House


 3.   Nursery Rhyme Jeopardy Game - Guests will be divided into teams of 4-5 each. Each team rolls dice and whoever rolls highest goes first. They choose a category and price and can answer the question. If they get it right, they get to choose another question from the game board. If they get it wrong, the one who rolled the dice next highest will get a chance to answer and so on. Regardless of right or wrong, it is that team's turn to choose a category for the question. The team with the most points wins! Time to answer each question will be 30 seconds.


I changed a few of the questions here to make them a little easier.

http://www.plan-the-perfect-baby-shower.com/jeopardy-nursery-rhyme-game.html

4.   Price is Right Game - We will show pictures of baby items. Guests have to guess the price of each item. You have to calculate your total and give it. Winner is the one who gives the closest total amount. All items were from amazon.com. This was also a great game and it was simplified because I asked everyone to calculate their own totals. 
  


5. Diaper Designer Game - Guests will divide into teams of 4-5 each. Timer will be set for 2 minutes. You need to diaper 2 of your team members with the toilet paper as quickly as possible. No pins or other tools allowed. Mom-to-be will be the judge.
This game was the hit of the party and the finale. It was so much fun and it really broke the ice..Obviously, you cannot pretend to be dignified when someone is wrapping toilet paper around your middle and everyone was in total splits. Someone actually asked the mom to be hold the toilet paper while they were "diapering" their team member. I was going to call a penalty on that one but just gave them a warning and let them proceed ! LOL...oh, I am still ROTFL...

      We had received a Director's megaphone during our Christmas gift exchange. It came in so useful during this event..when you have a crowd of 35 people it's tough to get them to listen to you. This was a definite keeper.  

      Our friend VV was really overjoyed and emotional. She is one person who doesn't cry easily but she had tears (hopefully of joy) through the whole program. I am just glad she was completely surprised and had a wonderful time at her baby shower. 

       This is a special moment for a woman on the brink of motherhood. This is the only time the event will be all about her and after this it will all be centered around the child...every woman deserves to have a wonderful baby shower in her honor. I am happy that I was part of a wonderful team who were able to give our friend an awesome baby shower!
We had a wonderful start to the new year and the first event we had was DD's performance at Pongal Vizha hosted by Washington Tamil Sangam on Jan 27th.

There were 10 kids participating for a medley of 3 tamil songs. I was the primary person choreographing the dances and along with a few other parents helped the kids practice. It was a gruelling 2 months, I must say but the kids did wonderfully!

Here is a link to their performance. N is the second one from the right.
http://youtu.be/r0wccEnemyA

I really enjoyed creating the accessories for the girls.

Here is a photo of N's hair or "jadai". My daughter has short hair but we wanted all of them to look traditional. So a few of the moms came up with these ideas. We bought felt cloth from Michaels and made a pinnal. Then those white rose flowers were stitched on and gold ribbon was tied around this braid. We bought Disco balls and covered them with this felt cloth, stuck semi-precious stones on them to form a pattern or design and tied it all together with yarn to make a kunjalam at the end of the pinnal.Finally, we bought yellow and red roses from Walmart, and strung them together to form the "poo" at the top of the pinnal. We even made an oddiyaanam and nethi chutti from gold ribbon. We enjoyed every step of the process!


Rewind of 2012

2012 was a real fun and exciting year for us!

So many events and I wanted to capture all of them just for my own recollections. Almost every weekend we have attended a birthday party AND just a get-together with friends and I included those that I do remember.

Let me list them by month.

