Playing with wood chips

Here's another little video of us playing in Monterey. Here we stopped along our walk and Sarina had lots of fun playing with the wood chips. She kindly shared her wood chips and shares some of her little, I'm mildly amused laughs.

Nose poking

Somehow Sarina got on the "Adult" side of the barrier fence (that is the computer/office area) and Smita on the "play" side. They quickly engaged in a very fun game of poke mommy's nose through the fence. Sarina found this hilarious... (I think it was Mommy's sound effects that did the trick)

Singing...

Here's a little video of Smita singing to Sarina... Smita has been singing to Sarina since she was a wee baby. Now that Sarina understands and communicates more, she participates in songs and of course always tells Mommy she wants more singing. Here we're hanging out on the coast of Monterey, singing and pointing at our her bellies...

Walking (and running)

Here's a little video of us out for a walk in Monterey. As you can see, Sarina often prefers walking (and sometimes running) by herself rather than being pushed in the stroller. One of her favorite hobbies continues to be spotting dogs. She's always excited to see a dog and yells out, "daaaaa," "daaaa" She also usually barks at them.. something like "whooo, whooo." All lots of fun and very cute. (Sorry for the wobbly video, I had to keep running to keep up with her!)

Sarina's trip to Monterey

We went off to Monterey this weekend and had a great time enjoying the great weather and all the fun Monterey things to do! We stayed at the beautiful Monterey Plaza Hotel and had fun running around the back ocean terrace and watching the otters and sea lions swimming in the Ocean. We also visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium (two times!) and explored the town. Sarina's favorite things to do were go on long walking (and sometimes running) trips along the walking trails. Here's some pictures.. videos to come.

One more beach video...

One more video from playing on the beach we wanted to share. Sarina LOVES playing in the sand.. on the beach and in the sandbox. You'll notice the very sudden end to the video when a handful of sand goes in her mouth... I think she's finally learned that sand doesn't taste so good.

Up in the Air!

Daddy has been letting Sarina "fly" since she was just a wee tike. She's turned into an adventure lover as a result and is bound to turn out to be a thrill seeker. No fear!

Everyone asks how I'm possible ok with my husband throwing my daughter up in the air... my response is that he loves her at least as much as I do and would never ever let her get hurt - and he has good hands!

Here she is getting some air...

Beach Hike Videos!

We took Sarina hiking last weekend to Tennesee Valley. We kept hoping she would take a nap in the stroller while we pushed through the lush valley, but she was up staring at the scenery and very excited to arrive at the beach! She loved walking around, checking out the waves and playing with (eating) the sand.

We have taken a lot of videos as of late - here are another two little ones. During the second one Sarina walked straight into my phone :) Extreme close up!

Laundry Surfing

Here's a little video of Sarina hanging out in the laundry basket (like the loves to do)... here she plays a little game of sky surfing where she balances with the basket in the air. After the first session she shows the sign language sign for "more"... which in this case means, do it again!! She's very good at the more sign for everything from things she wants to keep playing to asking for more food of a certain kind she likes.

Smart little girl

Over the past few weeks, Sarina has started to get very good at communicating. We've been teaching her baby sign language and she now is very good at the signs for milk, more, food, help, etc. She also understands more and more including the parts of her body and some animals. In particular, she is quite good at spotting dogs and monkeys - she identifies both with her version of their names and sounds. For dog, its "dah" and the bark is "whoo whoo." And Monkey she gets "haaa haaa haaa." In this video she is waving, getting her body parts and she finds a monkey on her play tent. Getting very smart!

More pictures from last weekend...

I finally got around to pulling the pictures off our camera from last weekend. We had a great time at the discovery museum. It was a cold and rainy day in San Francisco so we thought we would head there for our excursion. There's a toddler area with lots of things for Sarina to climb on and play with. She loved the "lakes" which were like big waterbeds. She also loved climbing around the tunnels and bridges.

She's starting to communicate a lot more - in particular by pointing... she clearly tells us what she wants. She's also picked up a few works; we're all very excited.

Mommy and Sarina

I couldn't help but post this photo when I saw it... mommy & Sarina (and a duck)!

Bumper Cars

This is another video from the weekend - Sarina playing "bumper cars" with a walker at the rec center. She was very excited when she suddenly realized she could propel herself around. . . and thought it was really funny to bump into daddy... listen carefully for some higgly giggles

A weekend all about Sarina

Though it was a rainy cold weekend in SF, we managed to make this weekend all about fun for Sarina. From the Discovery Museum, to the library and rec center, along with some fun outdoor walks, we did it all this weekend, and loved watching Sarina's expressions as she explored new places and learned new things. Though she doesn't talk much yet, she is definitely expressive - from (finally) making the sign for milk, to wagging her finger "no no no" when someone tells her not to do something, to pointing pointing pointing at every thing!

Here are a few pictures from my phone of the last week or so (sorry if a few are blurry!) to tide you over until Sumeet gets the ones from the camera organized. I seemed to keep taking the photo right before she smiled - so though she may look serious in these photos rest assured she's as higgly giggly as always.

The radio...

Sarina learned how to turn the radio on and off with her little pointy finger. Since then, its been nonstop radio on - radio off. She's also learned to "dance" a bit.. more or less bopping up and down to music. We also noticed that whenever she hears music, she starts clapping. Must have picked that up from all the clapping mommy and daddy do when they sing along to songs.... Here's a fun radio on, radio off session along with some dancing and clapping.

