Happy Summer!

We had an unusually cool spring, which is terrible for the tomato and cucumber plants, but is great for the snap peas.  They are growing like crazy and we went out to pick the first batch last week.

As with anything new, Eliana was enamored with them.  Even though she usually doesn't eat vegetables, she declared that she "LOOOVES" these.  Three bites later, however, she realizes that she doesn't like them after all.

Karina is happy to chew on anything she can get her hands on. 

She is eating a wider range of foods because all four teeth on the top have come in now!  Karina doesn't look like a vampire anymore.  She does have a bad habit of grinding her teeth.  It sounds like she's cracking open walnuts in her mouth--it's that loud.  It drives Emily crazy.

Karina has also taken to sleeping on her side.  Sometimes, when we put her down on her crib asleep, she'll wake up just enough to roll to her side, and then fall back asleep again.  By the way, she only rolls about three quarters of the way, but can't (or refuses) to roll all the way onto her tummy.  She's still boycotting that.

And Karina continues to mimic things we do.  After baths, her tousled hair makes her looks like a lion.  Elvin roared at her once, and she decided to roar back...

Eliana continues to be creative with her pretend world.  Here she is grocery shopping with her baby.  The basket has her play debit card as well as play car keys.  Also, if you look closely, you can see that she has accessorized herself with multiple bracelets and free shell necklaces that we got in Hawaii.

Eliana also likes to have tea parties in her bath.  She is obviously expecting many guests.  (Also, she has declared that she wants her birthday party to be themed as a tea party.  We will make our best effort to make her wish come true.)

Eliana's Portuguese has suddenly improved signifianctly in the past couple of weeks.  Whereas before she was only using short phrases, now whole sentences are coming together.  She'll speak Portuguese with Elvin if they are talking one-on-one.  In this video, Elvin is prompting Eliana to sing "Happy Birthday" in Portuguese, which Elvin has taught her.  But the word for "sing" is very similar to the work for "count" (cantar versus contar).  So at first Eliana does some counting until she realizes was Daddy is actually asking her to do...


And this past Saturday, Elaina was playing with the camera.  Here is a self-portrait and another picture she took...