We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

We hope you had a good Cristmas. Leading into it, Eliana enjoyed singing Jingle Bells as well as a new Christmas song... WeWish You a Merry Christmas (although she altered the lyrics a bit). She uses a bulb syringe as her pretend microphone. After she finishes her song, she takes a bow.



On Chrsitmas Eve, we attended Christmas Eve service at church. A tradition done at our church, we end the service with candles.

Eliana got to hold her own candle and did a good job holding it still and upright. She needed a little help blowing it out. The next morning, we opened our stockings and presents. In Eliana's stockings, some of the most exciting things that she got were Hello Kittyy band-aids, a tooth brush with a teddy bear, dental floss (she always plays with Mommy's and Daddy's), gummy worms ("I loooove worms!), and a wind-up toy monkey that does flips. She thinks he is Curious George.
Eliana also helped open Karina's stocking. Karina got a stuffed mouse (Karina likes playing with Eliana's old stuffed mouse, which Eliana does not approve of).
Eliana also got a chocolate "E". She's allowed to take a couple of bites at a time.

Aunt Jenny and Uncle Darin visited from Colorado and stayed at our house. This was great fun for Eliana and she followed Aunt Jenny like a shadow.

Eliana had someone to play with and reads books with all weeekend long. On Chrsistmas night, we went to Grandma's and Grandpa's for dinner. Eliana met up with her cousins and wrestled with them.
Karina was awake for lots of it... Here she is sucking on her rabbit's ear. Sucking on things is her favorite activity.

She is also looking around a lot, or arching her back to look at who is holding her.She slept through a lot of the Christmas festivities too.

Eliana was also pooped out from all the excitement and late nights.

We tried spreading the presents out to prevent overload. Last night (Tues.), we let Eliana open her last present. A little crib for a doll--or her stuffed dog. (The dog's name is Clifford, like the big red dog.)

This morning, it snowed for about 30 min. The snow stuck for a little while and Eliana stared out in wonderment at the snow.

Overall it was a busy weekend. This Friday we head off to CA to see Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai (Elvin's parents.)

Busy week...

The girls continue to grow--literally. Eliana can now reach the light switches. We're not sure that this is a positive development.

The pediatrician recommended that we introduce solids to Karina. She's not particularly fond of this yet.

Her older sister has coincidentally taken an interest in the baby food as well..
Karina is now reaching for and grabbing everything in front of her. While sitting on Daddy's lap during dinner, she has almost pulled the dinner plate onto the ground a couple of times.

Eliana has always enjoyed playing with a soccer ball. We discovered this past weekend that Karina, for some reason, finds soccer incredibly funny.

Eliana has been practicing how to hop on one foot. Up until this past weekend, she needed to hold on to something to prevent falling over.

In case you're not in the Christmas mood yet, maytbe Eliana can help. She has learned how to sing Jingle Bells. But she doesn't know all the words, so she improvises. She is singing this instead of going to sleep.

Last week we also visited the Zoo Lights event at the Oregon Zoo. The entire park is strung with thousands of lights. Eliana enjoyed riding their mini train.

We plan on staying in town for Chrsitmas. During New Year's we will be flying to the Bay Area to visit Elvin's parents. With the wrapped presents accumulating underneath our Christmas tree, Eliana has gone through them all and identified which are hers. She also asks constantly whether its Christmas yet, so that she can open her presents. What torture!

We hope that everyone has a happy and safe Christmas.

As we approach Christmas, the weekends get busier. We went to a Christmas party at Elvin's co-worker's house. Since we were in charge of bringing dessert, Elvin was making whipped cream. Eliana was instantly addicted, but who wouldn't be?Eliana and Karina's cousin Millie also spent the night. Everyone enjoyed each other's company.Karina continues to be a good sleeper. We have moved her out of our bedroom and into her own room. She seems to be sleeping better at night as a result. Maybe she never quite got used to her Daddy's snoring?

Karina is cooing and talking more. She also likes looking at faces on photos...

This past Sunday, we went to a friend's house for another Christmas party. They rented a Santa for the kids. Eliana was fascinated that the Santa that she's read about in books actually came to visit. She was not so enthused about sitting on his lap, though, and wouldn't answer any of his questions.

We also got a tree and set it up this past weekend. As you will see, Eliana was quite excited about it. This is the first Christmas where she really understands presents, decorations, and other things.

Christmas is coming...

This past weekend, we put our Christmas lights up. Eliana wanted to help and pretended to hang the lights with Daddy.

We have two Advent calendars that Eliana gets to open each day. One is a wooden Christmas tree. There is a door for each day of the month with a little ornament that you hang on the tree.

The other is an Advent calendar from IKEA. Behind each door is a little piece of Swedish chocolate. (Elvin is rather jealous of this one...but Ellie isn't interested in sharing her little chocolate square..)

Eliana is now 36" tall and has figured out a way to open the refrigerator door. This makes the fridge yet another place where she can scavenge for food.

She regularly resists taking naps or bedtime. On most days, she'll do whatever she can to keep herself awake. Here is a nonsensical song that she's making up on the fly.

This week, Karina had her 4-month check-up. Her pediatrician called her "chunky." That's saying something given that the doctor sees all types of babies all day long.

And here's a picture of both girls sucking on their pacifiers and chillin' out after bathtime. What a life, huh?

It is very important to Eliana that they wear matching jammies every night, and each night she asks Mommy, "what we wearing tonight?" We have had to be creative with some of the matches - same color (sort of) or both have animals on them somewhere, or something. This match is pretty good, though! (just a side note, Ellie has NEVER used a pacifier...until after Karina was born, and can only manage it for about a minute, but still insists she needs it periodically)

Modern Art

Have you ever walked through a museum of modern art and said to yourself, "A two year old could have drawn that"? Eliana this past week felt inspired to draw likenesses of her family members. Below is Papai--following the minimalistic school.

Emily is the larger red/orange circle below. Eliana is the brown squiggles below Emily's "eyes." Karina is also somewhere in there, she said.

Here's a more realistic picture of Karina. She is definetely not a newborn anymore but looking around a lot, making eye contact, and smiling.

She, like her sister, likes to put everything in her mouth. If you put a finger or knuckle in front of her, she'll lunge for it.

She is starting to transition from her squawking noises to more mainstream baby noises such as cooing. She's also starting to grab things more, so that she can put them into her mouth of course.

Karina doesn't like to be put down and ignored, although she tolerates this more than her sister did. But like most babies, Karina prefers to be where the action is. The only catch is that she has to put up with being held like a football while Daddy is vaccuuming the family room.

Karina still gets plenty of loving from Eliana. Karina loves watching her sister's antics and chuckles periodically for reasons known only to her.

On Thanksgiving, Eliana spent time with her cousins who drove down from Seattle. They made chocolate-covered peanut butter bon-bons together.

Eliana really looks up to her cousin Lena and copies everything Lena does. Here they are lickking the chocolate off of the utensils.

When Eliana found out that Lena was going to wear a fancy red dress for Thanksguving dinner, she also wanted to wear one.

Because we do not yet have a picture with the whole family together, we asked our 20-something niece Erica to take some portraits using her SLR. She took a lot of pictures, because our 2 year-old goofball decided to act silly for most of them. Here are the bloopers.

Luckily, we found one that is semi-decent.

Hope you had a good Thanksgiving!