The latest on Esther

Here is a little bit about Esther and how she is doing as a missionary kid in Africa, from about 3-1/2 months to 5 months old!

She has discovered her toes - though they often flee from her before she can get them satisfactorily into her mouth

She went with her mom and dad to Field Forum, an annual missionary conference in Gabon

Here she is wearing pants for one of the first times - such a big girl!

She exercises her smile every day, and her daddy makes her smile a lot!

Believe it or not, one of her favorite things is to be read to, and she sometimes seems to try to turn the pages

She also loves to be sung to...and sometimes seems to sing along!

Although her expression doesn't reflect it here, she really enjoys our visits with one of her Gabonese "uncles," our friend Eric - and she gets to practice her French

She is definitely our little princess!

But sometimes she just likes to hang out, too

One of her favorite things is to go on walks, and she often gets carried off for one (in someone's arms or in the stroller) 2-3 times a day.  One of our African friends here said that she goes on walks more than any kid he knows.... But it is a pretty place to walk!

She is becoming increasingly interested in watching us eat our food, and apparently has pretty good instincts, too - going after her mommy's brownie :) .  We've just recently started giving her some rice cereal once a day, but other than that she'll have to stick with mommy's milk and formula for the moment.

Here she is doing baby push-ups, which she does many times a day - I know my arms would be tired if I did as many as she does

This is a video of one of Esther's special "tricks" - press the play button and we hope it works for you (our internet is too slow for it to work right for us)

We often get down on the floor and play with her, too

Some people have asked us if Esther crawls yet.  The answer: well, no.... But play this video to see her own special mode of locomotion!

Both of us have fun dressing her up for church on Sundays.

Here she is, already stylish!