Lodder Family

By my second day away from Haiti I was already missing the Lodder family, especially Maia and Levi. These are the adorable, crazy kids I babysat. We had sweet moments along with our share of rough days. I learned much from these kiddos!! Randy and Karen also took good care of me while I was in Haiti- feeding me, taking me places and giving me rides. 

 A couple of weeks ago we found a bit of time amidst our busy schedules and had a great mini photo shoot. I was a little nervous about taking their family pictures. The kids were ornery but thankfully some of the picture turned out ;) Here are a few of my favorites:

Cat in the Hat

Tasha and I brought the Cat in the Hat to life on a bookcase at some friends of ours school.

When we started a couple of months ago, we had high hopes of replicating the Cat in the Hat from a small picture. 

I showed Tasha how to make squares on the picture, then measure the door to draw enlarged squares there. 

After a few hours we had completed the drawing. Next we painted the red and white base colors. 

A few weeks later, while Tasha was in school, I went back to the school and painted the black lines on the Cat. 

I also added a Dr. Seuss quote in French:

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. 

The more that you learn, the more places you'll go!"

My dear friend, Ari, hosted a tea party for the girls that she takes care of. Since these are also the girls I teach, I agreed to help her out. We served them tea, juice, cookies and sandwiches. They dumped tons of sugar into their tea, gobbled down the food, and spilled the tea and juice everywhere! We enjoyed our Saturday morning with the girls :)

Expect the Unexpected

This past weekend Randy and Karen took the Schmick family and I on a little excursion.

We drove a short distance outside of Port-au-Prince to a lake. This lake is known for it's flamingos.

The locals willingly stopped what they were doing and brought us out on their fishing boats.

After a couple of hours journeying around the lake we had not seen any flamingos.

This didn't crush our spirits though because there were plenty of other things to relish along the way: