Family Fridays
In starting this blog, I had the intention of finding like minded people. I wanted to share what I've learned in my marriage and parenting biracial children. I've been surprised by what I found. I didn't just find a few people that wanted to hear my story. Instead I found a huge community of people in similar positions, a little family. I love talking to people in intercultural relationships! My definition of an intercultural relationship even changed. I thought it was two people from two completely different cultures coming together. I realized it doesn't necessarily mean two different countries. We've all been raised in different cultures and starting a relationship means blending the two. This blog is about family. It's about sharing experiences and a little something that can help you in your own life. I love being able to share my family with all of you. Now, it's your turn. I'm starting a new project called, Family Fridays. It's an opportunity for all of you to share your family with us. What better way than over a good meal!? Family Fridays will be a chance for you to showcase a family recipe and share a bit about your family. If you're interested in taking part in Family Fridays, email me at almostindianwife(at)gmail(dot)com. Let me know a little about you and what recipe you'd like to share. Then I will email you back details. Check out our first guest post here!
Our Life Is About To Change Again
Our life has never been boring, that's for sure. The last five and a half years have been full of so many changes. We've lived in two different states, had three little boys, purchased a home, made amazing friends, and made countless memories. Our life is about to change again. We're...... no we're not pregnant again. We're... moving!We've been thinking and praying about this for the last six months and now it's happening. We debated back and forth between Houston and Chicago. My husband has family in both places and both are great options for us. We recently decided on Chicago, the land of the best deep dish pizza! My husband is a "little" pizza obsessed. The main reason we're moving is because we want to be closer to a big airport. My husband travels for work and we need to be right by an airport so his trips will be shorter and we need to be a bit closer to the actual conferences. What can I say, we love Joel and want him home more! If any of you have been around us the last year, you will understand how much he's been gone. We're ready for more family time!We will be moving at the end of June. This means we're selling just about everything, moving our family to a different state, and settling in to our new home. Which just so happens to be my mother and father in law's home. My father in law will be living with us as well. My kids are beyond thrilled about this! They love their Thatha and can't wait to live with him. He goes to India a few times a year and my husband better not be surprised if I stow away in his luggage and he finds me in India as well!
This doesn't just affect me either. It affects you! How you say? My father in law is an amazing cook and I will be learning everything I can from him! All of his recipes will end up here! You will love him just as much as we do. I'm also excited about living in a much larger Indian community there. I can't wait for my kids to experience more of their culture. We've always been physically closer to my side of the family; an Almost Indian Family living in American culture. Now we will be an Almost Indian Family living in a predominately Indian culture.
I'll share everything I learn with all of you. This is such a big time for our family and I can't wait to see where God takes us in this next year. Check out my husband's blog to hear his point of view on our big move.
Can You Eat Spicy Food While Nursing?
Oh this baby. He is always so full of smiles. My cousins even go as far as to say he is only ever smiling or crying! He only cries when he's hungry, so imagine a full day of the happiest baby alive. One question that comes up every time I have a new baby is how I eat while nursing. A lot of people stop eating practically everything while nursing, in fear of what it could do to their babies little bodies. I have never been one of them. I drink a cup of coffee every morning, eat spicy Indian food, and my babies have never been the wiser. WHAT! She eats spicy food while nursing!?Yep. You heard me right. Now, before I continue, kids with allergies are obviously a different case. My kids have never struggled with food allergies, so this works for us. There have been a few times when my children struggle a bit with me eating spicy food. If it's a significant amount, I will cut back a bit and slowly add more into my diet every week. Allow their bodies to adjust. Why go through all the work? You are developing your child's palate while you're nursing. Indian food is a staple in my family. That means my two and three year old eat spicy food on a daily basis. By helping their bodies adjust while nursing, it makes it a norm for them when we introduce solids. I continue this process with their baby food. I add curry powder, cumin, coriander, garam masala, etc. Here are a few baby food recipes I've used. Kids are eating spicy food in India every day, it's just as possible for my kids to. Joel loves telling our friends about some kids he met in India. They were eating chili peppers like candy! Do you think their moms stopped eating spicy curries while nursing? Nope!
Do your kids like spicy food?
Our "Pet" Filled Adventures
Over the last few weeks, Liam has decided he wants a new pet. Usually, this means he goes outside and sees what he finds first. Last week he gathered a bucket of bugs. He went into daddy's office and dropped them. It took us forever to find them. This week's pet wasn't so bad. He named him "Frog Name." His creativity is astounding. He had him in a little bucket with grass all morning. I finally had to convince him to let his little pet go. He tried to convince me that Frog Name was his forever pet, but after about an hour of pleading, he let him go. Now, he's asking me if we will get him a new pet... We have a dog.. Can't that be enough? I guess this is my life with three boys. Dear God, please don't ever let them catch a spider for a pet!Our week wasn't all pet fiascos. We also had a great Easter! Liam ran around the yard trying to collect more eggs than his cousin, reminding him with every new egg discovery.
Levi slept through most of it with a fever, but work up in time to drive their toy car around with all the cousins.
I love our little adventures with our boys. They all have such strong little personalities and they're just so much fun. Our days are never boring, that's for sure!
How was your Easter?
How To Survive A Traveling Husband Or Busy Week

