Happy Meskel!

Happy Meskel, Ethiopia!  We miss you and love you!

Our work

Here is G's finished rainbow.  I think that if I put out another template, he would happily begin again.  Hm...

All of G's cutting inspired me to finish my own.  Ah.  Now on to the sewing!

Here is our first official sorting activity: large and small buttons.  He did this over and over, for probably twenty minutes.  Oh, and this is his best camera smile!

Our first Montessori-like activity: cutting

First, GRITS cut fringes into a piece of paper.  He was concentrating so hard on this. 

 The he practiced with strips of cardboard, making little fichas.  These were quite crooked and of extremely varied sizes.

 Then, he went to the art station to load up his tray with supplies for the rainbow project.

 The idea was to cut up little pieces of paper and then glue them onto the correct spot, making a rainbow.

 This is what we have so far.  He is cutting straighter lines already, after a day of practice.  I think that he would have kept going for hours, but the babies needed us.

One last bouquet

GRITS

GRITS has been busy taking care of PapA... chocolate chip cookies help thrown-out backs, right?

He has also drawn his first face.  He began with one eye and then talked himself through the rest, even clothing the little person.

 And Jorge el Curioso has encouraged him to slide down anything that resembles the pole of a fire house -  here, my leg.

Here, the boys each have six dollars, or so they tell me, to go buy injera.  I had the audacity to feed them wat last night without injera, so they have been obsessed all morning with getting some.  Mita was apparently in the kitchen making some more wat.  GRITS assured me that they told the nice owners of the Ethiopian Cottage, "Ahmesegenalo." 

Letters

This morning, G excitedly exclaimed, "Yo sabo escribir!"  (Yikes on the misconjugation of saber, I know, but my little Spanish brother was still making that mistake at 7 years old, so I'll just gently correct for now.)  He can now write A, C, G, H, I, O, S, T, and U.  What a difference a year makes, from the three year old's on the left to the twin two year olds' on the middle and right:

Rambutan too!

So, Honduras must have a serious surplus of rambutan (Keep eating, Elenita!) for a load to make it up north to us.  I couldn't resist buying one, just to try, and... well... I don't know.  It's no apricot, but I'd eat it again.  Uncle Monkey Bread likened it to sugar cane, which I believe he used to gnaw on during his time as an Egyptian street urchin.