Happy New Year 2011

Here's wishing everyone in Blogosphere a Very Happy New Year. May this year be extremely fulfilling and happy for each one of you. Wishing you all a grand 2011. Prayers for peace, happiness, progress, smiles, sunshine, good health all around.

The new year has started on a great note. We won the Prize at Shruti's Artsy Crftsy for December with our Edible Jewellery. Thanks a lot Shruti and the judge, Smita. Really made my day.

See you all soon with more posts.

Happy New Year  from all at Momoland. :)



Books, Movies, Fun in 2010

Just a last rounding up post before the new year sets in.

The books I read thanks to the reviews by various bloggers.

1) Maximum City - Suketu Mehta - good one

2) Dork - Sidin Vadukut - fun

3) May I Hebb ur attention pliss - Arnab Ray - fun

4) By The Water Cooler- Parul Sharma - fun

5) Stranger to History- Aatish Taseer -mixed feelings

6) The Immortals of Meluha- Amish - okie dokie

7) The White Tiger- Arvind Adiga- okie dokie

And some other fiction stuff, John Grisham, Jeffrey Archer,Frederick Forsyth and David Baldacci.

The Films we watched on DVD: from seventymm list.

No.   Movie Name      Comments

1. Knight and Day - okie dokie
2. The Invention of Lying - only J saw, bit too boring

3. The Book of Eli - only J saw, bit too boring

4. Leap Year - nice, rom com

5. The Spy Next Door - okie dokie, time pass

6. Edge of Darkness - nice thriller

7. Flicka 2 - nice , family

8. Udaan - nice

9. Date Night - super fun, nice

10. Baby Mama - okie dokie, time pass

11. Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang - nice, family

12. All About Steve - didn’t watch, dvd not working

13. Hotel For Dogs - nice, family

14. The Blind Side - very nice

15. Hot Tub Time Machine - only J saw, bit too boring

16. Tooth Fairy - nice, family

17. Meet Bill - okie dokie, time pass

18. Green Zone-  good

19. Up in the Air -very nice

20. 27 Dresses - nice, family

21. Juno - good

22. Hancock - only J saw

23. The Bounty Hunter - okie dokie, time pass

24. Inglourious Basterds - good

25. Extra Ordinary Measure - good, family

26. Shutter Island - good

27. Leatherheads - didn’t watch, dvd not working

28. It's Complicated - good, family

29. Percy Jackson & the Olympians:.. okie dokie, time pass

30. Street Kings - okie dokie, time pass

31. Invictus - good

32. Valentine's Day - good, family, nice

33. Gran Torino - good

34. Sherlock Holmes - good

35. Public Enemies - okie dokie, time pass

36. Death At A Funeral -good, fun

37. Open Season 2 - nice, family

38. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs - nice, family

39. Toy Story II - nice, family

We also saw a lot of other tamil/ hindi/ eng movies from another library before july.

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Movies seen in Theatre in 2010

1. Endhiran - 2nd day 3rd show

2. Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai

3. Dabangg

4. Shrek 3

5. Toy Story 3

6. Raajneeti

7. Badmaash Company - saw in theatre in coimbatore in May, only me n J went for nite show.

I had also blogged abt the movie going experience many many months ago.

Movies I missed watching in 2010 in theatres:

1. Harry Potter - deathly hallows 1

2. The Social Network

3.Inception

Am waiting for these to come on dvd.

And of cos, seen a lot of hindi/ eng/ Tam films on cd/dvd/ tv etc.

So thats a round up of the entertainment we had this year.

of cos, we also did the following :

1) Zoo Visit - April

2) Aquarium visit - Jan

3) Borivali National Park visit -Novmber

4) Summer Holiday Visit - Ooty, Coonoor ,Coimbatore, Chennai - May

5) Jaipur, Ajmer visit - J bde, anniv - July

6) Lonavla Visit- My bde -June

7) Anand , Gujarat Visit - March

8) Lavasa - Nov

9) Rambo Circus - Nov

There were no weddings this year in the family.

Trips we planned but didnt go: Hyderabad (cancelled due to Momo's Mouth ulcer episode)

Places I want to visit in 2011: Goa, Mahabaleshwar, Bangalore, some hill station in the summer,  an international destination cos now Momo can understand and enjoy.

100 Not Out - Momoirs 13

Yeah, Finally I have reached this landmark. My 100th Published post.(i have some 3-4 posts in drafts:) ) Been dithering over what to write, when to write, how to write before the year ends, who to write, (me, J or Momo's thatha paati guest post). Finally I decided, after all this is Momotales, so the best would be a Momoir. Other updates/ events can wait for the next post.So here goes. (Again Momoirs collected over a period of time and as memory brings it up).A big Kala Tikka before we begin.