Freezer Meals.
Schedule.
Alone Time.
What do you do to help your family or yourself on those crazy weeks?
Indian Hospitality

Are you hosting an event soon? Make it an Indian theme! A few meal ideas are chicken tikka masala, butter chicken, chicken curry, keema curry, daal, naan, or parathas.
Kids Say The Darndest Things
If you've heard me ramble on about my kids or have met them, you know they have very unique personalities. Well, the first two do. My little itsy, bitsy Lucas is too little to know his personality well yet. Liam and Levi on the other hand are always keeping me busy.
Liam is my sensitive little social bug. He loves talking to people and being in big groups of people all the time. He's also the most sensitive little guy. My husband and I aren't so we've had to pray for understanding. Especially, when were faced with water works because Levi looked at him wrong. All we want to say is suck it up, but instead we ask why it hurt his feelings. Other times, his sensitive little heart overwhelms us. He is always the first one to take care of one of us if sick, rub our backs if he thinks we're sad, or tell us how beautiful or handsome we are. Levi is our crazy, rebellious child. It's always interesting to hear what the teacher says on Sunday mornings because we always faced with a new story. It's typically Levi hit someone so I put him in time out and he smiled the entire time. This kid LOVES time out. He loves it because he sees his older brother go in it and feels incredible pride when he gets to. He's always looking for something to get into or destroy, but then he will greet you with cuddles and an arm around your shoulder afterwards. He melts my heart and drives me nuts at the same time.
Put them together and you get something pretty amazing. Here are a few of their conversations from the week.
What's your favorite conversation from your kids or kids you've been around this week?
St. Patrick's Day
Happy St Patrick's Day everyone!!
What about you. Do you go all out on St. Patrick's day? If so what do you do?
Paratha Recipe
As I'm sure you know by now, we make a lot of Indian food in our house. This means we need to have rice and roti (Indian bread) on hand. Typically, I will buy a huge bag of parathas and keep them in my freezer. While they are extremely delicious, I decided we needed some homemade, fresh from the skillet parathas around here! I posted this recipe a few years ago and decided to update it. This is a great recipe because you can tailer it to your specific tastes. It's a very forgiving dough and you can see where your imagination takes you. Ingredients:2 1/2 cups of whole wheat flourWarm water2 tsp oil1 tsp salt1 tbs garam masala1 1/2 tsp fenugreek leavesDirections:Pour all of your dry ingredients into a bowl. Mix them, add your oil, and slowly add your water until all of the dry ingredients come together. The stickier your dough, the more moist your parathas will be. Make sure you don't make it too sticky, otherwise it will be too hard to work with. Knead your dough for two minutes and then set it aside for twenty minutes.Pinch off a chunk of the dough and roll it into a ball. It should be about the size of a golf ball.Roll out your dough to about half an inch thick. Brush the top with oil and sprinkle with flour. Cut a small slit in your dough.
Roll your dough like shown in the picture. This by no means needs to look nice or be perfect.
Place the tip of this in your palm or on the counter and press down to flatten.
Roll your dough out one more time.Heat a pan on medium high heat, add a small amount of oil, and fry up your parathas. Cook them until they turn golden brown or start to bubble.These are delicious, flaky, and make your mouth water as you begin to smell them! Serve this with butter chicken, chicken tikka masala, chicken curry, or any other Indian dish. I turned my back for one minute and already found bit marks from my little boys.
Enjoy Every Season Of Parenting

