Another week...

Baby boy is due in 5 weeks so we are trying to take advantage of the time before #3 arrives.  We are also trying to take advantage of the good weather we are having. 

Here are the girls having a little tailgate party on our driveway.  However, instead of hot dogs and hamburgers, they are munching on slices of apples.

The girls definetely enjoy each other's company.  Even though they are two years apart, they find a lot of things in common to laugh about.

Becase of the sunny weather, the girls have gotten to engage in one of their favorite activities--taking a walk around the block.  Sometimes they'll both want to ride their bicycles, or in this case, they are both pushing strollers.  Weather permitting, they do this at least once per day and even though the distance is not very long (it would take a normal person about 5 minutes to walk around the block), the girls feel the need to stop and examine every bush, crack in the sidewalk, or lawn ornament along the way which means that this can take as much as 1/2 an hour.

Walking around the block, though, is not without its risks.  On a particular warm day, it was in the 70's here.  Karina was wearing shorts, fell down, and skinned her knees.  Since this is the first time she's skinned her knees in her life, we decided to document it.  She still has scabs on her knees and points them out whenever they get exposed.

Eliana recently got some hand-me-downs from her older cousins which included a full-body cat suit.  It is much to big for her, but that didn't stop her.  She asked when Halloween was and then put the suit on.  She even requested that Mommy paint whiskers on her face.

And because her older sister got whiskers, Karina wanted them too.

Eliana's really been into Scotch tape recently, for some reason.  She is obsessed with it and wants to Scotch tape everything. We will find random items with Scotch tape on them, including our clothes.

Here she is Scotch taping some paper onto her "Rain Graph" (her homework from preschool; it's to keep track of which days it's rained or not.)

Here is one of her drawings (made during Chinese lesson).  She Scotch taped it to her wall in her bedroom.  You can kind of make out the Scotch tape in the picture--she used about 3 feet of tape.

Here she is taping the wheels on a pull-along dog toy she got.  Not sure why...

And a couple of weeks ago, Eliana also was refusing to go to bed on time (she will keep herself awake by singing to herself, tossing/turning, drinking water then asking to go to the bathroom, etc.), getting up at night for an hour or more, and then getting up early.  This was making her very tired, which makes her very grouchy and also makes her pass out during the day if she lays still for just a while.  (She doesn't take naps anymore and stopped taking naps months ago.)  The reason why we normally don't let Eliana take naps is that it pushes back her bedtime by even more time than what she napped.  So it's a net loss of sleep.

She fell asleep again the next day.  That night she finally fell asleep at around 10pm instead of her usual 8pm.

And since Eliana was born in the Year of the Rat, we think that this has made her into a pack rat.  She likes to accumulate things.  Anything shiny or trinkety will get stuffed into a purse, or in this case, a drawer in her night stand.

And Emily calls Eliana's bed a rat's nest.  One time we counted 12 stuffed animals, 4 blankets, two head bands, 3 dolls, and one magic wand on her bed.  (In the picture below, we also found a little sister on her bed too.)

Karina is growing and talking more every day.  She is also putting two and three words together.  Her new words are usually in English and/or a sign, but every once in a while, a new word will be in Portuguese.  Recently, she started saying "mao" (hand) and "abrir" (open). 

Here is Karina telling us to pray before our dinner starts.  If we ever forget, she reminds us.

Karina's hand-to-eye coordination continues to amaze us.  The other night we were eating ramen for dinner.  Because Mommy and Daddy were using chopsticks, she wanted a set as well.  It turns out that she was actually able to get food into her mouth.

Karina's insatiable appetite contributes to her robust belly.  At 30 or so pounds, she is only 8 pounds behind her big sister.  At the same time, her growth does seem to have slowed down.

Karina has taken a real interest in helping Elvin out in the kitchen as of late.  Here she is trying to mince garlic with Daddy.  It wasn't very easy to do with the butter knife.

Here she is helping Elvin make grilled cheese sandwiches.  She piled on about 4 slices into the one sandwich.

And then she assembled it.  The only catch is that Daddy had to take it apart in order to put it on the griddle.

And Karina finally has the attention span to sit down and watch videos for more than 2 or 3 minutes.  This is partly why her language has taken off...she is getting a daily dose of the Baby Signing Time videos where she picks up a lot of her signs.  And Eliana is such a TV addict that she is willing to watch almost anything on TV and so joins in with Karina.

Karina's gross motor skills are also improving.  Eliana is good at hopping and jumping and Karina has always wanted to jump along with her sister.  As you can see in the video, she still has a hard time defying gravity.

The two girls entertain each other in varous ways.  Here's a game they devised which escalated into something else...

And the girls enjoy doing a game where they hug/wrestle each other.  It's sort of not fair for Karina since her big sister outweighs her by a fair amount and her big sister's arms are about 8 inches longer too (good for grabbing little sister around the neck.)

 

And there you are.  We are using up our last few weeks before the baby comes doing some last minute projects around the house.  Elvin has been busy putting in the garden (tomatoes, cucumbers, beets) and we're trying to organize various things in our house before baby arrives.  Hope you are doing well!