For the last two weeks, we have had two girls from England staying with us. One of them was a doctor, and she taught Ellie how to use a stethoscope.
Holly, the doctor, was willing to be a patient herself.


Daddy was willing to have his heartbeat checked.


Then, Dr. Ellie, decided it would be good to check her own heartbeat.

My bookworm

Eliana loves to read and to be read to. It's so much fun! Before sleep, both for her afternoon nap and bedtime, I read a book to her. Then, while I put the railing on her bed and turn the light out, I tell her she has one minute to read by herself. She loves it... and now I catch her "reading" by herself at other times, too.
Something fun we do with reading is we have a bookswap with some good friends here. We don't have any local libraries with great children's books, and our own supply is limited, so we trade a book or two each week. It's not only fun for the little ones to see and learn about something new, but it's also nice for the mommies and daddies to have some variety, too. The book Ellie is reading in the above picture is one from our book swap.

Here's another pic of Ellie "reading".

Boots.

We were in the capital, and Ellie had fun running around with these boots on... even though they are a little too small and they aren't hers.

Finger painting FUN!

We have some guests visiting us from England and they were kind enough to bring Ellie some finger paints. They surprised her with them at breakfast. They left the house shortly after breakfast, and we wasted no time in beginning to use her new gift!


It didn't take me long to realize that I can't leave Ellie unattended with the paints. She can unscrew the lids herself.


Here's her masterpiece. Daddy came home from the market and was very impressed.


And here we tried to do handprints again... it wasn't as messy as last time, but there's got to be some trick to doing it more successfully than I am now. Any ideas?

Two thoughts.

1. I'm glad Franklin made a railing for Ellie's bed.
2. Is that sleeping position really comfortable?

Testing my patience.

Eliana is almost 22 months old... I found out she was a girl 25 months ago. That is how long I have been waiting (being patient, of course) to put her hair in a pony tail or barrettes, not even dreaming about a braid yet. About a month a go, I was feeling hopeful, so I bought some barrettes. Ellie still doesn't have enough hair to keep them in for very long, but it was fun to put them in anyway. We used the whole packet at once.


My little model chose not to look at the camera. :)

I think these barrettes are funny, because if you don't look close, they look like skulls. Hahaha. I may be desperate to use barrettes, but not so desperate that I would use skull barrettes. They are actually supposed to be little puppy dogs, I think.

Fancy, fancy

Ellie refused to take off her play dough watch and bracelet before eating.