2012
December

  • Dec 1 - Winter Gathering at my previous manager Rosettia's house. It was wonderful seeing all my old friends and colleagues again. I straightened my hair and went for a facial that day. Nivedha also had a sloka and story recital in her Sloka class that day. 
  • Dec 9 - Ria's Birthday party & Potluck at Vani n Gokul's house
  • Dec 25 - Christmas party at Maha's house. Lovely time with friends. Ordered food from a telugu maami..fod was great but so so spicy!
  • Dec 31 - New Year's eve party at Deepa's house. Ordered food from Bangkok Thai. Everyone had a great time ringing in the new year with near and dear friends!
November
  • Nov 3 - Diwali party at a friend's place Archu and Paddy. Dinner take out from Tandoori Nights. The sparklers were lovely and the kids enjoyed themselves. It was a unique evening.
  • Nov 8 - Neha (Rajani Desai) neighbor's Bday party
  • Nov 10 - Diwali party at neighbor's place Jaishree and Jaikumar.
  • Nov 13- Diwali day. Very low-key as I did not even make sweets...just bought them from Patel Bros. Enjoyed all the TV programs.
  • Nov 22-25 - Thanksgiving Weekend - Absolutely wonderful, relaxing 4 days with friends and family at  log cabin in Charlottesville. All of us just cooked and slept and ate ...away from the mechanical grind of daily life. We visited Monticello the home of Thomas Jefferson 1 day and visited downtown Charlottesville mall another day and stayed in the log cabin the rest of the time...memorable trip!
  • Nov 29 - Vikram's Birthday. Celebrated with Vikram and Deepa at their place..had takeout from Paradise Biryani Pointe.
October
  • Oct 12- Amma appa left to India
  • Oct 16 - Met an old college friend Soby. It was nice catching up after so many years.
  • Oct 19-22 - Navratri Golu - Invited all my neighbors and friends over and visited friend's golus as well - Banu, Deepa and Vidhya.
  • Oct 21 - Navratri Pooja at Sri Dhananjayan's house. Nivedha sang Bhajans and told Krishna and Kaliya story.
  • Oct 24 - Did Pooja for Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswathi on Vijayadasami day.
September
  • Sep 1 - Had lunch at Vaish's home and met her parents.
  • Sep 3 - Met Amit and Dhiraj at Karaikudi and spent some time with them. Nivedha spent time with her friend Pooja.
  • Sep 8 - Had a lovely girl's day out again with Maha and Deepa. Went for a pedicure and shopping at Marshall's and TJ Maxx.
  • Sep 9 - Vikaas had his first haircut and we all ate dinner at Chevys.
  • Sep 11 - Tuesday dinner at Deepa's house before Maha leaves. 
  • Sep 23 - Sunday lunch at our house so the kids could play outside for a bit.
  • Sep 22 - Srinidhi's bday party
  • Sep 28th - On a sad note, one of my closest friends Amit left back to India for good. It was very hard to see him go. S and I went to send him off at the airport.
  • Sep 28th - Farewell party to Maha and Prabhu. They are very good friends and 4 of us decided to host a party for their farewell. It was lots of fun as an 80s themed party. We all dressed up as 80s hero and heroines and S and I got the best performance award. We danced to Devi Sridevi as Kamal and Sridevi.
August
  • Aug 4 - Diya's bday party and Vidhya Niranjan's housewarming
  • Aug 5 - Sethu's bday party
  • Aug 5th - My baby boy turned 1!!! Can't believe it's been a year already.
  • August 12th - Vikaas's birthday party at Amherst House in Columbia. 
  • Aug 15th - My mom's birthday and we took her to Eggspectations.
  • Aug 18 - Went to Woodlands for lunch and went Fruit-picking with Vani and Gokul's family.
  • Aug 25 - Visited Madame Tussaud's Wax museum and Spy Museum in DC.
July
  • July 1st - For the first time in my life, my dear darling husband actually tried to surprise me and had a surprise lunch with our friends at Cheesecake Factory. Lovely weekend!
  • Jul 6-8- Sayee and SUbha's place in NJ and visited Sesame Park.
  • Jul 17 - Visited Luray Caverns and Dinosaur Land with amma and appa.
June
  • June 2 - Nivedha's bday party at LifeTime Fitness. It was a great party with gym games and swimming at the end.
  • June 9 - Tanvi's birthday party at Clark's Elioak farm.
  • June 9 - Subha and Sayee's baby shower at Maha's place. Lots of fun-filled memories planning for it.
  • June 13th - Our wedding anniversary and I don't remember what we did. Srini got me diamond enhancers for my diamond ring.

