Congratulations Ashish!

Ashish had a major accomplishment today!  He found out that he passed his Biology final with flying colors!  It has been a bit of an uphill battle for him thus far and there was a time when we both wondered if he was in over his head (32 units is a bit much!).  But he has persevered and has fought his way through this challenging course and has now come out on top!  He also wrapped up his math class today, so it's a double victory!  Congratulations Ashish!  Priya and I are very, very proud of you and love you very much!

Sweet little Priya...

Our sweet little girl decided to get sick again less than 2 weeks after her bout with the flu! This time it's a cold and it seemed to hit her even harder. The last 2 nights have been...well, pretty much void of sleep. But I'm happy to say that she is finally on the mend and getting back to her usual self. She never seemed to get sick during her 1st year of life! Year two is proving to be a bit different. What's up with that?!

Above is a pic of Pri this afternoon. She was in such a sweet mood - very snuggly and probably very relieved to be feeling a bit more like herself. I thought that this pic captured the softer (and less crazy) side of our little girl. :)

Below are a few photos of Priya as she was just starting to get sick. Ashish provided some much needed comic relief and a nice distraction.

Fun Day At The Park

We've had a lot of rain around here lately so between being sick and the weather keeping us indoors, Priya has had a bit of cabin fever. Today we made a little trek out to the park and Priya & I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Below Priya takes a stab at the steps to the slide for the first time. She proudly made it to the top!

Priya also made some new friends - including another half Indian, half Caucasian boy who lives in my parents' neighborhood. They played with her and she had a great time throwing the basketball around.
After our time at the park we stopped in for a quick visit with Ashish. Priya saw him through the window as we were walking into the building and gleefully exclaimed, "Dada! Dada!" We had fun walking and running up and down the hallway. Oh yes, good times! :)

Happy to have our camera back!

I didn't have much time to play with the camera today, but had a window of opportunity this evening so I jumped at it. Our camera is working better than it did when we first bought it! Needless to say we are happy campers. :)

Our Camera Is Back! :)

Yep, it's true! Our camera was finally returned to us today! It's fixed and working perfectly once again! If anyone has a Canon PowerShot A80 or similar models and have had problems with the picture going bad, you can get it fixed for free! Props to Ashish for his fabulous sleuthing skills and finding an economically saavy way to get our camera problem fixed! :)

Tomorrow will be picture day! We have a lot of lost time to make up for! So stay tuned...

Another close call?

Priya made her "great escape" on the morning of Wed, Feb 11. That night at about 1am we heard Priya crying. I went to check on her and found her sitting up in her crib, crying, with a very odd expression on her face. It smelled bad in her room and I assumed that it was a diaper issue so I picked her up and began to gather what I needed to change her diaper. Upon closer inspection I discovered that it was not a diaper issue at all. Priya had experienced something that she'd never before experienced (spitting up doesn't count in my mind). She had vomited all over herself and her crib.

I won't go into more graphic detail than that, but for the next 3 hours or so Priya continued to get sick every 10-15 minutes. Normally I would have brushed this off as merely a flu bug (it is flu season, you know?), but the fact that we had found her out of her crib with coins in her mouth that morning made me wonder if this was something more. Ashish & I contemplated taking her to the ER to get her checked out but ended up calling the on call Pediatrician who ended up being Priya's doctor - Dr. Braemer. He had a great way of calming us down and walking us through some possible scenarios and helped us reach a decision to wait it out through the night and then take her in 1st thing in the morning. Our minds raced with all sorts of possibilities and "what if's" but tried to trust God with this decision and to trust Him to care for our little girl.

Ashish went back to bed and I stayed up with Priya until she finally stopped vomiting and fell asleep in my lap (around 4am). The next morning we went to the doctor to have her checked out. His main concerns were blockages that would affect her breathing or her bowels. Neither were a problem. In the end he determined that it was probably a bug but encouraged us to keep our eyes open for the continuation of symptoms and to bring her back if things worsened.

Finally this afternoon "normal Priya" re-emerged. For the past 2 days she has barely eaten a thing and has been very lethargic and clingy (NOTHING like her normal personality). This morning her appetite reappeared and after she woke up from her nap she was as happy and chipper as ever.

So, all of that to say that we are again extremely thankful for God's protection over our little one. It was scary there for a while, but we are very grateful that "Priya's Great Escape" didn't result in anything more serious.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day from the Christian family! (Thanks to Grammy & Grandpa for the use of your camera while we continue to wait for ours to be repaired.)

Thankful for God's Protection

This morning when I went to get Priya up I was met with quite a surprise - Priya greeting me at the door to her bedroom!  Yes, you read that right!  Somehow our little monkey managed to climb OUT of her crib!  Let me back up a bit...

I woke up around 7:30 and a few minutes later heard Priya chattering quietly.  She will often wake up and go back to sleep in the morning and then get up around 9am.  I looked through the little peephole in her door (yep, we are lucky to have one and are thankful for the opportunity to spy on her) and I saw her lying in her crib.  She chattered happily for a while and then quieted down again.  About an hour Priya was still quiet and I went about getting ready for the day.  As I was doing my hair I heard a loud bang.  My first thought was that it was a noise from a dorm room above (definitely not uncommon around here).  I continued to hear banging noises that were indeed from above (but not nearly as loud), but I went to look through the peephole once again to make sure that Priya was ok.  I saw what appeared to be our little girl pulling back the curtain behind her crib and looking out the window (a common sight in the morning) so I quickly went back to finish doing my hair.  She was again chattering happily and I hadn't heard any crying, so I assumed that all was well.  But something in me was unsettled and I kept thinking about what would happen if Priya somehow escaped from her crib.  I kept thinking about all the ways that she could get into trouble in her room and was going through various scenarios in my mind.  I finally decided to go into her room.  She was still chatting quietly  When I opened the door she greeted me with the most enormous grin on her face.  I was dumbfounded!  How in the world did she do it?!

Upon further inspection I noticed that not only had she become an impressive escape artist, she had also gotten into all sorts of trouble - including playing with 2 coins that were in her mouth!!!!  Thankfully I was able to get them out of her mouth before she swallowed them or choked.  She had pulled numerous items out of her closet and made a huge mess all over her room!  Fortunately she didn't appear to have any bruises, bumps or cuts on her.  I'm still checking her diapers to see if anything strange passes through but I'm hoping that she didn't actually swallow anything.  So far so good... :)

I spent much of the rest of the day thanking God for His protection of our precious little girl.  So many things could have happened to her today!  She could have hit her head on the table next to her crib where I am assuming she got out or seriously hurt herself falling out of the crib.  I'm stil shocked that she didn't even seem to cry!  She didn't choke on anything.  The bathroom door was closed so fortunately she didn't go for a swim in the toilet.  So many things could have gone wrong, but she was just fine!  I don't know what I would have done if something had happened.  I'm just so unbelievably thankful for God's hand of protection over our little Priya.

A few pics...

Priya has been enjoying the mid 70 degree weather and got to play dress up with some of her spring clothes.

Yes, she is a bit of a goof! Reminds me of the Muppet dance! She was laughing hysterically as I took this picture.

Unfortunately for her, playtime dealt her an unfortunate blow. She bumped into a toy and bit her lip. So Priya has now achieved another milestone - her first fat lip!