Eliana wanted to have one party with her cousins and another with her little friends from church. So in mid July, her cousins and Grandpa and Grandma came over to celebrate her 4th birthday. Eliana was pretty happy with the presents, which included a new pair of sunglasses with pink frames.
She also got an Angelina ballerina set, including a mouse doll, doll-sized bed, pillow, clothes etc. She loves Angelina books and videos. The whole set is worth more than $100, but Emily found it on Craiglist for $35. It was quite a find because it was in mint condition.
Angel food cake is the standard 'birthday cake' and Karina is very excited about that. The kids helped put the candy letters on.
For some reason, Eliana was in a pensive mood during the singing and decided to act very non-chalant as we sang "Happy Birthday" to her.
Another very fun toy that Eliana got was a bubble gun. It does the blowing for you and shoots a continuous stream of bubbles. It uses a whole bottle of bubbles in about 2 minutes.
Here's a video of the girls having fun in the backyard with the bubble gun.
We also gave Eliana a gift of $4 in cash--which she was allowed on spend on anything (almost anything.) She ended up spending $1 on the snack Yan-Yan (those edible sticks that you can dip into chocolate sauce.) The also spent $2.50 on one of those neck pillows that you use if you want to sleep on the plane. But she thinks it's a child-sized boppy pillow and uses it when she pretends that she's breastfeeding her doll.
And Eliana got a card from her Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai that was very...elaborate. Part of the card is a punch out Princess crown, which looked very fancy on Eliana.
A couple wekeends laters, a bunch of Eliana's friends came over. Per Eliana's request, it was a "costume party", so the girls came over dressed up in various costumes. Karina, however, refused to wear anything but her favorite t-shirt with has butterflies on it.
Eliana requested a pinata and so there it is. It was filled with Reese's peanut butter cups, Hershey's kisses, and other goodies. Eliana took a few whacks at it, but didn't come close to breaking it open.
A couple girls later, Eliana's 3-year old friend took a whack at it and to our surprise, broke it open! Candy spewed out and it became a free for all.
Eliana also wanted a tea party. So the girls got lemonade in the teapot and decorated cupcakes with icing and other toppings.
And the girls also got to play Pin the Tail. However, almost none of the girls wanted to get blindfolded.
Then Karina's birthday came around. Overall, she didn't know what to make of it. But she knew something was up when, in the morning, she came downstairs and saw that her chair was decorated with streamers and balloons, or "bah-oon" as she calls them.
Grandpa and Grandma came over for a simple dinner and then after that, we had cupcakes. Karina didn't know how to react when we lit two candles in front of her. But when it was time to blow them out, she took care of business.
Here's a video of us singing to her...
One present that Karina got was a piano horn. Karina has a whistle that she loves playing, so we knew she would like this. At first, she was only sucking inwards, but after a while got the hang of it.
Karina also got a little Calico Critters set--a family of mice. Each mouse was wearing clothes which she proceeded to take off.
And she got a little toy called Sew-N-Sew. It's a wooden block with a crayon-sized stick (the "needle") attached to a string. The block also has a bunch of holes so you can use use the stick to thread the string through the holes. It turns out that Karina wasn't too interested in it, but Eliana loves playing with it.
So here's our little two-year old. Karina has blossomed into a bright and cheerful little toddler. She loves to laugh and giggle at Eliana's antics. She has recently started jumping and actually getting air underneath her feet. Karina loves being outside, taking walks around the block, doing puzzles, and playing with water. She has an inexhaustible interest in being pushed on the swings, and likes slides quite a bit as well. She has more and more words every day, but her diction is still pretty limited, so we are the only ones who understand her, with the help of sign language, and even we can't figure it out sometimes. Karina doesn't pronounce very many consonants, so for "water", she says "ah-doo", which is also what she says when she means "other". Her "excuse me" is "mee-mee", her "thank you" is "deeh-doo" and when she says "flip flops" it comes out as "bip bop".
Karina doesn't throw tantrums really (at least not yet) but she cries very very hard when she doesn't get her way (like when Emily reads to Eliana instead of her). Thankfully, she is pretty easy going overall, and contines to charm us with her cute antics and sayings. Hard to believe she is already two!
No comments:
Post a Comment