What a big girl!

It seems that I am getting lazy in my blogging over the last few months. However, I have plenty of good excuses as to why I haven't done a better job of keeping you more informed of Elisa's growth and development (aka. how cute she is!).

Elisa is 8 months old now! She is learning new things every day and has a wonderful personality. She adores being outside. She finds trees and plants especially interesting (I think this started with her Granddaddy showing her the tree in their house every day we were in Colorado back in November). Elisa loves fruits and vegetables (well, most anyway). She is fond of a lot of fruits and veggies that I have never seen in the US. She has started to recognize when we are not around and shows that she misses us (there is a really good word for this in Portuguese that shows a lot of emotion in missing someone's presence - saudade. We just don't have a word in the English language that I know of that expresses this well). She waves hello and goodbye! It is the cutest thing. She opens and closes her little fist slowly while looking straight at the person it is meant for. Sometimes she does it when she is around someone she really likes. I think it is her way of saying, "I like you!" She started eating small bits of peach and avocado (not mashed, just cut up small) this last week, although she doesn't have any teeth yet. She is really tall and thin. She has the cutest dimples when she smiles - they always warm my heart. She still loves her bath time. She sleeps well (during the day and night) and loves to read "Kittens", "My Goodnight Book", and "Goodnight Moon" before every nap and bedtime. We think that she is on the verge of crawling. Last week she had her booty up in the air with her face and feet being the only parts of her body that were touching a surface. Most of the time she lays on her stomach and does a half-body push up. She is on her way!

A week and a half ago we moved into a house. It is a big change for us. In 3 days we will celebrate our 3rd anniversary of living and working in Brazil. Hard to believe. All of that time has been in the same apartment. It was a good apartment, but when we saw this house we had to pursue it. It is a real blessing to us and to our church family (our house church is meeting in our new home on Sundays). We have a lot more space to do things with guests and Elisa has a yard. This was a big player in our decision to look for a house. We wanted Elisa to have more space to play and to know what grass feels like under her bare feet. Now she will be able to do that! I don't think that she could be more thrilled. She loves looking out at the yard and watching the birds more closely. I am going to hook a humming bird feeder up so that she can see them up close. We really want to encourage more interaction with the things that she is showing interest in. I think this is just one of many ways we can do that.

Right now, Elisa is with Jennifer in São Paulo at a conference for missionary women in Brazil. They left yesterday morning and will be back late Friday night. This is the first time that I have been alone without Elisa and Jennifer since Elisa was born. It isn't easy. I am very fond of my little girl. She is really a wonderful baby.

I hope to post later on today or maybe tomorrow with just recent pictures of Elisa. Stay tuned...