Madelyn's Birthday

I can't believe my baby is 4 years old. You hear mom's say that all the time but when it's your baby, you genuinely can't wrap your mind around it. Now that she's so "big" I find myself holding her more, snuggling for longer and just trying to soak in all the last cuddly baby moments she is willing to give me.

Luke and I painted this plate at a ceramic shop when we were engaged. It is our family birthday breakfast plate. Madelyn requested pancakes and ice cream for breakfast. We put 4 candles in it and sang to her. 

At the kids school, when its a students birthday they get to wear whatever they want instead of their school uniform. Madelyn received this adorable tutu dress and sparkly shoes in a birthday package from her grandparents so she wanted to wear them to school. It just so happen that it was school picture day for their ID badges so in her badge picture she has big colorful bows instead of the usual uniform. haha! 

In the evening we had a birthday party that was unicorn themed. In November when we were in the States, Madelyn picked out what her birthday theme would be and we brought it back with us. Overseas living does require a bit of planning. 

The background 4 is made of pictures of Madelyn from birth til now. It's so sweet to look through them. 

This is the usually spread that I make for party appetizers and then for the meal we had a pasta bar with spaghetti and alfredo. 

I always bring back one balloon for the kid's party because they are crazy expensive here. It is still $3 to get it blown up here with helium but their excitement makes it worth it. 

This year we just did some swirly suckers as a "return gift" or party favor. 

For the kids, the cake is the main thing.. they LOVE picking out a cake design from online and then we have a local bakery recreate the picture. They've always done a great job! 

The traditional family photo. 

Madelyn with her precious friend Anaya. 

Madelyn with some of her party guests... so sweet! 

April 2019

April was a great month with sweet memories. April is when the weather warms up and summer sets in but its the start of the kids school year. Ezra started 1st grade and Madelyn started Nursery which is the equivalent of Preschool. 

I got this sweet idea from a friend to take 1st day of school pictures and record some of their favorite things from that year. Both kids have grown up so much this past year. We are officially in the big kid years which has been nice. They're really expressing their personalities more than ever before and they're so much easier to take care of than babies or toddlers. Its a great season! 

Our back to school tradition.. cake at Nik Bakers. Ezra is still in his uniform because now he goes to school until 2:30 and Madelyn is only going until 12:30 for a couple of more years. He's so big! 

When I go to pick up Madelyn I'm sad to not get him too but he's enjoying the longer school day. He has more activities like sports class, computer class and reading time in the library. 

I love their school uniforms so much! 

I also really love Madelyn's long beautiful curly hair. I have never cut her hair yet. I don't want to cut off those baby curls. 

Before the a new school year we like to go to the mall and buy a new tiffin and water bottle. It's an easy and fun "treat" to celebrate a new year. 

There was a carnival in town so we ran over to enjoy it one evening. 

I'm working on my roti making skills and the kids love to join in on that fun. It's basically like playing with play-doh to them. Indian women make such great roti but mine are only ok. They're supposed to be perfectly round and puff into a ball when I cook them which they only do some of the time. 

We found some really cute outdoor lights for our back area. Our backyard in our new house is 1/4 of the size of our old backyard which was hard to get used to at first. But, the community center parking lot and lawn has been a great place to play ball and ride bikes so it's been a bit of a trade off and the inside of the house is really great. Any little thing we can do to make our small back area charming and useful is a win. 

Thankfully we have enough room for our 8 foot pool. It's about 3 feet tall and requires a little filter to keep the water clean. It's a great place to cool off as the summer heat begins to roll in. 

We love to grill out and eat in the back! 

I really love all the flowers in our front area. When the weather is nice, it is a great place to sit! 

We buy all our flowers at a big outdoor flower shop called Durga's Nursery. I love how beautiful it is and the kids love to come and buy flowers with me too. 

Ezra has been working so hard on his reading this year. He finally got to a strong 2nd grade reading level so I ordered him his own bible to read. It is NIrV for early readers. He loves it! We read together each morning and have started in the book of Luke. Ezra's choice. :) 

The circus came to town so we took the kids. It was so-so but they loved it. Afterward we watched the greatest showman and let the kids sleep in the tent in our room for the night. 

I love the Texas license plates on the kid's bikes. 

Madelyn LOVES our dog Sadie.. Sadie tolerates Madelyn. She's so patient with Madelyn's shenanigans. 

The kids have started taking Hindi lessons M, W, F after school with our good friend Riya. We're hoping with lots of practice they'll feel confident speaking in the language like we do. 

The kid's school put in an awesome new playground and Madelyn is really excited about it. We play on it little each day after school when I pick her up. 

The boys playing boy things after our small group on Thursday night. 

The girls playing girl things.. haha! 

April was awesome! 

Thailand & Malaysia 2019

We have traveled a LOT in the last 6 years always tagging along babies and all the luggage. But, we've finally reached the stage of no more babies... no more toddlers.. only 2 amazing kids who can eat, walk, potty, sleep, play and so many other things.. all by themselves! 

Its a whole new world and its great!! 

We took the BEST trip to Thailand with an impromptu long layover in Malaysia and made so many great memories. 

We took the train into Delhi and stayed near the airport. We then flew to Chang Mai and arrived late at night.

The next morning we woke up early for an adventure at the elephant sanctuary. They speak against riding elephants and instead have us feed, swim and play with the elephants in a more natural environment. It was the best! 

We went back to our absolute favorite resort in Hua Hin. 

It has a fun slide that the kids talk about all year round. 

We were able to meet up with several friends while we were in Thailand and the fellowship was great! 

After a few days in Chang Mai we flew to Bangkok and then drove down to Hua Hin. Our favorite resort in the world is in Hua Hin. 

This was our 5th time to stay at the Novotel so they upgraded our room to a large corner suite that had bunkbeds for the kids on one side and a king size bed for us on the other. It was SO nice! 

I love this view. 

Ezra played bocce ball for the first time and was crazy good at it. He beat Luke and I over and over. 

One of my favorite things about this hotel is the breakfast buffet. I had way too many of these danishes every morning but they were so delicious. 

Madelyn like to "help" Luke play pool. 

We try to have as much beef and boba tea as possible when we're in Thailand. 

I love these two precious kiddos and their friendship is so sweet. 

Searching for sea shells on the beach.  

One evening they showed The Greatest Showman on the lawn which happens to be a family favorite. 

We hoped to teach Ezra how to swim while we were in Thailand and to our surprise Madelyn learned how to swim too! These two are part fish! 

Our return flights to India were cancelled so we ended up having to take a layover in Malaysia. It was our first time to Malaysia so we extended our trip by a few days to see the city a bit. 

We went to a bird park that was beautiful and had all types of exotic birds freely walking around us. 

There was also a really great playground that they kids enjoyed. 

There was a restaurant down the street from our hotel that was very similar to IHOP. It was delicious. 

We went to a kids movie (not many kids movies come to India). Ezra and I did rock climbing together. We swam a ton at the hotel and we also to the children's science museum which was amazing. 

On the way to the airport we stopped by a great BBQ restaurant. They had a big Texas sign on the wall and were delighted to hear that we were from Texas.  

We also stopped for one last boba tea because its our favorite!  

When we got back to Chandigarh we piled up into an auto for the quick ride home and Madelyn absolutely loved it. Now that we have cars and drive everywhere we never take autos anymore and apparently Madelyn doesn't remember all the years that it was our only means of transportation. 

We started a new tradition too.. pancakes and ice cream to celebrate returning home after a vacation. Mostly I wanted to give the kids something to look forward to when we arrived. 

This was most certainly our best family vacation yet!