Aria's tricks!

This past week the Johnson kiddos and their fabulous parents went on a week long vacation at a family cabin in northern WI. We had a rockin' time and have lots of fun stories (I have a separate post going with details of the trip). For a week it was just the 5 of us - being together, and spending oodles of well deserved quality time. One of the positive outcomes of this is demonstrated really clearly in the list of new "tricks" that Aria picked up our week gone. She turned 11 months up north - and came back home a whole new baby.

She learned how to do the following things while at the cabin:
*So BIG (raising her hands up when asked "how big are you")
*the sign for all done (& using it correctly)
* the sign for more (& using it correctly)
*washing hands (rubbing hands together when someone mentions washing hands)
*blowing kisses (she's been working on this for a bit - but does it automatically now when saying goodbye or I love you)
* crawling on hands & knees (she's been doing an "army crawl" very functionally for a while - but is now a pro on her knees - even outside in the dirt, on the beach and into the water")
*clapping (when you say "yea" or when she does a trick)
*giving hugs (snuggling in when you ask for a hug)
*a sound when you ask her what a dog says (an "fff" sound for woof woof)
*climbing up objects to standing

below are some videos I took for you to see (and I even remembered to keep the camera the correct way)

here is Aria clapping - yea for her!



washing her hands



here is her demonstrating the "soooo big"!



and blowing kisses



her army crawl - check out the transition between crawling & sitting - right through the splits! and you get some Mulu and Aaliyah action in here too.



"real" crawling

Ethiopian fun!

A bit ago now (I'm farther behind on posts than I would like to be) one of our best friends came to play (a little 3 year old from the same orphanage as Mulu and Aaliyah) dressed in a beautiful dress from Ethiopia. This inspired the Johnson kiddos to whip out our Ethiopian attire and have a party. We have Ethiopia intergrated into many parts of our life - music, food, decorations, clothes, books, language - but this was extra fun to just have a impromptu celebration with our friend.