Love Letter

Dear Daddy,
I love you and miss you! I have been holding true to my promise to not start crawling while I am away from you. No matter how many times Mom puts a toy out in front of me I will not crawl until I'm back in Lagos because I promised you.
I have learned a new trick however, I can drink from Mommy's cup. I love it, and the more ice there is the better. This trick has not been without accidents however. This morning my diaper was a little too full from too much water drinking last night. Then tonight shortly after this picture was taken I pulled the cup from Mommy and spilled a lot of ice water on myself. It gave me quite a shock and a scare, but I am your brave little girl and I didn't cry. I waited until later when Mom was putting my new shirt over my head to cry - you know how I hate that!
Mom and cousin Tatiana bought me some new little headbands so people will stop calling me "fine big boy" when I'm back in Nigeria.
Well, it's my bed time. Enjoy your nights without me crying.
Until next Tuesday. Love, Leah

Random

Julia pushing Leah around. By this time Leah had slouched down a bit, but at first she acted like the Queen of Sheba.
Leah playing with grandma and her jewelry.

Leah's cousin Jordan is about 6 weeks older than her. They were so cute playing together. They'd steal toys back and forth, but neither one cried. Their favorite toy was an empty Aquafina bottle.

Leah finally got new toys! She was so bored with the few things we had in Nigeria. What you can't see in this picture is the sound she is probably making. She is getting top teeth and she claps grinds her top and bottom teeth together and it makes a sound that is like nails on a chalk board to me.

In other news . . . Levin says everything in Nigeria is terrible so any question I could ask the answer would be terrible. How is the weather? Terrible. How are the roads? Terrible. How is your nephew's visa to come visit us coming? Terrible. How is the internet connection? Terrible. I think he was having a bad day at the time.

Actually the internet story is somewhat comical other than it made me so mad. They came to fix something on our roof and built on top of our radio receiver for the internet so now it doesn't work. The men that built it also built over the crawl space to get up on top of our roof. They were trapped on the roof and had to connect ladders and repel off the roof to get down. Hmm . . we have no internet now and who is going to get up there to fix it? Poor Levin. He is a champ to let us come home and enjoy America without him.

Something I'm enjoying while in Utah and Colorado is how long the days are. Nigeria is too near the equator. You just have so much more energy when it doesn't get dark until 9 or later. Even if it does make it a little harder to get Leah to sleep, it is worth it!

We Love America

For the 2 people that read my blog, I just want to say there have been no posts because we are in America and I have more to do than blog for a change. :)
*We miss Levin! He is having a fun adventure in Liberia and let me know if I've seen the other West African countries we've been to (Cameroon, Benin, Ghana and of course Nigeria) I have no need to see Liberia.
*I have great sisters who took me shopping and Dani even wheeled around Leah and held her until her arms would break while I tried clothes on. Stephanie makes awesome food and installs Leah's new car seat because I'm not smart enough to man the new big beast.
*My nieces and nephews have all chipped in to entertain Leah when she gets fussy or even before then. What great kids!
*My brother and sister-in-law are here and I can talk with them all about living overseas and watch them box up and mail themselves tons of Lucky Charms and Honey Nut Cheerios.
*My brother-in-law drew an awesome pencil drawing of darling Leah.
*Today we move on to the in-laws and they are pretty darn awesome so we have a great time to look forward to (and a bed instead of the couch, though Steph's couch is pretty comfy.)

Gele Lessons

This contraption on my head is known as a gele (pronounced gay lee to my American ears, but I could be wrong). They vary in fanciness and poofiness and weddings is when they are most common, but you see them all the time. Each week we probably have about 4 women with the fancy ones on at church - and these women aren't rich either. I love being behind a bus where the back row is all women crammed in the bus with their geles on.

A few months ago an American Women's Club meeting they had a woman come and demonstrate tying geles and another woman talked about the fashion of geles and how it had changed over the years. She said a Yoruba woman (one of the major tribes) would rather starve than not be fashionable and I kind of believe it. For about $15 I bought my own gele. I wanted her to tie it similar to the one on her table, but it didn't come out that way at all. The latest fashion ones are really stiff and I think the lady only has some control over how they turn out.

A couple of weeks ago we had a young women's activity at church where Blessing's mom came and taught us how to tie them. I am so mad at myself that I forgot my camera because my young women looked really beautiful and so grown up. Some of them got really good at it. I was no good at doing it on others and am not good at doing it on myself, but I know in principle how to tie these now. If I had a third hand I could maybe do it. Sister Eze told the girls, now if your husband is ready to go out he is not going to wait for you to mess with this so you must be quick. She bent her head down and tied hers in like 3 seconds and it looked amazing. They are also good for hiding a bad hair day.