Slice of life...

What's been going on in the Yuen household lately? 

After Halloween, Eliana has been eating down her stash of candy.  She's allowed to have one treat after lunch and another after dinner.  She's been opting for a halloween candy instead of her normal choice of ice cream with sprinkles on top. 

Here, Eliana is trying to eat a pixie stick (paper straw with flavored sugar inside.)  She has a hard time getting anything to come out, though, because she licks the paper straw, which makes it close shut.

So we used scissors to give her a fresh start.  This time, however, the rush of sugar coming out went down her shirt.

So Mommy helps out.  This reminds Elvin of when people give their pet cats medicine.

Meanwhile, Karina innocently looks on. 

A couple of weekends ago, the girls' cousins were visiting.  They love playing with Karina and Eliana.  Apparently, they also like teaching Karina new skills.

One of Eliana's favorite games to play right now is hide-and-seek.  One of her favorite places is under the end table.  Other places are under the coffee table or under a blanket in the middle of the room.  If the seeker does not immediately find Eliana, she will give you a clue by yelling out, "I'm HEEEEERE!"

A little while ago, Eliana had fallen asleep in the afternoon for a couple of hours.  She does not take a nap anymore, because all it does is push her bedtime to a later time.  Because of this, Elaina was not going to fall asleep until 10pm that night.  To help kill time, Daddy proposed a night out "camping."  In a darkened room, on their sleeping bags and using a lantern, the two of them hung out and read books together.  It was a very fun night.

Eliana is a very girly girl.  She only wears dresses or skirts.  Likes necklaces and rings and wands too.  One thing that she has been asking for is to get her nails painted.  Daddy feels like she is a little too young for that, so Eliana takes matters into her own hands.  When there is no nail polish available, then red markers are a good stand in.  At least she's creative!

Recently, Eliana's bicycling skills have really improved!  Whereas before, she would always need a shove forward to get going, Grandpa worked with her and now she can start pedaling from a standstill.  Whenever Eliana goes out on her bicycle, Karina follows pushing her baby-sized stroller (on which she puts rocks or dirt.)

And Eliana has turned out to be our little extroverted, social butterfly.  She loves being around people. At the park, she is always searching out for new kids to play with. 

In the mornings, if she hears talking outside of her room, she drags herself out of bed so that she doesn't miss out on the action.  And we mean drag in the most literal sense of the word. 

Karina is getting better and better at climbing things.  She can now seat herself on these little kid chairs.  But then, she kicks it up a notch by climbing up and standing on it.  But this can be a little nerve wracking as she is not 100% stable on her feet still.

And Karina's always building things, trying to put things together, or trying to figure out how things work.  Emily calls her our little engineer.  Here she is playing with a bunch of packages of shampoo samples that she found in a drawer.  She is also learning new signs every week; in this video she uses the sign for "help."

And one very exciting thing that happened is that Eliana got pajamas that match Mommy's! She wanted to wear them right away so that they could match together!

And that is what's going on in the Yuen household these days.