Adios to Everyone!

Maria took this video of Leyla and I thought it was so cute, how she plays with the camera in the beginning and you get to see her sweet face up close. Then she says adios to everyone and a million times :)

Reading Time

Leyla loves to read. Here she is "reading:" I like to ask her "Where is the dog?" and other things and she points to the picture in the book. I learned that she actually has a very large vocabulary, even though several words she cannot say yet.

Leyla and Baby: Video

She is so sweet trying to "take care" of her baby. She wants to wrap it, feed it, and sometimes she even tries to put a diaper on it. I was so glad I caught her in this video being "mommy" and singing her baby to sleep!

My Beautiful Baby

La Celebracion del Dia Tipico

Today we celebrated el Dia Tipico at CAB. Basically it's a day just to celebrate the culture, the food, the legends, the dress, and everything "typical" of Honduras. They had food and more food and the kids did skits, dances, and sang songs. The school was decorated really nicely and there were people everywhere!

 Leyla and I getting ready to leave!

 The skit that 9th grade performed, "La Susia." Basically it's a legend about a woman who seduces men. I think.

 All the little girls dressed up in their Honduran dress!

 "La Susia." AHHH!!!!

 All the girls (9th grade + Gladys) whose hair I braided! I really like to braid but don't get much practice since Leyla won't sit still and it hurts my arms too much to braid my own. So I was happy to do theirs!

 From the back! Don't they look pretty?

 Jairy - love her long, curly hair, but man it takes forever to braid! :) It looked pretty though, especially with the roses.

 Claudette has beautiful long hair (trying to convince her to donate it) and it's not quite as thick so her braid turned out really well.

 Leyla with Jailine's baby!

The decorations at school. This is where they had all the food set up. The teachers did a great job!

The Joys of Motherhood

The title is a little misleading, ha.

Leyla decided she did not want to take a nap today, so I put her video on and let her watch TV while I made cinnamon rolls and a key lime pie. Everything was going well until she got bored with the video and then Bartola came over. Well, it started raining, and Bartola was watching her while I was baking, and Leyla must have rushed outside because when I saw her next she was soaking wet from head to toe! That wasn't so bad, but then...she disappeared for a few minutes while we were talking and I said, where's Leyla? Of course she was outside but guess what she was doing to amuse herself? POURING OUT HER ENTIRE BOTTLE OF SHAMPOO. I love her shampoo, it smells so good and I bought it in Tegus! GRRR!!! So I gave her a spanking and sent her inside. Then she was back outside again with Bartola and carrying my black raspberry hand soap I love that I brought from the States. Bartola said she was watching her so I didn't rush out to take it from her. Then somehow they came in and we were talking again and Leyla was nowhere to be found! and yes, you guessed it, she was outside dumping out my soap. *sigh* This mommy was very upset.

I decided this time that Leyla is old enough for a little discipline. I told her "pow pow" and gave her another sharp spank and told her no no no! I took off her clothes, which besides being wet were now drenched in soap, and sent her inside to sit on the couch for time-out. I was surprised to see that she very well understood that she was punished. But, she was so sad-looking, it was hard to stay too mad at her...She was looking at me with her pouty, red eyes trying so hard not to cry, and wiping her eyes with her shirt! (This was before I put her on the couch). She wrapped her arms around my neck and just kind of buried her face there for comfort, but she never let out a cry! She tried to get off the couch a few times but understood she had to stay there when I told her to get back on it.

When her time-out was over I picked her up and said, "Leyla, you are not allowed to play with Mommy's soaps and you dumped it all out and now Mommy doesn't have anymore and she is very upset.That is a no-no. Don't do it again, ok? Will you be a good girl now? Do you understand?" She just looked at me the whole time and then wrapped her little arms tightly around my neck. Then I told her she could leave and she was a good girl for having sat through her time-out. :)

So it's July...

I can't believe July is half-way over already! This year is going by too quickly! Leyla will be 21 months by the end of July which means 3 months and another birthday! I am so excited about her turning 2 - seems like yesterday she was born. Every day she is learning new things and trying sooo hard to talk. Now she has picked up the words "book" and finally "adios." We have started reading more regularly to help increase her vocabulary and surprisingly, she knows several more words than I thought. If you ask her to point to all the images on the page, she can point to and find: apple, boat, car, ball, banana, chicken, rooster, horse, flower, moon, sun, stars, heart, toothbrush, bird, bunny, and several other words I have never specifically taught her. She also says "by-po" or something similar for "diaper" and understands if you tell her to go get a diaper to put on. Oh, and just this afternoon she figured out how to take them off....hm.

Yesterday at church she was wandering around with her toys refusing to sit still, and went to sit by her grandmother who was giving class. It was sweet just the fact that she sat beside her, but then - she crossed her legs, just like her abuela! It was the cutest thing and everyone stopped the class to point and ooh and ahh and laugh :) Of course Leyla loved the attention and started laughing, too.

In other news, we went to Tegus Friday and I got so much crocheting done in the car (we left Leyla at home) - it was wonderful. We had a huge lunch at Pizza Hut while watching the Tour de France, dropped of some papers at the lawyer's office, went to the new Wal-Mart (yay!), bought more yarn, and shopped around at the hardware/everything store. I bought a knife sharperner, flour sifter, and cake icing set.

I will update again soon with pictures and some new videos!

Dinner Party

I decided a few weeks ago that it would be a good idea to invite my students over for dinner. I wanted to foster a better relationship with them so that they would feel comfortable talking to me and confiding in me (if they ever needed to), and, thought having a dinner for them would maybe improve their attitudes in my classes! Also, one of my students is an American girl and I figured she would like some good old American food! Well anyway, I ran it by them and they all agreed to buy the main ingredients and set the date for today.

They bought all the chicken, broccoli, and potatoes and I provided the rest of the ingredients, the oil, sauces, bread, and dessert. Two girls came over early and I taught them how to debone a chicken breast; then the others got here and played Monopoly while I got everything together. I made Italian garlic mashed potatoes, cheesy garlic bread, broccoli, and the main event: honey barbeque boneless buffalo wings. In Ranch Dressing. Yummmmm. Everybody loved it!

Two of the teachers came over as well and it was a lot of fun to have some new adult company in my house. I enjoyed "socializing" outside of school! The cheesecake was a big hit too. I think it had just a tad too much chocolate but everyone else loved it. I think they were all stuffed when they left and will probably sleep like babies :)

I have come to the conclusion that I like to cook, and that I look to cook for other people. This was the first time I had made dinner for anybody, and it is a good feeling when you can feed people until they are satisfied and they enjoy your food. I think I have somehow stumbled upon a love for the kitchen!

Cheesecake!

Here is the cheesecake I made some friends of ours. I took the basic cheesecake recipe and added cherries and white chocolate on top! I "drizzled" the chocolate but didn't have a very good technique - so I ended up swirling it and I actually like the way it looks! This week I'm going to try a chocolate swirl cheesecake. I will post pictures when it's done!

Picture of the Week!

I took some cute pictures of Leyla that I just have to share. I'm calling it "Picture of the Week" because it is just that cute. And actually there are 2. I couldn't just share one!

 Maria "reading" Leyla to sleep.

"Just Like Daddy:" Leyla wants to do everything her daddy does!