More of My Darling Daughter

 I love this picture, because this is such a good representation of her little expressions. She is always making this face, when she says "Uh-oh!" about something.

 Here, I was teaching Leyla to hold a pencil between her nose and her lips! So she kept making the face :)

What a talented little girl!!

Garden Progress

Well, I have some sad news about my garden. Of the two roses I bought and planted, only one of them has survived. It is doing well and has blossomed once and is about to bloom again! The other one wasn't showing much hope but then suddenly had new leaves. Then just as suddenly it wilted. There were no bugs, no break in the stem, no evidence of anything - I have no idea what happened. So now I have one, pink rose.

My dahlia that I was so proud of has also dried up. Ants built a nest around it. I tried to save it but the ants had already damaged it too much by the time we were able to buy insecticide...also the yellow dahlia and the hibiscus have since dried up. We had put them in the shade out of the sun but then I forgot to water them daily! My fault.

So here's what we decided. The hibiscus and jasmine either didn't root or rooted very slowly. We decided to buy those two already rooted and at a good size so that they would have a better chance in the war with our dogs. We bought 2 fragrant jasmines and two hibiscus. I wanted a pink hibiscus, but none of them had blooms on them so I guess we will be surprised! We also bought another that they called "Francelia." It must have another name because I can't find any pictures of it on the internet; the people here have nicknames for all the plants and rarely use the common or scientific names. Anyway, it is very pretty and has tiny flowers of both purple and white color!

Then after we bought those, we decided to go back and try to do the cuttings again, but better this time. None of the rose cuttings rooted, and since my other rose died, I only have one now. So I looked up some information and got two more rose cuttings, cut them at an angle and scraped away some of the flesh and planted it 6 inches deep so that plenty of leafbuds were buried (that's where the roots will grow from). They are beautiful, yellowish red roses, like this:
 
I also went back to cut more of my favorite dahlia (the one flower that got me started) and the bush was gone! They had cut it down completely! I am very upset because it was a pretty pink and yellow. I had to settle for the two other varieties that, of course, they had in abundance. A yellow one and a dark purple. I guess it's okay, they will still be pretty. And I cut another (pink) hibiscus, to give it another try, and in case the ones we bought turn out white or yellow!

I am excited to watch everything grow and can't wait to see everything in bloom. I just hope I don't have any more ant or dog problems!!! Ugh.

Leyla the Model

My baby girl has turned into a model!

Maria took these pictures of her: although I have told her not to, she tells Leyla to "look sexy" and this is what she does!

Craft Project

I made a "Family Book" for Leyla with pictures of all her immediate family so she could start learning their names and recognizing their faces. I had lots of fun doing it. I took an old book she had pretty much destroyed and covered the outside with felt and the inside pages with paper. Then I pasted pictures and decorated :) I was very happy with the finished product!

 Front cover - I cut out and sewed the different pieces of felt.

 First page!

 First spread: Mommy, Daddy, and Maria.

 Second spread: Grandmommy and granddady!

 Third spread: Aunt Rachel and Uncle Jon!

 Fourth spread: great-grandmother Mama-dena and great-Granddad!

 Fifth spread: Marcos's side: Abuela Amanda!

 Sixth spread: Tia Barty and Tia Fide! (she says both their names, Tia Ba-Barty, and Tia Fi-e)

The end! This is the back cover :)

Dogs, Dogs, and More Dogs!

Two Things:
1. I *hate* our rotweiller, Bull. I'm sorry but he is the dumbest dog ever. He's so huge too and strong, he can run and knock you over easily. It's so annoying! And, he's always messing up my flowers. So I came home from school today and checked on my new seeds that had sprouted and....GONE! grrrrr so mad.

2. Lizzy had puppies! I love Lizzy. She's a very sweet dog and a very good mother. (One thing I will say, both Lizzy and Bull have never hurt Leyla and are very good with her, which I appreciate). She had 8 puppies this time, 4 boys and 4 girls. They were born Tuesday morning, September 13, the very day we left for Ceiba! We saw the first (a girl) be born and then had to leave! It was a little stressful being on the road and calling wondering how she was doing and how many she had. Now, they are a week old and doing very well.

Back to reality...

So the vacation is over.... waa waa waaaa :(

I decided to make a map of our trip, for those of you who don't know Honduras (and for me because I can't keep directions straight in Honduras).
Days 1-3: Tuesday-Thursday. We took the red route from Catacamas to Ceiba, stopping to spend the night twice (where the stars are) and reaching our final destination in Ceiba: Hoteles Palma Real!
Days 4-5: Friday, Saturday. Enjoy the beach!
Day 6: Sunday. Time to go home :( We took the green route home to Catacamas.

We left Ceiba at about 9 am this morning and took a back road shortcut to the highway, skipped downtown Ceiba AND San Pedro Sula AND Tegucigalpa! But the road was absolutely awful - plus, it took 5 hours to get to the highway and we didn't stop at all (besides, where would we have stopped?). I ate cereal at 7 am and didn't have snacks, drinks, or lunch until around 3 pm. I was not happy, needless to say. The road was so bumpy and curvy that with that and no food I got a headache and had no energy - I couldn't keep my head from drooping. All I wanted to do was fall asleep - impossible to do as much as my head was banging against the door, the window, the headrest, or the person sitting next to me. Thankfully, Fide and Bartola took care of entertaining Leyla, so at least I was relieved of that!

We ran out of diapers for Leyla, except the swimming ones, so by the time we got to the highway, she had wet it and it soaked through her pants and mine. Outfit change #1. Driving down the highway later, practically in Catacamas, Leyla needs to pee again! Mommy says, hold on Leyla you can make it! Then, busy trying to keep her entertained and distracted, I tickled her. Immediately I stopped, thinking, oh dear I'm going to make her pee! She looks up at me, and there I feel something warm and wet. No no Leyla! Wait! poor baby. We make it to the house and waiting for Maria to open the door, Leyla can't hold it anymore and proceeds to wet her pants entirely AND on top of my foot. Outfit change #2. And I had done laundry at the villa in Ceiba to avoid having dirty clothes when we got back - now I have both pairs of jeans dirty, and 3 of Leyla's outfits dirty, and laundry to do, again.

Here are a few more last pictures of our vacation!

 Our villa! It was really like a tiny house, not quite as big as our own!

 Each group of villas had a pool: ours was right in front!

 At the beach trying to build a sand castle - that wasn't working so we buried Leyla's feet!

 Run Leyla, Run!

 She's so precious!

 Walking on the beach as the sun went down. Goodbye beach! Or, as Leyla would say: Adios agua!

Fun in the Sun

Here are a few more pics of us at the beach and in the pool!

Vacaciones!

This week is Independence Week in Honduras. There are parades all week and no classes, so we took a much needed vacation! Tuesday, we left for Tegus and stayed the night in the Maya hotel. The hotel is really pretty, but the apartment we stayed in was not very impressive and certainly not baby proof. The stairs were floating stairs, and the railing was a few bars here and there but really I wouldn't even call it a railing...So, we were constantly jumping up to make sure Leyla wasn't anywhere near the stairs. Aside from that, she crawled up on the table to get some skittles and it fell almost on top of her! I was very glad to leave the hotel Wednesday....

On Wednesday, we drove to the lake and stayed at a very nice hotel in Santa Cruz de Yojoa. The next morning was Independence Day so we woke up to drums and marching and went out to watch the parades. Leyla walked everywhere with Amanda and had fun watching the little girls dancing and dancing herself. We also visited the zoo, called the Joya Grande. I really enjoyed that: they had lots of animals and it was really nicely done and landscaped and Leyla of course loves animals so we had a lot of fun. Then she was exhausted and slept as soon as we got in the car!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Late Thursday afternoon we arrived in La Ceiba at the Hotel Palma Real and settled in to our Villa. The hotel is huge; the villa is a very nice little house, basically - just a tad smaller than our actual house! We have AC, washer, dryer, internet, kitchen, nice bathrooms, and a king size bed....and a pool out front! We toured the hotel a bit and there are 3 other pools, bars, dance floors, parties, pool tables, and of course the beach. Very excited to be here, relaxing, and not working!