Growing up...

Karina is now 16 months old and very much a toddler now.  She gets into everything and likes to tear or take everything apart.  If Eliana is not careful and leaves a craft project within Karina's reach, one can be sure that it will be torn apart and destroyed within the hour.

Karina right now loves to climb onto things.  She likes to stand on top of the step stools that we have around for Eliana to use.  The problem is that Karina is still not 100% reliable on her feet.  Here is Karina sitting down on a step stool--a much safer activity.

Karina also likes to try out new things.  Here are the oven mitts that go all the way up past her elbows.

The two girls can be best of friends most of the time.  Here, each is enjoying their own bowl of cheese puffs (the really yummy ones from Trader Joe's!) and so there is no fighting between the two--for now.

The girls also like to go outside to keep Daddy company while he's cleaning up the yard.  Karina is stable enough on her feet to walk on the uneven ground.  But every once in a while she does fall down and needs help getting back up.  She'll just sit there and cry.  We think she won't get up herself because she doesn't want to get her hands muddy.

You see Karina here wearing a winter cap.  It only stays on for about 10 minutes.  Then she yanks it off; she really does not like wearing hats or caps.

Karina's hairs is growing longer and longer.  The other day, Mommy did something funny to her hair.

This past weekend we went out to a Mexican restaurant for a change of pace.  The food took a looooong time to come so we dined on the free basket of chips.  Unfortunately, the salsa was very spicy and so off limits to the girls.  What's the next best thing to dip the chip into?  Mommy's glass of water, of course!

The chips were very large, but Karina's mouth is larger still.

One of Karina's favorite activities is hanging out in the fridge.  If she sees someone open the fridge door, she scurries on over, wedges her way between their legs and plops herself down before we can shut the door.  Eliana did the same thing at that age...

Karina's language abilities are growing too.  She can now sign "tree", "outside", "mommy", "daddy", "meat"  and "pray".  She also puts two words together, like "where + Mommy?"  Lately, we've been working teaching her the parts of the body.  Emily's been doing that in English and Elvin with Portuguese.  Ironically enough, she knows the words in Portuguese better than in English right now...

Karina is developing quite a playful and almost mischevious personality.  Lately, she has been stuffing her mouth full of food and then pretending to talk to get a reaction out of us.  And sometimes she just likes to show off by pretending to fall down. 

Our little Karina is growing up quickly!



12 days till Christmas...

Christmas is fast approaching and the weather here certainly reflects that.  Every morning, we have a healthy coat of frost that covers everything.

At Eliana's preschool, the kids have learned a poem about Christmas as well as a couple of songs--Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christimas.

Here is the performance on video. (and here are the words to the poem, for those who would like the "translation":

I have a little gift for you
It didn't cost a penny
I checked my pockets for some coins
But I could not find any!
And so I worked to make a gift
It wasn't hard to do
I made it with my own two hands
With love from me to you!

A couple of weeks ago, our church had an event for young families.  They had gingerbread house kits for the children to decorate.  Much of the candy made it onto the house, and some of it Eliana diverted into her mouth.

We've generally not let Karina have very much candy so far.  But at this event, it was EVERYWHERE and hard to keep it away from her.  So she got to have a taste of M&M's, mini-marshmallows, and icing.

Eliana did a good job decorating her house.

Mommy got Eliana some decals of a nativity scene that you stick onto your window.  Daddy wanted to take a picture of it after it was all completed, but she didn't want to cooperate.

Now, instead of biting back her smile, she gave Daddy a super silly grin.

Here is her innocent look... 

And finally a semi-proper smile.

And last but not least, Emily mentioned to Eliana that Emily had a mini-Christmas tree when she was young and would ask Grandma to look for it.  It was nowhere to be found, but Grandma granted Eliana's wish by buying a brand new one.  Eliana was SUPER duper excited!  It is about two feet tall and Grandma even got her little tiny mini-lights.  Eliana decorated it with ornaments ("orna-mens" she says), a garland, and a star at the top that she made.

She loves her tree and has announced that she wants to keep it out all year long. 

Sniffles

Karina has unfortunately come down with another cold.  Unlike her sister--who has an ironclad immune systerm--Karina catches colds more easily.  On Friday night, she was coughing all night, which prevented both her and her parents from getting a good night's sleep.  On Saturday, she had a fever and a runny nose--the whole works.  On Sunday, by the afternoon, the uncontrollable cough seems a lot better but she is still very congested and exhausted from two nights with very little sleep.  We hope that she'll get better soon!

November happenings...

November has flown by, hasn't it?  Even though we've had some nice sunny days, it's still been chilly outside.  One of the indoor activities that Eliana likes to do is painting.  She rolls up her sleeves, puts her creative cap on, and goes at it!

Eliana also has homework assignments once a week from her pre-school.  Here, she is supposed to color a specific number of objects on the paper.  We were impressed that she is now mostly coloring within the lines.

The girls are always copying each other.  So Karina wanted to do an activity as well and enjoyed doing the paint-with-water book that used to be Eliana's. 

Another one of Eliana's favorite activities is dressing up in her "princess dresses."  Then she dons the accessories.  Look at the size of the rock on her ring!