  • June 16 - Srini's bday is June 18 and Prabhu's bday June 15..so we had a combined bday party for them at Eggspectations followed by bowling at Brunswick Zones.
  • June 16 - Nethra's first bday party.
  • June 30 - Riya and Aryan's birthday party. 
  • June 30 - It was a nice surprise to have Joe and Lavanya over and they brought a cake which was very sweet of them. The cake was huge so I invited my neighbors Jaishree and her kids as well as Sheela, Prabu and their kids over too. We had a lovely time at home.
May
  • May 1 - Amma Appa Priya Rohit and Anvitaa arrived from India.
  • May 7 - Bams Maygha arrived from India.
    • This was the itinerary
    • Sis trip
    • May 01 tue arrival amma appa priya rohit anvitaa. Srini pickup at 4:30
    • May 02 wed relax at home. Went to columbia mall and walmart
    • May 03 thu priya rohit anvitaa to dc and smithsonian museums. Library
    • May 04 fri relax at home. Evening michaels n giant
    • May 05 sat Baltimore aquarium. Me amits farewell party. Priya n kids visit mcdonalds and rest in evening.
    • May 06 sun hersheys choc world n hmart
    • May 07 mon bams maygha arrival. Arundel mills all of us. Five below childrensplace
    • May 08 tue spy museum madame tussauds n avengers movie at 3d imax
    • May 09 wed kohls michaels n dollartree walmart
    • May 10 thu nyc
    • May 11 fri nyc
    • May 12 sat nf n olivegarden
    • May 13 sun pitsburgh sai baba temple n venkateswara temple
    • May 14 mon florida disney
    • May 15 tue florida universal
    • May 16 wed florida seaworld aquatica
    • May 17 thu library group photo
    • May 18 dctourbus n vaibhavalakshmi pooja. Walmart?6a-12a

    • Sat 19 dance recital Nivedha 5pm
    • Shopping costco dollartree mall chevys
    • Sun 20 shopping einstein bros
    • Mon 21 departure 6:55 pm leave by 1:30-2:00 pm
  • May 21 - Both my sisters and their kids left back to India. It was too short a trip. Hope we have many more such lovely trips together.
April
  • Apr 1 - Juhi's Bday Party
  • Apr 7 - Eric Carle's story time at Baltimore.
  • Apr 8 - Easter egg hunt for the kids at Maha's garden.
  • Apr 11 - Visit to Circus
  • Apr 15 - Tamil New Year's day party at Maha's house. Lovely food and good times as always.
  • Apr 21 - Girls day out to NYC!!! It was such a fun trip. Maha, Deepa, Lavanya, Vandhana and I went to NYC for the day. We left by Mega Bus at 5:30 am and returned by Amtrak at around 10pm. We just went shopping in Chinatown and bought handbags and sunglasses and just small things..had lunch at that Iron Chef Mario Battali's restaurant Babbos and dinner at Vatan...wonderful trip with the girls.
  • Apr 28 - Sanju's bday party at My Gym.
  • Apr 30 - I started working at my new company.
March
  • Mar 10 - Nivedha danced for Chammak Chalo at Murugan Temple for a Holi festival celebration.
  • Mar 17 - Meetup at Deepa's place. Takeout from Asian Fusion.
  • Mar 31 - Asha and Abhi's son Yogi's bday party.
February
  • Feb 10- we received our EAD card and from then my search for a good job began.
  • Feb 6- 27 - Joined the Wilton's cake decorating classes for 4 weeks. Awesome experience.
  • Feb 17 - Farewell party for Sayee and Subha as they moved to NJ.
January
  • Jan 1-The start to the New Year was pretty quiet..we had a relaxing New Year's eve at home with just us and the kids. 
  • Jan 15 - Pongal party. We had a blast doing Rangoli kolam and dressing up in sarees and cooking. I made 
2011
December 25th 2011 - Xmas party was enjoyable at Joe and Lavanya's place.
Dec 3 - Ria's 3rd Bday party
Dec 2 - Amma appa left to India
Oct 2 - Navratri Golu at Maha's place.
Oct 2- Bams was visiting me.
Aug 12 - Vikaas was born.
Apr 23 - Sanju's first bday
Apr 16 - Pooja's bday party
Apr 16 - Tamil New Year day party
Mar 13 - Nithia's Bday Party
Jan 9 - Sean's Bday Party at University Mall Theatres - Mega Mind