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.