We recently got a big pack of Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches from Costco.  They are great!  And almost not unhealthy.  Eliana enjoys them too, but only the vanilla ones (not the cookies-n-cream ones.)  Eating them, however, can be a messy affair.

Not only does Karina copy her older sister a lot, Eliana also copies Karina quite a bit too.  Karina loves bananas, but Eliana has never been a big fan.  But it seems like after watching Karina chomp down on bananas with so much gusto, Eliana wants to like bananas.  Here she is grabbing one for herself.  She will often take a mini-nibble, then remember that she does NOT like them after all.

In the bathtub they copy each other too.  Karina likes chewing on the rubber toys and Eliana will follow.

After bath, Karina is usually in a better mood (she doesn't like having her hair washed.)  Here she is with a silly smile.  You can sort of see that she has her four front teeth on the top, and also four front teeth on the bottom.  What you don't see is that all four of her molars have now come in.  They've been growing in in fits and spurts during the past 3 months.  After 3 months of runny noses, fevers, and some sleepless nights, it seems like the teething is over for now.  She can now chomp down on any type of food and so the range of things she can eat is much bigger now.  She's already a voracious eater (she often eats more than her sister during mealtimes) and there's nothing stopping her now.

One of Karina's more favorite activities is pushing her shopping cart around the house and adding goods to it.  In this picture, she has her sister's Crocs and her little blankie amongst other things.

In this case, Karina's loading up on a bunch of Diet Coke and beer.  We happened to have people over and there was a lot of drinks on the ground.  It seemed like Karina was loading up to go off and have her own party.  (And you might have noticed that Eliana is wearing nothing but underwear and socks.  She often does this; says that she's "too hot" with clothes on.  Because of this, we sometimes call her Mowgli, like the character in the Jungle Book.)

Karina is obviously watching everything we do because every once in a while, she will surprise us with something.  In this case, she found a kiddie sized rolling pin and started rolling away on her imaginary dough.

Or she will talk away with an imaginary person on her telephone (which in this case happens to be a remote control--but close enough, right?)

And lastly, Karina has learned the Ring Around the Rosie song--or at least the timing of when you do the certin actions or motions.  As long as Eliana gets the singing going, Karina can follow along!

Thanks for reading, hope you also had a good November!

Picture Day

It was picture day at Eliana's preschool a little while ago and we just got the pictures back.  We can't believe that our little baby has grown up so fast into a little girl! 

And we're amazed that she seems so composed in the picture, with a nice, normal smile (not the Calvin and Hobbes faces that she usually makes when it's us taking pictures.)

Here is her little class.  We really like Eliana's teacher, Mrs. Walker.  Because Eliana already knows her letters and can count fairly well, Mrs. Walker modifies the activities and assignments for Eliana a little bit to keep things challenging for her.  Needless to say, Eliana loves going to preschool.

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.

Happy Halloween!

The day before Halloween, we all sat down to decorate pumpkins (or "pumkim" as Eliana calls them).  The girls used pens to draw on theirs.

Eliana got to use a Sharpie, which she loooves using because she knows usually only grown ups get to use Sharpie pens.  (For good reason: the other day she accidentally drew on our dining table.  Anyone have ideas on how to get Sharpie marks off of wood?)

Daddy's pumpkin was a little bigger and got a face carved into it.  Karina helped out.

On Halloween Night, Eliana was super excited.  She ate dinner really quickly and changed into her princess costume right away (with a dress, pearl necklace, and sparkly pink shoes).  Then kept asking every 30 seconds if it was time to start trick-or-treating yet.

After dinner, we put Karina into her costume.  This bumble bee costume kept her really warm.

Before going out, we wanted to have the girls take a posed picture with the jack-o-lantern.  No such luck; they would not hold still.  The only one that was cooperating that night and smiled for the camera was the pumpkin.

"I loooove the Halloween!" exclaimed Eliana as we were tromping through the neighborhood collecting more and more candy. There seems to be a correlation between her love of certain holidays and the amount of sugar that the holiday produces. Although we actually visited only about twenty or so houses, it still took a while to do that. This was partly because midway through trick or treating, Eliana started doing the potty dance and we had to run back home. (Yes, rookie parent mistake: not forcing your kid to go potty before heading out.) Also, if a house featured scary decorations, Eliana would freeze about 15 feet from the door and we would have to retreat and head to another house. But overall Eliana and Karina enjoyed themselves.

After getting back home, Eliana had fun checking out her loot while Karina took swigs of water.  (She really enjoys drinking water out of any container that is NOT her sippy cup.)  Eliana got to choose and eat three pieces of candy.  Eliana raided a Reese's peanut butter cup out of Karina's stash and let her have a couple bites of that.

And this picture shows the goodies that we were passing out at our house.  Yes, that's right, bottled water.  Before you start scoffing...  In the beginning of the night, the kids were interested only in the candy.  But as the night wore on, more and more kids took the water instead.  And by the end of the night (presumably after some kids had been eating handfuls of candy and were dying of thirst), lots of kids were downright excited about seeing water.  "Look, Mom!  They have water!"  And one parent gave us a thumbs up to us and yelled, "Way to go!"