First Thanksgiving...

Eliana had her first Thanksgiving at her granparent's house in Vancouver, WA. Although she didn't get to eat any turkey or pumpkin pie, she did get to see lots of her aunts, uncles, and cousins.

On the car ride there, she decides that for appetizer, she'll chew on her monkey beanie baby's hand. (She's gotten quite good recently at grabbing something in front of her. In the past, she could grab things, but only accidentally if the thing was near her hand already. Now she'll willfully grab something in front of her.)

Since we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house at 3pm, Eliana took a nap later in the afternoon. When she got up at around 5pm, the food was almost ready to be served.

And finally everyone dug in!
Towards the end of the evening, Eliana took another nap while people sat around and talked.

Eliana is always a big hit with her cousins. Millie, age 5 likes it when Eliana grabs her finger.

When it's time to go home, Eliana gets a warm goodbye from Grandpa Rice.

It was a long day for her so she screeched almost the entire car ride home. But she slept through the night and only got up once! And you'll notice that there are no pictures of any aunties or uncles holding her. Unfortunately, Eliana has been honing her stranger anxiety skills and has gotten quite good at them recently.

Hope you had a good Thanksgiving as well!

Soccer practice...

To get her ready for her soccer career, we're starting her on practice sessions now. To help her track the ball with her eyes, Elvin dribbles the ball while holding her. After that we move on to her dribbling skills. Being as she can't walk yet, Emily helps her to do the kicking. Which she finds very fun.

Another developmental milestone that Eliana has reached is the laughing skill. Different things will many her laugh out loud...such as tickling her under her armpits, or rubbing her ample cheeks. Mommy can make her laugh by doing this...

Four month check-up...

Eliana had her 4 month check-up at the doctor's today. She weighed in at 15 pound and 6 ounces. With that, here's another graph of her weight.

According to Emily, she did not enjoy her visit to the doctor one bit. Unlike the last visit, this time she cried the entire time that she was poked and prodded by her pediatrician. And needless to say, she extremely unhappy when she got her shots.

On a happier note, she's been getting better and better at the hand-to-mouth coordination. She will chew on anything she can get her chubby little hands on, including toys (shown below), her beanie baby monkey, the collar of her shirts, paper napkins, and any appendages that are offered to her.

And last week Emily and Eliana visited Daddy at his work. She was for some reason not that impressed by the gray cubicle walls that Elvin has to stare at 8 hours a day. She did get ooh-ed and ahh-ed at by about 40 of Elvin's co-workers.

Bedtime routine...

Every night, we try to go through the same routine. By the end, hopefully Eliana realizes that it's bedtime and peacefully falls asleep. (The key word being "hopefully.")



Starting at about 730pm...

Visiting grandparents...

We spent last weekend in the Bay Area visiting Elvin's parents. They threw a big party for Eliana to celebrate her 1st 100 days. Because Eliana had a hard time sleeping the night before the party, we made sure that she took long naps in the morning in preparation for the guests coming at noon. She finally made her grand appearance at around 12:30pm. I don't think she's ever received this much attention from this many people but she did very well and even let other people hold her!