We Are The Fifteen Percent
I love sharing my blog with people. It's a great opportunity to talk to others about my marriage and what I've learned. Who doesn't want to talk to people about something that's made them so happy? I'm constantly looking up like-minded blogs. I want to hear other stories similar to mine, get advice, and see if they face the same challenges. I'm surprised when I only stumble upon a few. I forget that intercultural marriages aren't as common as I'd like to think. In a recent statistic, they stated only 15 percent of new marriages are intercultural. It's such a small group! So small in fact that it's started a movement called We Are The Fifteen Percent! There's a website where people all over the US share their pictures and show off their beautiful intercultural family. What a great idea! I love browsing through all the new pictures every month. It's encouraging when my husband and I go through challenging seasons. My husband and I have been very blessed to be in such a great community of people that support our marriage. All marriages have their struggles and some of ours come from blending two cultures, but most is just our stubborn attitudes. There are many intercultural marriages out there that can say the same thing. Not all couples are that lucky. Some are faced with tremendous prejudice and racism. I stumbled onto a story in the news this week. A server at a Buffalo Wild Wings was faced with racism over her relationship. She is white and her boyfriend is black which was apparently very offensive to a group of drunk kids. They started calling her boyfriend terribly derogative names. She then proceeded to write a blog post about it. She couldn't believe that this could still happen in 2015. Her post went viral! Thousands of people shared it and it had close to one million views. You would think that she would be greeted with a huge community support. She had a lot of positive and encouraging words alongside hate mail and death threats. Racism is real people. It hasn't gone away. Intercultural relationships may be more accepted, but it is the minority. What can you do?Be open to anything different and educate yourself. Learn about other cultures. Instead of awkwardly staring at someone with a turban, look up why they wear it. Every culture is rich with differences. Yours isn't better just because you're comfortable with it. If you'd like to share your story, share a picture of you and you're partner on Instagram and tag me @almstindianwife or share it on my facebook page. The more people hear and see the 15 percent, the less novel it becomes, and the more we defeat prejudice and racism.
Why Are You Sorry I Have Three Kids?
If you're a kid person at all, you love babies. They're so cute! You can cuddle them, make silly sounds to them, and everything they do is adorable.When I had my first son, Liam, everyone was so encouraging! I'd walk into grocery stores and would be stopped down every aisle. They all wanted to look at the little boy with "all that hair!" They started gushing when I said he was my first. We got pregnant with Levi and most people were still thrilled. They said I was crazy to have them so close, but were still positive overall. My little Lucas, baby number three was a different story. Instead of being positive and encouraging, I got a much different response. "Wow. Are all these kids yours?""Three boys? I'm sorry."
What do you say when you get comments like this?
Go To Sleep!

Do you like to sleep in quiet or do you have to have background noise?
Speaking Telugu and a Bit of Nostalgia

Meal Planning

Keep it simple
Keep ingredients in mind
Plan a few leftover meals
Stock your pantry with some basics
Get a calendar
Marriage Advice