1) After watching Cbeebies and Mister maker for so may months, couple of things momo has picked up which will be very useful are, as she says the minute she sees scissors/ pin/ needle/ knife : Scissors are the very very very sharp, be careful on the scissors... so on for pin , needle etc. (this has been on on since july/aug this year)

2) You repeat random song/words that we utter suddenly causing us to break into smiles. Suddenly I hear u singing, my name is Anthony gonsalves... im zapped and u tell me that dadda taught u this song. Or the rhyme thatha taught u, ghas khao,chana khao, paani pat pat pee jao...(said with doin tak bak action for horse)

3) Generally dadda makes a mish mash of lyrics, so when dadda tries to sing a song and he uses wrong words, u look at me and say, dadda don’t know, or thatha don’t know. ok ok I will sing and u sing the correct words. N u don’t allow us to sing a song/ rhyme. U have to sing it urself. Like we were going in the car and all izz well w as playing and thatha sang it. N u screamed and asked him to stop saying only u can sing.

4) This was a very funny incident that happened last Saturday. We were in Bata showroom trying some shoes for dadda. U went around the whole shop, arranging and re arranging the displayed shoes much to the amusement/ ire of the shop keepers. Then I picked up a flip flop of a brand called sunshine, and I happened to mention the name sunshine loudly. What next...u burst into a very loud rendition of "give me some sunshine; give me some rain” while all the other customers/ sales staff looked on with a smile and wonder. It was such a cute scene.

5) a couple of changes for the good have happened since u turned 2.5 yrs. It’s like a barrier has been broken. ur food habits have changed for the better and there is not so much a fuss or reluctance from ur side. Same with milk. The glass gets finished in a jiffy. of cos,fruits and nuts are still a nono,except for an occasional banana. kala tikka to this definitely. Keep it up sweetie.

6) The other big change is that we are officially out of diapers, except for the night. Potty had always been communicated and done in the potty seat for a very very long time. It was only susu that was the issue. U would not tell me abt it. U would do it in the bathroom whenever I took u and made u do it, but on ur own telling me never happened. So u can imagine how sweet the words sounded to me when u said, mamma susu coming and even held it till we went into the bathroom. u would sit down and do it, but then we bought a stool for u in the bathroom using which u can climb on ur own and sit on ur potty seat and finish the job urself. U can’t reach the flush still so I am needed to clean u up. So now when we go to malls/ outside I really need not worry, cos a loo is always nearby and we manage. Yes we have made u pee on the roadside or behind the car when it was an emergency and u couldn’t not have controlled. We did try being diaper free for a few nights but with severe winter coming in, we went back to diapers. Am not pushing it too far now. Am sure u will tell me in a few days/ months time so we can stay dry all night. u do drink a lot of water before going to bed and am unable to stop u. lets try again in some time. We even managed staying away from home without ur potty seat and u managed to do potty on a regular toilet without any fuss when once we had stayed over impromptu at my sis place. my girl is alll big now... am so proud of u... kala tika.

7) we use references of Sachin Tendulkar, Saina nehwal, Sania Mirza ever so often while making u eat food/ drink etc. we say, u will become big and strong like xyz if u finish ur milk etc. when u refuse to eat something or u see us eating vegetable u say, mamma u eating all the vegetable. U will become big and strong. big dadi amma only u r, advising us. and another fave line,if i drink milk , i will become bi and stronlike saina nehwal, then i can do badminton/ tennis/ skatin/swimming/ big cycle etc(other big activities)

8) thatha had gone to the bank once and when u asked us where he had gone, we told u that he had one to bank. I dunno what u heard, cos next instant u were repeating thataa has gone to Bangkok.

9) Momo knows the different routes we take to reach home from outside. and the minute we have to head back home after the outing she startes her song: i dont want to go home. n we distract her by saying, we are not going home, we are goin to (name of the area), or name of out buildin etc, thinkign that she will not realise. but this smart cookie knows and understands. so its almost a teary entrance everytime, or once wecome inside thecomplex, she wants to o tothe park, whatever time it be. the only time she voluntarily said,i want to go home is when we picked up thatha paati from the airport when they came to visit us in October.  

So that’s all folks for now. Wishing everyone a grand New Year celebration. We have no plans yet. Lets c. prayers, best wishes, hugs, lots of love to all the blogworld.

Edible Jewellery

Another entry for Shruti's Arsty Craftsy. This is infact inspired from one of the links she had shared. (the cucumber car one). Thanks Maám.

Edible Jewellery

 Popcorn and Tomato Disc necklace and Earrrings set

Ingredients: Popcorn- Act 2 Microwave Popcorn, Peppy Tomato Discs, Needle,Thread, an enthusiastic model to pose with the jewellry without eating it. :)

The model posing with the props

Having the corn and eating it too...

Dont they look like Mogra Gajra /Mallipoo???

The Very Hungry Caterpillar.. ate the Yummy Smiley Sun

... ok the title is inspired by Eric Carle's book- "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"- urf Bhukkad Jhinga (In Hindi). its a bilingual book. Momo likes this book so we decided to make an edible caterpillar.

Caterpillar

Ingredients: Mini idlis with food colour- green and haldi. pepper for eyes, nose.

n like the carepillar in the story, this mini idli one also got hungry and what did he find to eat???

Yummy Smiley Sun

Ingredients: Big Idli, Gems, Used Honey for Sun Rays.

BTW, originally the sun was meant to be a spider, but it looked better as sun. n we call honey as brown colour sauce .

N here they go, the caterpillar and Sun to Shruti's blog for this months Artsy Craftsy.