10:30 pm on June 29

It is finished. And since Ellie was not asleep yet, she got up and modeled the shirt! She asked if she could wear it for school today (June 30)! I can't wait to get back to knitting. 2 1/2 months of crocheting with tiny thread is enough! :)

A Buddy's Birthday

We have some really good friends here in town, and their daughter was celebrating her fourth birthday. Ellie worked on a present for her, painting an egg carton and then making beaded rings with beads and pipe cleaner to fill it up.

Abe got in on the painting action, too.

Before going to their house to eat cake, we all went to Zia Park. The kids love the carousel ride.

Uncle Yakub went with Abraham.

A Trip to the Capital

About four times a year we make the 6 hour train ride into the capital city. Here's a blurry picture of our arrival at the train station at an early 5:30am. Good morning, world!

Every time we go in, Ellie and I make a trip to the beauty parlor where we take care of hair cuts and whatnot. Each time I let Ellie get her nails painted.

On the way to the meetings, Ellie went to get coffee with Daddy. They apparently found some flowers, too.

Fun in the guesthouse cupboard.

And Ellie's first dentist appointment. Let's just say we've learned our lesson and will be helping Ellie brush her back teeth from now on!

On the train on the way home, I read to Ellie from Little House on the Prairie. We read Little House in the Big Woods for school, and it was so good that we wanted more! Little House on the Prairie isn't available in digital form, so we borrowed a copy from some friends in the capital. I can't wait until we get to the States so we can keep working our way through the series. In the meantime, we will occupy ourselves with the Ramona series.

And a couple hours out of Rajshahi the two kiddos fell asleep together in the top bunk using Daddy's shirts as blankets. 

A persuasive letter

Our writing assignment last week for Language Arts was to write a persuasive letter. This is Ellie's letter that she dictated to me.
"Dear Daddy, You should go on a date with me. I'll take you to a place that you will like so much. We can go to Pizza Hut. We can eat pizza. You can eat mushroom pizza and pepperoni pizza. I am going to play with the other kids in the play area. It won't be hot inside. They have AC. I'll buy you something. Please buy me something, too, that is special. Then we'll go home and save some pizza for mom. Love, Eliana"

She made me stop so she could write "mom" on her own. Also, we unfortunately don't have a Pizza Hut in our own town, but we were heading to Dhaka the next day and they do have a Pizza Hut. :)

Since this persuasive letter, Ellie has written at least two others to her dad. One was to get him to make her some oatmeal, and the other was to go to the zoo. She wrote them by herself sounding out the words, and it's so fun to see her grow in this area!

Kid fun

Ellie's been wanting to get henna on her hands for a while. I had a friend over to help me with my crocheting and she also effortlessly makes beautiful henna designs, so Ellie got her wish. I can remember when Ellie first got henna on her hand. I think it was a simple circle in the center of her hand and she could hardly sit still long enough to have it put on her hand, forget about letting it dry. Now she can sit through these designs and even let it dry for ten minutes. We ended up with a few smudges, but that's ok.

We came home from a walk and Abraham was so hot that he couldn't even wait to take his clothes or shoes off before getting in the cold water.

Ellie wanted to help me cook one day, so she put on her apron and grabbed the measuring spoons.

Abraham is learning to love teddy bears. He often cuddles with one while going to sleep now.

This is what he did when I told him to hug the teddy bear.

And this is what he did when he got some jam with his tortilla for lunch.

Running an Errand

I had to run an errand on the other side of town, so I took my favorite little girl with me. On our way home we got to take our current favorite type of transportation, a motorized rickshaw. All over town you can get normal rickshaws the men petal. They are cheap, but slow. The type of transportation I use most often, especially when I have the kids with me is an auto rickshaw, which is covered and on three wheels and run by a battery. It's quick, but more expensive if you want to reserve it and not use share it with others. A motorized rickshaw, which Ellie calls a square rickshaw, is the best of both worlds. Cheap and fast... and it's so much fun to move quicker and have the wind blowing through your hair... or over your head covering. :)

Plant Sadness

You may remember that we were thrilled with the way Ellie's plant was growing. Well, a few weeds and another plant had grown in the pot, too.  One of our neighbors decided to weed all of the plants on the roof, including ours, and they mistook Ellie's plant for a weed. We found it a day or two after this grievous mistake was made.

Below is the plant they thought deserved a chance at life.

With great hope Ellie tried to replant her little treasure.

Unfortunately, our little "loja pata" did not survive. :( Our other seeds that we planted aren't growing either.

I knew planting seeds couldn't be as easy as it seemed.

New Bikes

When Ellie went with Franklin to pick up his new bike (which was supposed to be a replacement for his stolen bike, and was then stolen 10 days later even though it was being stored on the second floor in our locked stairwell) she saw a cute little girl's bike. She really wanted it, and we really wanted to get it for her, but we needed to save some money. So, we had Ellie save up too and do some extra chores. About a month later, Franklin and I went on a date night and when we were done with supper we went and got her bike for her to surprise her. The surprise was so much fun. She often asks me to tell her the story of the night of the surprise.

Well, Ellie's bike was a hit. Not just for Ellie, but for Abe, too. His tricycle just wasn't cutting it anymore, so the next day while I went on the roof to let Ellie ride her bike, Franklin took Abraham to get a big boy bike, too.

We wondered how he'd do on it, but it was no trouble at all. He pedals all around and steers as well.

Ellie took my phone to take some glamor shots of her bike.

She also took a picture of Franklin and I. I love having pictures of us together, but as I have well documented in this blog, Franklin is a spoil sport when it comes to pictures. Here's another one of his beautiful poses.

One of my favorites...

Franklin was teaching Abraham to smile with teeth (I think)... so they were taking pictures using the web cam. :)