Life galore

That's what it's been feeling like around here lately. Lots going on, and very little time to update our little family history book. Life is great though, forging right ahead with the last few weeks of school, work projects ramp up, church, personal goals, summer plans, etc.

Little Nataly (we used "Gracie" just for an alias for a while) is enjoying her diversified diet, now rich in pureed veggies and soon-to-be-introduced fruits, growing big and beautiful, amazingly talkative, strong and opinionated at times, but also delightfully sweet. This child is truly an angel, I tell you. She smiles and kisses us like no other. When she hears Ella's voice, she lights up. She's full of this amazing love, sweetness, and all things beautiful. I do not have words to say how much we love her, how blessed we feel to have her in our care, in our family for however long He will allow it to. Our greatest hope and prayer to Heavenly Father is to let  her stay with us although all the odds are against it. Eyes became watery yesterday when I heard Hrishi say that as He allowed us to fall in such deep love with her, and him to be her daddy when she does not have one, He will watch over her and maybe allow us to be her family forever.

Her hair has really grown a lot in the past couple of months and I think soon we'll be ready to do the "Turta", a little Romanian ceremony where we present the baby with a tray of objects symbolizing future interests, hobbies, and even a profession of choice, and then take a locket of her hair as a sweet keepsake. We are actually very excited about that!! :)

Ella feeding her cereal:

What a wonderful big sister Ella is to Nataly!!

Changing time is always so much fun! She laughs and talks and giggles!!

Now onto our other princess: Ms. Ella Aria. She's doing a really good job in school considering that things are getting harder and harder. She has been learning about demand and supply and how increase/decrease of those impacts the price, goods and services, and other quite complicate (read tricky) problems regarding those topics and not only. I had no clue that school can get so intense in second grade...!! It doesn't help much when her teacher, whom we actually like a lot, she is a great person and been taking such good care of Ella's needs as far as food allergies are concerned, is not the best at explaining things in a way Ella can easily understand. For this next school year, I've ordered some books for extra practice during summer. She's doing great in Math and Reading (3-4th grade DRA scores), and is ready with her "Little Serenade" for the piano recital on Saturday.

Her equestrian passion has picked up again after a period of soul searching mostly due to Remi's lack of cooperation. We have made a tough decision to put him up for sale and look for another ride/pony for Ella. Luckily, we are able to share a lease on this cute smaller (and more workable) pony with another family, as an interim solution. She loves riding Sprite or Spritey, how we call this cute mare pony. The second time she rode her, she started jumping. Then she knew again that she CAN ride and that's still her thing.

(I love the beautiful "step" sync they're in this picture.)

I'm yet to do our Easter updates but for now, suffices to say that we had a wonderful time, taught a lesson in Young Women's, made some yummy lamb chops and home made pizza, cracked eggs, shared the lovely meal with wonderful friends, had a ton of fun with cascarones (Mexican confetti eggs) which have now become a family traditions, just like dying eggs and eating lamb.