Guess who's four now?!

(P.S.  This blog hasn't totally been abandoned, but just more 'downsized' these days!)

A New Year

Greetings remaining faithful blog fans!

Seems like just a post ago we were talking about holiday traditions. Well...the holidays have come and gone, and believe it or not, we are in the midst of planning a little gathering for a certain almost three-year-old!

We have a huge backlog of pictures and updates to make. Over the holidays Terri transitioned to a new camera and hasn't had the time yet to figure out some of the logistics of uploading from the new fancy thing.

Thanks for your patience, and just know that life in Radha's world is pretty darn great these days, and there is never a dull moment between: daycare (3 days/week), music class with her favorite teacher Tyleena "The Fairy Funkmother" (1 day/week), swim lessons (past 8 weeks and wrapping up soon), and all sorts of play dates with playgroup and other friends.

Dancing (especially bhangra), singing, reading, counting (up to 20 in English, and up to 10 in Hindi and Spanish), Play-Do, and making muffins are some of her favorite activities lately.

Current favorite songs:

"You Can Call Me Al" (Paul Simon)

"Shake, Rattle & Roll" or "All Shook Up" (Elvis)

"Paw Paw Patch" (Sharon Jones)

The biggest milestone which we are THRILLED about is that over Christmas break Radha made the transition to being fully potty-trained. No more diapers, not even at night! We didn't expect it to go as quickly and smoothly as it did, but just like that it happened. Sheer luck, definitely! She has a lot of pride in this new level of independence, and we are thrilled to be done with that whole mess.

Fall Traditions Continues

It feels really cool to have established family traditions.

One of our traditions since Radha has come along is the annual trip to the pumpkin patch. This is the third year we have visited Fir Point Farms in Aurora, Oregon.

Going to the pumpkin patch gives our family a couple of opportunities. It's about saying goodbye to Summer and saying hello to the Fall harvests, a preview of Halloween jack-o-laterns, and time to explore farmland and where some things are planted and grow.

This was the first year that Radha got to ride a pony, and boy was she excited!

Life Happens

Greetings faithful blog readers!

Just a quick note to let you know that we have not abandoned this blog, and Radha is still actively growing, learning, laughing, and loving as much as documented already on this blog.

Day-to-day with a two-and-a-half year-old toddler is quite a ride. A VERY exhausting ride at times!

We are still in the process of uploading pictures from our Labor Day weekend adventures. That was only a month ago, but it feels like ages ago already. We've come to accept the fact that we are usually just too busy living life that we don't often have time to document, reflect, and share about Radha's development and happenings within the means of this blog.

There will be updates again. Thanks for your patience and interest in keeping tabs on the most amazing being in our lives.

P.S. If you're here mostly for some cute Radha pictures, I recommend you bookmark or add my Flickr stream to your favorite links.

Word Explosion

Our household has encountered a verbal explosion of words and sentences lately.

Ro and I have been waiting for these moments for a while, for when we could carry an actual, real conversation with Radha. And now it's happening! It's so much fun to hear Radha put words together, and sometimes the results are pretty hilarious. We have no idea where she heard some of the things, or where she got the concepts from, and others are fairly obvious.

Here is a sampling of sentences and phrases that Radha has been repeating a lot lately:

• Have a good day, Momma.

• Radha Simone Wiley-Sood is eating strawberrries.


• Mommy come too? Daddy come too?


• Let's eat the chocolate (pronounced CHALK-OH-LOT) Momma.


• This is the best book ever.


• It happens.


• Hop on the Dana! Hop on the Max! (reference to our neighbor's kids)


• I like broccoli trees.


• Baby Mook crying.


• Daddy driving to work. *makes sound of car driving*


• Ladybugs sleeping. (said during daycare when her class was exploring soil and looking at bugs and plants in the soil)


• Go away Momma! Go away Daddy! (usually said in fun when she wants one of us to hide and play hide-and-seek with her)

• You said it a long time ago.

• You said it, boys and girls!

• No problem! (said when pretending to talk on the phone with a real phone or her play "cell phone")

Of course, this list will only be growing, but we wanted to share a sampling of the word fun before we forget to document this fun stage.

Little Lady Meets Ladybug

Radha was mesmerized by a ladybug we found on the beach recently while exploring Kelley Point Park in Portland.

All Work and No Play

A rare dry and sunny day recently gave Radha an opportunity to help us with some yard work.

Nothing like a little dress-up for playtime after all that hard labor.