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"Gracias"
We have been concerned for the past few months about Ellie's speech development. I have always heard that second children, and children growing up in a bilingual culture are slower to develop speech, but that didn't really help my fears. I know I shouldn't compare my children but Lucy at this age was using words like octopus in her every day vocabulary :) Ellie has the ability to say "mama" and "papa" but doesn't really choose to, and other than that she has never spoken another comprehendible word. That is until this week, and her first word is "Gracias"- thats right a two syllable, Spanish word- how about that for some language development!
Even as I write this, I think today I heard her say baby and ball so I am praying that our communication is beginning to grow, I really do love it when children are old enough to express themselves through words.
Even as I write this, I think today I heard her say baby and ball so I am praying that our communication is beginning to grow, I really do love it when children are old enough to express themselves through words.
Holiday Fun
We have enjoyed having some down time the past few weeks to do some fun things around the house like cooking, cleaning, and general house repair.
Sean has been having a craving for sushi for about 6 months now. So I finally tried to help him out and attempt to prepare our own sushi, which let me tell you is not a easy feat when you live in Honduras. I had to go to 5 different stores to get the ingredients that I needed and even had to knock on a complete strangers house to get some wasabi sauce. It was adventure but definitely worth it.
Then we attempted crab legs one night. You might not can tell but that is hammer in the edge of the picture, this was the tool of choice when you can't find any shell crackers in town and the shells on crabs here are so tough.
Last but not least we painted our living room and bedroom, this has been something we have wanted to do since we moved here a year ago, but it took my whole family coming down to visit to get us motivated on some house chores.
Lucy loved helping out, she was so thrilled to actually be allowed to paint on the walls- I am hoping this doesn't backfire on me one day.
Sean has been having a craving for sushi for about 6 months now. So I finally tried to help him out and attempt to prepare our own sushi, which let me tell you is not a easy feat when you live in Honduras. I had to go to 5 different stores to get the ingredients that I needed and even had to knock on a complete strangers house to get some wasabi sauce. It was adventure but definitely worth it.
Then we attempted crab legs one night. You might not can tell but that is hammer in the edge of the picture, this was the tool of choice when you can't find any shell crackers in town and the shells on crabs here are so tough.
Last but not least we painted our living room and bedroom, this has been something we have wanted to do since we moved here a year ago, but it took my whole family coming down to visit to get us motivated on some house chores.
Lucy loved helping out, she was so thrilled to actually be allowed to paint on the walls- I am hoping this doesn't backfire on me one day.
Christmas at School
Last week during school Lucy had a big Christmas party with Santa Clause. I thought it was cute that they took a class photo, even though it is not great of Lucy. You probably can't tell from the picture but she is the only American and also the youngest. The kids she talks about the most are the little girl on the floor to the far left, Marcella, the girls standing up on the left, Chatty (funny name huh?!), Michelle, and Jimma. And the little boy to the right of Santa Clause, Antonito. She is in the arms of her favorite teacher, Iris.
We are thankful for this school experience she has had, we have seen an improvement in her social interaction and her Spanish which are both a big answer to prayer.
We are thankful for this school experience she has had, we have seen an improvement in her social interaction and her Spanish which are both a big answer to prayer.
An American-Honduran Christmas
Here is a glimpse of the things we did this year for Christmas:
Fellowship with friends who we minister to in Armenia Bonito.
Hondurans celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, they spend the day visiting with family and friends, and then at night the celebrate with fireworks, at 12 pm everyone opens their gifts. We were very surprised when we got a call on Christmas Eve morning from some kids we work with in Armenia saying they were on their way to our house. We felt honored that they considered us close enough to share Christmas with, and that they were willing to take the hour bus ride it takes to get to our house from theirs. Our girls were thrilled to say the least.
Lucy and I made ornaments.
We baked lots of sugar cookies!
Sean helped out a good bit in the kitchen this year too, preparing the pecan pie, and decorating the Happy Birthday Jesus cake.
We danced and frolicked about.
We celebrated with friends and teammates, the Pettengills.
We skyped with family back at home.
We laughed and played in our new Christmas clothes.
We went to the beach to steal some sand for one our Christmas gifts.
We played with all our new toys including this water table from Gannie and Mac.
We ate turkey (my first turkey I have ever cooked- mom you would be proud) and lots of other yummy food.
So although this Christmas was very different in many ways, and at times it was extremely hard to not be with family and the external comforts were are used to. We had a very blessed Christmas celebrating the Birth of our Savior!
Fellowship with friends who we minister to in Armenia Bonito.
Hondurans celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, they spend the day visiting with family and friends, and then at night the celebrate with fireworks, at 12 pm everyone opens their gifts. We were very surprised when we got a call on Christmas Eve morning from some kids we work with in Armenia saying they were on their way to our house. We felt honored that they considered us close enough to share Christmas with, and that they were willing to take the hour bus ride it takes to get to our house from theirs. Our girls were thrilled to say the least.
Lucy and I made ornaments.
We baked lots of sugar cookies!
Sean helped out a good bit in the kitchen this year too, preparing the pecan pie, and decorating the Happy Birthday Jesus cake.
We danced and frolicked about.
We celebrated with friends and teammates, the Pettengills.
We skyped with family back at home.
We laughed and played in our new Christmas clothes.
We went to the beach to steal some sand for one our Christmas gifts.
We played with all our new toys including this water table from Gannie and Mac.
We ate turkey (my first turkey I have ever cooked- mom you would be proud) and lots of other yummy food.
So although this Christmas was very different in many ways, and at times it was extremely hard to not be with family and the external comforts were are used to. We had a very blessed Christmas celebrating the Birth of our Savior!
A Good Read
This is Ellie's favorite thing to do right now. She goes to the hall, gets a book, and takes it to her reading corner. She will literally entertain herself for about 5 minutes, which if you know Ellie, that is a long time.
Christmas card out takes
Hamming it up for the camera.
Ellie posed herself on this shot.
Ellie suck it up, don't you know its Christmas card photo time.
This took bribery.
"Seriously mom"
More candy corn PLEASE
All done!
"No, really ALL DONE"
At last enjoying the reward.
I promise your Christmas card from our family will be better than this last shot.
Ellie posed herself on this shot.
Ellie suck it up, don't you know its Christmas card photo time.
This took bribery.
"Seriously mom"
More candy corn PLEASE
All done!
"No, really ALL DONE"
At last enjoying the reward.
I promise your Christmas card from our family will be better than this last shot.
Photo Fun
I am trying to play around with my camera a little more and use some of things I learned in my photography lesson, Sean gave me as a gift while we were in the States in October. So here is a few pictures I have gotten over the past month while not shooting on automatic :)
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