Introducing "Marty" and "Crush"

Here you can see her index finger about ready to go "pow" and send Marty flying...

Thank you to all who sent Ellie cards, gifts, Facebook messages, and posts with birthday wishes. It really was sweet to receive those! She had a good birthday, I think. On the actual day of, we went to the library for a free showing of the movie "Bedtime Stories." Ellie did pretty well staying engaged with the film.

As you can probably surmise from the photos on this post, Ellie spent her birthday money on some new pets. She completely asked for this on her own and we don't know where the idea came from, but one day this week Ellie told Nathan, "Daddy, I want a crab please." Nathan said that apparently the letters s-u-c-k-e-r were emblazoned on his forehead because he came home with two. (According to experts, they live longer with a companion). Ours will be miracles if they survive this month, companion or not.

Ellie is truly enamored with these guys, and I have to say, one of them is growing on me too. In case you're wondering, "Marty" is the zebra-striped crab named so originally after "Marty" in M*dagascar. "Crush" is named after the turtle in Finding Nem*. Marty is much more social and will quickly come out of his shell in my hand. He loves to scurry around the floor -- frequently disappearing under a piece of furniture. Other than that, they are thankfully easy to care for and seem to survive falls when dropped by a startled child.

If you want to read a sweet post about the difference a family makes to an orphan child, hop on over to our friends' blog, the Kinnells. The last photo was taken by yours truly. We love these girls and they are fast becoming some of Ellie's best friends, which is also neat to witness. How else but by God would a little girl from Albania become friends with twin orphans from Ethiopia?

Click here to skip over to my photo blog and see some others that I shot from the same session.