She wears a sari...

Ellie loves when I use one of my ornas (scarf) as a sari for her... she will run around all day wearing one. Maybe wearing a sari will be that easy and comfortable for me one day. I usually only wear a sari for fancy occasions...

Fashion Crimes

Ellie goes around wearing jeans that are just a little too big for her. The other day I decided to tight roll them... bringing back memories from 6th and 7th grade. But that fashion crime wasn't the only one committed in our house that day...
Because we have cement floors, we don't want Ellie to run around in her stocking feet, so we have her wear indoor sandals... the ones we got her for St. Nicholas Day. So, not only did Ellie have tight rolled pants, she also wore socks and sandals together! What kind of mother am I to torture my daughter this way?!
To make it even worse, I was inspired to put my hair in pig tails so my hair wouldn't get wet in the shower... So, it seems to me that three HORRIBLE fashion crimes were committed in our house.

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Well, our living situation is a bit different this year because we are living with a local family, but I decided we should still celebrate St. Nicholas Day. We didn't have our wooden shoes like last year, but we put out our flip flops. Ellie actually got new sandals as part of her St. Nick present. She also got a doll... she LOVES dolls... she holds them against her shoulder calling them "babu" which means baby here. She also pats them and says "Night, night"... Franklin's big gift was a hat because it is cold here... My big gift was a watch. Other than that we got some local candy, mango juice, and Ellie got some mango bars. Very exciting! :)
So, I really don't want to make a habit of posting pictures of myself right after I wake up in the morning, but I thought this picture was worth it because it shows Ellie holding her doll. Her doll is now called "Baby Nicki" after St. Nicholas Day.

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Almost right, but not quite.

I walked into the living room the other day to find that Ellie had climbed onto her friend's tricycle all by herself, but she had climbed on backwards. With a little bit of help from her ever faithful mother/rescuer, she was able to get herself situated properly on the trike.

Cool Stuff.

Our friendly Ellie made a friend on a recent bus trip. I don't know if Ellie really liked the guy or if she just liked his sunglasses. :)
Whenever Franklin works on his recording stuff, Ellie is quick to run over and see if she can be of any assistance. She loves to wear the headphones... she also loves it when her daddy lets her play the keyboard.

And she walks...

Adventures of Ellie.

We recently went away with some coworkers for meetings. While there Ellie enjoyed her bucket bath with the super cool shower head. She also enjoyed eating apples...she not only eats apples, but she says the word, too.

We travelled by train. Above Ellie is overlooking the busyness of the train station. Below, she sleeps during the train ride.... perhaps she got exhausted by all the hustle and bustle at the train station.

Our family.

Our family one year ago.





Our family now.

My One Year Old Girl

She sleeps.

She rides trains.
She smiles big smiles.

Happy Birthday, Ellie.

We woke Ellie up and sang Happy Birthday to her. Her dad made a little hat for her for breakfast. Later she went on a bike ride around town with her dad.
While they were on their bike ride, I worked on the cake. One of the girls from next door helped me decorate it. She actually had the idea of using pomegranate seeds and pomelo. I hadn't baked a cake in a long time... especially from scratch... and I have never made my own icing, so I was a bit nervous. When I asked Franklin what he'd give me for the cake on a scale of 1 to 10, he said 20. I think he was being a bit generous, but I won't be as nervous about making a cake next time.
Does this picture remind you of any other pictures on my blog? I took what I learned from the family we stay with and used it for Ellie's birthday party because it was an Iftar party. :) I didn't cook the food myself, though... I had done a "practice run" the night before, and Franklin gave me much lower than a 20... so low that we had someone help with the cooking. :) Give me a year or two... then I'll do better.
And, we sang to her... by the end of the day, I had sung Happy Birthday to her so much, she had figured out it meant she was special.
And she is special... we have been SO blessed to have Eliana as an addition to our family. She gives us a million reasons to smile everyday... and when she's not making us smile, she's probably helping us work on becoming better people. I love my Ellie... my one year old.

While Waiting for Walking...

After a dip in the pond, Ellie's daddy helped her walk home.
Ellie walks like this a ton now and she can stand on her own and play with toys... and then squat down to get a different toy. She has taken an occasional step on her own, but no serious walking...
so this is how Franklin and I spend our days now... hunched over helping Ellie walk. :)

Ellie's entertainment.