What is your biggest piece of marriage advice?
It's Almost Christmas!
Hurry. Hurry. Hurry. Wrap. Wrap. Wrap. Crochet. Crochet. Crochet. That about sums up my week. Things have been so crazy this month with the arrival of our handsome little Lucas that we almost forgot about Christmas preparation. We knew Christmas was coming, but all the preparations kept getting put off. Now we are here, the week of Christmas! Our tree has decorations on the top half, we have a total of three other decorations sitting out, presents are wrapped sitting in our room, and I have one stocking half made.Hey, I'd call that progress!The great thing is that our kids couldn't care less. They are just excited it's almost Christmas!! We have been reading the story of the birth of Jesus every night before bed and having Liam retell it to us. So far he thinks Christmas is about mama who had baby Jesus in her belly, shepherds that fought with sticks, and Christmas lights. I also can't tell if he thinks I had baby Jesus in my belly at one point or if he knows it was Mary...My goal was to make all of us a homemade stocking, but it looks like Lucas may be the only one that has one... It's ironic that he's the only one that doesn't need one!Our first Christmas as a family of five hasn't gone as planned so far, but we are all so excited and are having a great time getting ready! I can't wait to wake up Christmas morning with our kiddos, have hot cinnamon rolls, hot coffee, open presents, listen to our children tell us the story of Jesus' birth, and remember how blessed we all are to have each other! Oh and don't forget the endless sword fights all day because I'm pretty sure Joel just went out and got the kids last minute Ninja Turtle weapons!
How have your Christmas preparations been going?
Stop Touching Me!
First Day Home Alone
My first day home alone with the boys. Well, they all survived... The house definitely looked like a construction zone while Joel was gone, but we pieced it back together pretty well before he got back. Joel was great and let me sleep in until he had to go to work. He had some training to do and had to go in a few times over the week. My usual routine is to wake up, make an iced coffee, get the kids breakfast, and start on some housework. I figured I'd aim for the same routine. Instead it took me two hours to make my coffee... When you're running on fumes, coffee is a MUST. Why don't my children understand that fact? We are huge coffee drinkers in this house. They even know daddy will not play or wrestle until he's had his coffee in the morning and start yelling for someone to make coffee when he wakes up! Come to think of it I don't even think they had breakfast... Wow. I really don't remember if I fed them an actual meal that morning. I know they had lots of crackers and snacks at least. Well, they ate right? I'll count that as a success. They even had a bath! Although it was unintentional. Levi got into the bathroom and turned the tub water on. He ended up getting wet enough that I figured he might as well. I left while the tub was filling up to get towels and of course both older boys had already hopped in. The rest of the day was spent keeping my kids up for the plumber to come fix our sink. It's been clogged for two weeks!!! I scheduled him to come while the kids napped. I figured I'd keep them awake until he got here and then put them to sleep while he was working. Each minute I waited felt like an eternity. He got lost and ended up getting there a few hours late. Luckily it only took him five minutes to fix the clog!All in all day one was pretty productive. I made myself a coffee, gave my kids a bath, fed them, and got our sink fixed. I feel like I deserve two gold stars for my day!
How was your first day alone with your new additions? Share you stories in the comment section!
Levi and Lucas. Friends or Enemies?
One of my biggest concerns with bringing Lucas home was how Levi would handle it. He was our baby for the last two years. He's also our feistiest child! I was nervous he would be jealous of Lucas. Levi makes sure everyone knows how he feels verbally and physically. If he decided he didn't like Lucas, it would be pretty obvious. He brought Lucas a little baby (little bird toy) at the hospital. He gave him a big kiss and held him. That was enough for him. He spent the rest of his time at the hospital cuddling mommy and hiding under my hospital bed. I told you, he's feisty. He was so excited to see Joel and I bring Lucas home that day. He ran around saying, "Baby" with a big grin. For the most part Levi ignores Lucas, but makes sure we all know if he's crying or needs something. If we don't respond IMMEDIATELY he starts yelling at us. That means he cares right... He also runs up and gives him surprise kisses a few times a day. I'll take it! He loves him in Levi's own little way. Although... He did punch Lucas on his second day home.I was nursing Lucas on the couch. Liam and Levi were attempting to sit next to me. It turned into them hanging on me while I tried to feed Lucas. All of the sudden Levi leans forward and starts giving Lucas a very confused look. Then confusion turned to anger and he punched Lucas in the arm, started pulling on him, and yelled, "STOP EATING MY MOM!"Apparently he thought he had to fight him to protect me!The funny thing was that Lucas hardly flinched. I guess the scrappy third child thing is true!This will forever be my favorite story. I will share it with everyone. I will remind Levi about this when he's older. I will be that parent that embarrasses him with this story all the time. Admit it. You're still laughing over it too!