Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Importance of step stool in a toddlers life!

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I would say the best purchase we have made for Ritu till date is a step stool. It is the most used thing by her. Every toy or puzzle looses her interest after sometime. But this is used every single day even after almost an year.

Trying out step stools to buy at TJ Max on April 14, 2014. We got this blue one where Minnie mouse is sitting

There are different ways she uses this step stool. She steps on it to see or reach things which would not be possible otherwise. She sits on the lower step and keeps her book or plate on the top step, thus using it as a table-chair combo. She also sits on the top step and dangles her feet to the other side.

Several times I have felt a sense of empowerment in her when she runs to grab her stool and push it to wherever she wants to use it(mostly to the kitchen counter when I am cooking something). This stool has helped her in taking part in all the baking and cooking that happens in this house. She loves mixing the flour. She loves playing with chappathi dough. She loves to watch me chop vegetables. She is always ready to help me out with washing dishes, vegetables and fruits. Though it is a wooden stool, since it is small she can even lift it if she wants to use it in other parts of the house where the floor is carpeted.

Few days back I was making puttu(steamed rice flour with grated coconut). I had mixed the rice flour with required amount of water and kept on the counter. She came with her stool and started mixing the flour. She asked Arun who was standing beside her, "Acha upumavu veno"(do you want upma?). When he said yes, she said " Ready aayilla. Wait OK?"(it's not yet ready) and continued mixing the flour.

It could cause little inconvenience for moms at times. You might end up with some flour spilling which will keep you guessing whether that was all flour or all of the baking powder that was not mixed in properly. Your almost round chappathis might get squished and poked in a mere blink. More Raspberries might go down the drain than what you thought. Anything you kept away from your kids reach might still be accessible for them with the help of this stool. But still I would say you should dare and buy one for your little one because it makes life so much more easy and fun for them!
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Friday, December 19, 2014

Ritu's Ocean Themed Birthday Party

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Ritu's birthday party was a month after her birthday and now I am posting about her party almost 5 months later! Well her party was not delayed due to my procrastinating though this post is. We were traveling during her real birthday, the week after we had another friend's daughter's birthday party and then we had to postpone the party to two more weekends due to some other reasons. But we are glad we did do it because our little cutie pie had a blast on her party.



Ritu loves animals. But instead of going for a general jungle animals themed birthday party, we decided on ocean themed party. Since its summer we wanted to do some water games in the backyard. And Ritu knows most of the sea animals too.


Food was kept simple with pizzas, raita made using grapes, sea shell pasta, vegetable biriyani, grilled chicken, melon balls and a sea water colored lemonade made using lemonade, kool aid (blue color) and pineapple shorbet. Birthday cake was a plain Tres Leche cake ordered from store without any decorations. I made all the decorations using home made marshmallow fondant.


The dessert table included oyster cookies, sea shell and pearl chocolates, candy melt dipped marshmallow goldfish bowl and blue jello in orange peel.



For decorations we bought some paper fishes to hang from ceiling. I made jelly fishes using paper bowl and streamers. I also made a shark cut out for taking photos. The background of the dessert table was a table cloth I found at dollar store.



We had a water pool set up in backyard. The pool was a gift from her Shankar vallyachan and she loves playing in it. All the kids had fun. We also had water balloons and water guns.

The decorations were done after Ritu slept. So she was excited to see all the decorations when she got up on the day of the party. She was excited to see all the sea animals on the cake too. She had lots of fun playing with all the kids in the backyard and loved the pasta and the chocolate dipped marshmallows.

With her beloved Deepthi chechi


Almost all of the ideas for dessert table and decorations were from pinterest. There are tons of ideas for ocean themed party online. It was fun organizing this party and I am glad all kids had lots of fun together.

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