Ellie does a lot of things to occupy and amuse herself. She absolutely LOVES watching movies of herself and looking at pictures of herself. In June we made a 15 minute DVD of a bunch of little videos we had shot of her. Seriously, Ellie can sit by herself and watch the whole thing. She will respond to herself as well. Below, she is showing off how flexible her tongue is.

Sleeping

Ellie loves to sleep with a teddy bear. She almost always sleeps with Cider (the little brown dog). Occasionally, however, Cider isn't enough, so either Duane (the yellow duck) or Mr. Banor (a brown monkey) is called in.
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Iftar food.

I remembered to take the memory card this week, so here are the pictures of our daily iftar feast. The fast is broken at between 7:15 and 7:30 here... it gets earlier by one minute a day. On the plate above starting at the top is the fried rice, then the chick peas, piyaji, jelapi, cucumber, fried eggplant, papor, and in the center is a banana, for those of you just learning your fruits. :) In the picture below there are only 6 plates, but sometimes there are 9... that's a lot of food to prepare.

Lasagna...

These pictures are a few weeks old now, but I forgot to put them up last week... and I forgot to take a camera with a memory card to our homestay last week, so these are the pictures you get. Before we left the capital I made lasagna (with pasta that wasn't lasagna pasta)... I had to make the homemade cottage cheese and the pasta sauce, so it was quite a task, but super yummy. You can see below that Ellie was thrilled with my efforts.
If I had taken a camera with a memory card to our homestay this week, I would have posted pictures of a totally different type of food... Iftar food. It's the month for fasting here, and the fast is broken at sundown (about 7:30) each day. Everyone sits down with special food at that time... at our house we have been eating khichuri (fried rice), piyaji (fried onions and lentils), fried eggplant, dates, jelapi (fried sweet pretzel looking thing), fruit (banana, pineapple, apple), chola (hmmm, can't think of the english word right now)... and even before you chow down on that you drink a glass of a sweet drink... one day lemonade, one day a kool aid type thing, and one day tang... maybe I can get a picture of it for you this week. :)

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Celebrating early because we'll be at our homestay next Monday... the 24th.
In the States...



In the Solomons...

Our little reader...

Ellie is a little book enthusiast... it is by far her favorite thing to do. We were very short on books (there's only so many times a mommy can read the same three books over and over) so my dad sent us a pile of GREAT books. The one Ellie is reading in these pictures has an animal making a face on one side. On the other side is the same animal with a mirror in the face's place. When I read to Ellie (and she's on my lap) she can see my face in the mirror making the face. When she reads on her own, as you can see below, she gets right up close to admire herself. Thanks, Dad!!!

Eyewear

Above Ellie tries on Mommy's sunglasses.
Below Ellie realizes that she doesn't like goggles... while it's not the happiest picture to post, at least you can check out her teeth... she now has 7 all the way in and one more about to pop through.

Where does a month go?

Whoops! A whole month went by with no new pictures on the blog... that doesn't mean nothing was happening, though... On the contrary, it means a ton was happening! Above, is our return train trip from the capital. Ellie was so worn out that she snoozed on her daddy with her dog Cider.


Ellie gets to ride on her daddy's bike with him sometimes. This was the first time she did it. Franklin borrowed our friend's bike that had a seat attachment. Now that our friends (we miss you guys!) have gone out of the country, they lent us the seat, so Ellie can go more often. You can see Ellie is waving bye bye... even if her eyes are closed. :)

While we were in the capital, our friends stayed at the same guest house... bathtime fun.

A Train Ride...

Last week we traveled from our town to the capital, which is a 6 hour train ride. Above is a photo I snapped of Franklin and Ellie from inside the train. Ellie likes to wave at people. I think that's what she was doing in the photo.
Once Franklin and Ellie joined me on the train, Franklin took a photo. Doesn't Ellie look like she's all grown up?
During the train ride, Ellie kept us busy. She slept a little bit, but other than that she wanted to eat, to read books, to play with toys, to talk to other people, to climb on us, or to look out the window as pictured below.