Behind the curtain

Can you guess what's behind this curtain?

A window?

A door?

A brand new car?

Nope....

 

A silly little boy who likes to play with the broom.

Water

We are fortunate to have continuously running water in our house, because the water provided by the city is only on during certain times of the day. Below our house is a huge tank that collects city water whenever it is flowing. It is pumped two or three times a day to a tank that is on top of our roof. Whenever we turn on our taps, water flows into our house from the tank above.

We don't drink water from our taps, though. We drink water from a tube well that we filter.

Just down the road is the tube well. Each day our helper takes a water jug (pictured below) down to the pump and fills it up. Ellie likes to walk along with Beli to get the water. Then, throughout the day, we fill up our filter with that water. From the filter, we put the clean drinking water into bottles, the bottles into the fridge, and then we eventually have cold drinking water.

Recently we had to change the candle in our filter. Here is the old candle.... it had already been scraped once to get the gunk off.

And here is our new clean filter already at work cleaning our drinking water.

I'd say it's a good thing we have a filter, wouldn't you? :)

Ellie's Class Celebration

I helped teach a class at Varendra (Franklin's music center). It was for mothers and their young children to learn English through song. Ellie participated, partly to help because she knows English and partly to have fun. It's good for kids to get together and sing! These are pictures from the celebration on the last day.

Families were invited to come and watch the moms and kids sing the songs they'd learned. So, Franklin and Abraham got dressed up and came along to watch. And since we were all dressed up, we got a family photo.

 Here's the group singing songs in a circle.

And this is us singing London Bridge. Two mommies made a bridge and the kids walk around in a circle going under the bridge as we all sing. When it gets to the last line "my fair lady" the mommies drop their arms and we catch whoever is going under the bridge. The kids would laugh and laugh and laugh. Below is a blurry picture, but it shows Ellie being caught and how much the kids loved it.

And finally here is Abraham with Nana (Grandpa) John, one of his favorite people on Earth. Ever since he was little, Abraham has gladly gone to John without crying and if he is upset, John can calm him down. 

 It was a fun celebration.

A walk and a bike ride

It may be commonplace in some countries for families to get to go out on walks together, but here it is not common. The other day, though, we decided to go for it, and it was wonderful! It felt so good to get out of the house and move, and be together, and watch Ellie ride her bike in a straight line for a long distance! A girl can only ride circles on the roof for so long.

We walked on some back roads to a University campus that is about half a mile from our place. 

Big dorms...

Beautiful flowers...

A handsome boy...

 Ellie rode so far that her tail end got sore. She decided to push the stroller rather than ride her bike. This did not last long.

 
And, my favorite staircase in the whole world.  These are the stairs you use to get over the boundary wall of the university. You go up one side, step over the wall, and go down a similar staircase on the other side. Love it!

Napping together

While Franklin was doing some electrical work in our house, we only had one fan working, so both kids needed to rest in Ellie's room. Abe was out, but Ellie was just reading. I went to check on them, and I found them both sound asleep. 

I love my little kiddos.

Ellie's Exciting Endeavors

Date night with Daddy...

Sorting the silverware after date night...

Writing on a calendar that was thrown away...

Falling asleep while playing with legos....

Learning to curtsey....

having crazy hair...

making a million things, in this case a camera, with legos...

I am loving this age with Ellie. The best part of everything is not what she does, but what she says. I love hearing her thoughts, the new vocab she uses, and how she expresses herself. She say a million things a day that I'd like to write down... if only I had the time.

Abraham's Activities

Eating spaghetti for the first time...

Playing peek-a-boo in the mirror....

 Just basically being too cute...

Ellie's Room, No More

Ellie's room has now become the dryer. Clothes can't dry on the roof or on the veranda, so we put them under the fan in Ellie's room.

Crayon Craziness

I saw online how to take old broken crayons and turn them into new multicolored crayons. I liked the idea of melting them in a coffee can in boiling water and then pouring them into molds. I found out pretty quickly this wasn't going to work. So, we went to plan B. I put the crayons into cupcake papers and put them in the oven. That worked, but I left them a little too long, I think.

Ellie was happy with the results.

Toy Fun

Our friends' children had outgrown this classic toy. Abraham loves it. His favorite thing is the mirror. Not only does he look at himself, but he likes to play peek-a-boo with someone behind him. He looks in the mirror and smiles big, then he turns around and smiles big. So cute.

And busy Ellie has taken to Abraham's bed,. She puts as many of HIS toys in there as she can and then finds something to be a roof. She can stay busy for a long time this way. It's amazing how she prefers baby toys to big girl toys. :)

New Decorations

 I am not a decorator. I don't pay much attention to what is on the walls.

Our friends made us a nice welcome home sign in December. Until a couple weeks ago, it was still on the wall above our dining room table.

Then I was organizing my desk and found a photo calendar that I hadn't used, so I decided to print some photos and use the frames for our wall. Here's what it looked like until all the pictures fell and I had to re-tape them. Same pictures are still up, just in different places. It should keep us going for at least another six months. :)

What Rain Does

 Monsoon season provides us lots of rain. Lots and lots of rain.

It would be tempting to complain about how my laundry never dries or how our road (see picture below) and it's open drain sometimes gets flooded, but after the hot, hot season we just endured, I'll take this rain with great joy.

This rain keeps our house cool. In the middle of the day it's only in the low 80s! I'll take that over the high 90s any day!

And this rain mesmerizes my little girl. She loves to watch the rain out the window.

I recently had a chat with my language tutor. She told me about a phrase in Bangla that says it's monsoon season that make all the poets in Bangladesh.

I'll take the rain, the poetry is just a bonus.

Homemade Ravioli

About five years ago, I tried making homemade pasta and it was a disaster. I decided to try again recently because I kept coming across the recipe for ravioli and lasagna pasta as I flipped through my cookbook. I miss ravioli, so one day I decided to try making pasta again.

Step 1. After mixing and letting it sit, you roll it out and cut it. It's so humid here that I used a ton of extra flour so they wouldn't stick together.

 Step 2. Later in the day (after storing the dough in the fridge) I put cheese and basil inside and then pushed a fork around the edges so all the goodness wouldn't come out while cooking.

Step 3. Boil and eat. I guess that's two steps. We ate ours with a packet of Alfredo Sauce we were sent. Yum. I was convinced that all the work was worth it. Franklin was not so impressed. :)

A week or two later, however, I used the same recipe to make lasagna pasta. My darling husband said it was the best food I've ever made... and then a few seconds later he added "in the last couple months." Hahaha. I will definitely be doing this again.

Sick, Curious Baby

Hmm, what's this? Let me read the label.

Is this how you open it?

You don't mind if I just eat it, do you?

 
Poor Abraham had a cough. So at night I rubbed some of the Baby Rub on his back and chest. Earlier in the day, though, my neighbors recommended I rub mustard oil all over him. Maybe that's the local equivalent.

In the Window

Abraham likes to hang out in our living room window.

 
But it's more fun if Ellie's there, too.