Touch Lamp

Sarina has a touch lamp in her room.... now she's learned how to use it. Here's a clip of her playing with the touch lamp that she figured out how to use.

PIctures from Sarina's Birthday Party

We finally got around to sorting through the pictures from Sarina's birthday party a couple weeks ago. Lots of Sarina's friends, family, aunts and uncles came to wish her a wonderful birthday. She got to run around and play, play, play until she zonked out for a one hour nap in the middle of the party. We finally woke her up for her birthday cupcake - which she wasn't all that into... Here are some pictures:

Just a cute picture from breakfast

Since we have been a bit quiet the last week or so, here's a picture from breakfast this morning...

Happy Birthday to Sarina....

At Sarina's birthday party this weekend, we got her a special cupcake. Her birthday cupcake would be her first real sugary dessert. I think she was quite overwhelmed with everyone staring at her as we sung happy birthday... then when it was time for her cupcake, she didn't dive in like we thought. Instead she poked at it and had no interest in eating any of it. No big messy frosting face or anything... even after she finally tried it, still not much interest other than playing with it. She did very kindly share it with Mommy.

At least one of us can resist desserts!

Walking everywhere

In just the last week walking has gone from a hobby, Sarina did once in a while, to her primary form of mobility. She now walks everywhere and is even giving running a try. By default, to go from one place to another, she prefers to walk.... goodbye crawling! Its fun to see her walking get better every day...

Sarina's birthday party

Today we celebrated Sarina's first birthday. We were a bit delayed with the holidays, travels, etc. and ended up celebrating on her 13 month birthday. Lots more pictures to come, but for now, here's a couple pictures of the birthday girl dressed for her party... she's wearing her very cute watermelon dress.

Sarina's magazine debut...

Sarina made her first publication... at only a year old she's already featured in a business school publication. Here she is in this month's Wharton Magazine

The link to the whole magazine is here: Winter 2010 Wharton Magazine (See pages 69-70)

Playing on the iPhone

Mommy bought Sarina a fun game for her iPhone called "Peekaboo Barn." Sarina LOVES it. Its a fun game where she gets to learn all about animals and their sounds. Sarina has also learned to use a touch screen and of course is going to be a native multi-touch user. She also loves using her pointy finger... in fact, whenever the iPhone comes out, she sticks up her pointy finger ready to play.

Is it too early for me to start with the "When I was a kid..." stuff? i.e. When I was a kid, we learned about animals with wood blocks. And when I was a kid we had to actually press buttons - there was no such thing as touch screens, when I was a kid computers made one sound, "beep" and had one color, green... etc., etc.

Expert Walker

In just a couple weeks, Sarina's wobbly walking has become much much better. She can now easily walk across a room or even go from one side of our home to the other. These videos are a week old now, but still have Sarina doing some more expert walking. In the second video, Sarina also shows her exciting clapping.. its more of an excited arm wave and some excited screaming!

Tofu eater

Here's a little video of Sarina munching on big tofu chunks. I (Smita) am especially excited because she's a picky little eater and I'm always pleased when I find anything she'll eat! Who would have thought she just wanted to pick up and eat really big chunks??

I love peek-a-boo

In just a couple weeks, Sarina has gone from just learning about peek-a-boo to it being her favorite game. Anytime she sees a curtain, blanket or in this case, my babeball cap, a game of peek-a-boo erupts. Here, while in Mexico, she took the hat off my head and started up some peek-a-boo fun.

Playing in the sand

Here is a little video of Sarina discovering sand for the first time. Suffice it to say the little monkey had sand everywhere for a week. We're at Nikki Beach (a restaurant attached to the hotel) Notice the dance club music playing in the background...

Wibbly Wobbly Woo...

One of the songs we like to sing to Sarina goes something like "wibbly wobbly woo... an elephant sat on you....wibbly wobbly wee... an elephant sat on me." It goes on and on with anything that rhymes together.

Here's a little video of our wibbly wobbly girl. Right around her 1 year birthday (Dec 24th) she started taking a couple steps at a time. She's now taking 5-10 steps and can make it across the room. She's certainly quite determined and despite all the falling on her bum, she keeps getting up to practice her walking over and over again.

This video also shows her birthday present - the fisher price house in the background.

More Puerto Vallarta pictures

Here's the rest of our (condensed set of) puerto vallarta pictures. More fun and frolicking in pools and beaches. We did a day trip to Yelapa and also did a tour into the jungle to get to some waterfalls and other sights. We also did a lot of eating (especially breakfast) and otherwise had mexican food every single day...

Holidays in Puerto Vallarta

For the Holidays, we traveled to Puerto Vallarta and spent eight days relaxing and enjoying the warm weather. It was also Sarina's first birthday and she got to celebrate turning one with a big vacation. We had a fabulous trip filled with lots of swimming, playing on the beach, sight seeing, hiking and eating tons of mexican food. Sarina did great and had lots of fun in the pools and on the beaches. She of course loved the long outdoor walks and hikes while mommy and daddy checked out the sights. She also picked up a liking towards spicy mexican beans! We have lots of photos... here's the first set: