Picture update :)

One day, I will have time to sit down and actually write something meaningful, insightful and poetic. Until then, enjoy more pictures of our cutie :)

2 year old Ms.Mimi

Noemi has decided that her name is now Mimi and has agreed (after some convincing) that she is now 2 and no longer 1 :). My baby girl has grown into a beautiful toddler with nonstop energy and an increasing decipherable vocabulary. She's able to express herself in 2-3 word sentences and I think would say more if her mouth would just get the words out! She stops herself mid word/sentence to think about how to say the next part and if she can't think of it, she starts over with a different word or phrase. Her English is coming along rather quickly so this is when we really need to stick to our guns and speak to her only in Spanish.

She loves puzzles these days and can do peg board puzzles and iPad puzzles. She's working on jigsaw puzzles but she's not very interested in them yet. She's a wonderful "mommy" to her babydolls and likes to feed them and buckle them into her booster seat to eat :)

Noemi has become quite the singer and loves to sing along to any music; if there are no words, she hums. She tries singing along to songs she's never even heard before which makes it even more adorable!

Healthwise, Noemi is doing really well. She had a vitamin D insufficiency since we arrived from Majuro but her numbers are finally in normal range now. She's still small for her age measuring in at 33.5" (37%) but doing good in weight at 26lbs. Her teath are finally straightening out and no oral surgery is in her future at this point!

We have not had any new contact with Majuro but have heard from others that Rosita is doing well and still in Rita.

Our trip!

We had a great time on our road trip. Noemi did great job with being in the car and I think really enjoyed all the constant attention from mommy and daddy :)

While in Springdale, we met with Carmen Chong-Gum, the Consul General for The RMI. It was such an honor to not only meet her but she also volunteered to show us around town and took us to a couple Marshallese shops. She was interested in knowing what families are looking to purchase from the RMI and I expressed that we'd personally love some kid guams, more handicrafts, jewelry, and music. Some of the other families here in MN are looking for Kemem mats and all expressed an interest in Art. Hopefully we'll now be able to get these things from Springdale instead of shipping from RMI!

Our route was Kansas City, then down to Springdale through Joplin, Springdale for a couple days then up to St.Louis, Dubuque and back home!

Here are a few pictures of our trip :)

Crazy?? Maybe a little

We are about to embark on something some might call brave, others inspiring... my family calls it crazy :) We're going on a 1600 mile, 5 day road trip with our 21 month old :) We are heading to Springdale, AR to get a little culture, Marshallese culture that is!
Springdale, AR has the largest concentration of Marshallese outside of the RMI. The story goes that in the early '80s a man left Majuro and found work at the Tyson Chicken factory in Springdale. He sent word to RMI that Tyson was hiring and they migrated but the thousands! Springdale currently has a population of about 70,000, 15,000 of which are Marshallese! We want to go shopping for more Marshallese handicrafts and possibly try some new foods :) Shawn's also on a BBQ quest so we'll be stopping in Kansas City and St. Louis.
Noemi update: My little girl finally grew and now fits 24 month clothes :) Last time we weighted her here at home she was still 26 lbs but this little girl is as active as they come! She is definitely in her terrible twos and loves to look you in the eye as she challenges you... We're going to have our hands full when she becomes a teenager!

More pics

Update time :)

Noemi is 1 1/2 today!! She's getting so big and is semi-starting to calm down a little bit. She has learned to carry her stool around to climb up on things and she is definitely aware of good actions and bad actions. That, of course does not mean it stops her from doing actions she'll have to apologized for later, but it's a start :)

Let's see stat update from today's Dr. Visit:
Height: 2'7"
Weight: 23lbs

We're really working on getting her to learn new words and use them but she seems stuck on her vocabulary and doesn't see the need to use the new words she learns. We've noticed that she can be very indifferent about things which makes it very easy for her to give up instead of try to say the name of what she wants. Rosita was very similar. Rosita has a very "oh well; whatever" attitude about things so maybe thats a hereditary trait. Well I guess, you could say Shawn and I are like that too so maybe it's a learned behavior... Either way, it's getting in the way of her getting frustrated enough to try the word out. Does that make sense??

News from the RMI??? None. We have not heard from anyone in Majuro. We're once again getting ready to send a package out but I wish they would tell us what they need. When we asked Peter all said was shoes for him. I'm sure Rosita needs something or Peter's wife but he wouldn't tell us what. Did I mention the birthdate thing yet?? No one in Majuro will tell us Rositas birthdate! I just want to know so we can send her a gift (we're nit even asking for the year), but they either don't reply to us or they'll ignore the question or say," oh I'll ask her later"! A fellow RmI mommy suggested that maybe Rosita doesn't know her birthdate but it sounds to me like she does but for some reason doesn't want us to know it. That's fine, I guess we'll just have to respect that.

Well my IPad is acting funny so I'll call it a day and post some more next week ~SPRING BREAK!! Maybe I'll finally load some videos of this crazy beautiful little girl <3

Details about Noes kemem

Just some more FYI about Noemi's kemem:

We had a picture slideshow of our trip playing with marshallese music.

We had the kids play island inspired games:
Hot Coconut (same as Hot Potato but used a plastic coconut instead)
Island Hopper (We drew a palm tree on an island on 8 sheets of paper. We laid the paper around in a circle and basically played musically chairs but they had to hop from island to island)
Pin the coconut on the Palm tree

We had sea shell baskets as our centerpieces with hibiscus flowers poking out

My nieces learned a Marshallese dance but did not get perform it :(

Anyway, just random thoughts that I forgot to share earlier.