With GranDee and the Safari Park in Rancho Sahuarita

The Heirloom Cradle. Here is the first opportunity we had to put cordelia in the cradle that was purchased for Windy before she was born.

Elnorra, August 2007

Playing at the public park in Beaver.

Aunt Anni and Daddy ready to leave Beaver for the Summer

Traveling with cats and kids. What fun! Oliver and Kaylee we so thrilled to be back with the family for the summer. They stayed with Ken and Lorie most of the time we were in Taiwan. They were so thrilled to live at Beaver. They don't really like each other and have opposite personalities. Kaylee is a hunter and was called the Ghost cat by some staffers who never saw her. Oilver, on the other hand is my "dog-kitty" and lived the entire time in the lodge lapping up any and all human attention he could. Windy has had Oliver since 1998 and Kaylee was adopted in 2001. Oliver and Kaylee went back to Ken's during the long transition. but Oliver moved back with us at Christmas time. Poor Kaylee is still at Ken's as we have a small apartment.

So cute, Dilly Sleeping.

Elnorra at two and a half in her new car seat. It looks like we will need to find a pillow solution.

Our little Eskimo! Cordelia at three and a half months old in her mountain pajamas.

Dilly rolled over from back to front today

Elnorra said her first prayer today

Elnorra said "thank you" for the first time today. Well, I suppose it's the first time I recognized it as the English version, she did say it in Mandring Chinese (xie-xie (shay-shay)) when we were in Taiwan.

Cordelia loves her miracle bouncer. It calms her well. I am sure glad we pulled it out of the trash in Taiwan and packed it here.

Cordelia's first laugh sounded today

Family picture on July 1st

Word of the day:
Butterfly - well enunciated and all syllables! Language development is amazing!

Bedtime pictures

Cordelia all bundled up! And it's June! Well being over 9,000 feet can change things.

Mountain living...naptime. Elnorra and Cordelia are sleeping in the forest in our staff jakets during some training.

Elnorra's fist All-American Breakfast. A Mickey Mouse shaped pancake!

Cordelia was a pretty good sport about getting her ears pierced at two months old.

Elnorra two years and three months old.

Words of the day:
Sink
Awake
Asleep

Phrases of the day:
Shoes I find
Good Night

Elnorra's vocabulary is now expanding so rapidly that we are going to say "good night" to the "word of the day" posts.

2007-05-07 Cordelia 6 weeks old in Aunt Anni's arms.

Words of the day:
Vitamin
Dark

Word of the day:
Chopsticks

Word explosion-It seems as though she doubled her vocabulary today.

Back (as in put it back)
Bed
Comb
Block (toy)
Blue
Yellow
Purple
Pink
Green
Asleep
Girl
Sad
Cry
Soap
Lap
Phone
Spider
Penguin
Hug (She hugs everything-including rocks and plates and her little sister.)
Yucky (She often goes to get a Kleenex to clean up what ever is yucky, she thinks that Kleenex or baby wipes will fix anything from messes to hang nails and the hole in her pants.)
Gone ("Where ba-ba? Gone." She asks for daddy about 10 times a day and now she is answering her self. She even uses the sign language for where and then points in the direction of dad's work.)

Word(s) of the day:

Marker

2007-05-03 Cordelia 1 month old

Nap time!

Words of the day:

Yogurt
Close

Shadow- This was not prompted by any adult. She was walking along a shadowy area and pointed to a moving shadow and said shadow. As she repeated it several times it became increasingly apparent that she knew what she was saying and that her pronunciation was improving.

2007-04-30 Uncle Adam, Aunt Anni and little Dilly.

Cordelia's umbilical cord came off and now she has a cute little cinnamon roll shaped belly button.

Phrase of the day:
Hello baby.

Word of the day:
Back (as she pats her sister on the back to help burp her)

Word of the day:
Gone

Phrase of the week:
Where ba-ba? (Where's dad (Chinese)).

She is now answering her own question. Where is dad, he is gone. She asks about dad's whereabouts about 10 times a day and runs to him when he comes home. Daddy's little girl.

Word of the day:
Broken (she was handed a cup with a broken handle)

2007-04-25 Cordelia 3 weeks old on the comfy chair

Word(s) of the day:
Come

2007-04-24 Daddy and Dilly napping.

We have been sleep deprived mostly because our girls are a tag team and one wakes up when the other is asleep. Naps are always at least as valuable for the parents than for the children at this stage.

We have had Elnorra for over two years and her nick names have always been longer (Elnorra-worra) or unrelated to her name (bubba-zoo). Cordelia was not even 5 hours old before we both started calling her Dilly. Ben called her Dilly-munch on her birth day and I often call her Dilly-willy.

2007-04-21 What fun! We were invited to a BBQ at a friend's house and after Elnorra and Windy went swimming and played on the trampoline they got dressed and warmed up. Elnorra was still interested in playing with the other kids and found the mud puddle. Good thing we had a spare outfit! It's amazing to see her grow up and mature. Six months ago she wouldn't have cared what the other, older, kids were doing. Now she wants to be involved, but just don't know how she fits in yet.

Word of the day:
Penguin

2007-04-19 Elnorra loves to play with money and always takes the change out of our wallets and puts it into her purse. She also has a very good sense of paying for things, even though she has no concept of diffrent values. I will give her the necessarry amount and then she will pay for things, especially bannanas. She got to ride this electric car ride because she insisted on pulling out her purse and paying for it herself.

17 April 2007 Cordelia's baby shower (2 weeks old)

Mom and baby.


Our amazing friend Bev Gams.


A big sister activity book for Elnorra.

Word of the day:
Prayer

2007-04-16 Cordelia 2 weeks old

2007-04-15 Sad with dad

Words of the day:
Yogurt

Phrases of the day:
Baby Sister
Jei-Jei (older sister in Chinese)
Mei-Mei (younger sister in Chinese)

2007-04-13 Sad with dad.

Word of the day:
Elbow

Word of the day:
Nail (finger nail)

Word of the day:
Camera

Cordelia 1 week old