Fangs!

Our little Karina has been teething on and off for the past month.  The top four are coming in, but at different speeds.  The middle two on the top are taking their time, but the outer two on the top have popped through.  So for now, she has little fangs!  You can barely see them in this picture.

Karina is slowly getting better are being on her tummy but is not crawling yet.  She still doesn't like tummy time.  She sometimes can scootch, but only backwards, which makes her even more frustrated.

This past week was the last session for Eliana's music class.  She has music class once a week at a local music store.  Her teacher is great and loves kids.  The curriculum is a "Kindermusik" series that's designed very well for little kids.  The children learn about loud noises vs. soft noises, fast vs. slow beats, and learn hand motions and dancing too.  A couple of Eliana's friends from church attend this class, also.

Eliana recently got a new slide!  We inherited it from a friend at church whose kids had outgrown it.  It's bigger than her old slide.  She is still mastering the challenge of scampering up the slide.  She's learning that the type of shoes that she's wearing makes a big difference...

Eliana also enjoys pushing her sister on the swing. 

She's also learned to push and then run away so she doesn't get bonked in the head by the swing swinging back.

Karina continues to be a happy baby, giggling and laughing at everything around her.

Here she is again...

Just kidding...  You might have noticed that even though the baby in the picture above is wearing the same sweatshirt, it's not the same baby!  This is actually Eliana when she was 10 months old!  As you can see, they look very similar but also have differences.  Emily says their mouths look different.  Elvin thinks their eyes are different.  For sure their hair is different:  Eliana's hair used to stick straight up whereas Karina's hair is much finer and hangs down.

And here are the sisters in matching jammies, of course!

Skipping...

Eliana, for the past few weeks, has been practicing her hopping on a daily basis.  She's a persistent little girl.  Last weekend, we told her that once she's mastered hopping on both feet (she was only hopping on her left foot, prior to that), she'll be ready to learn how to skip.  Right then and there, she tried skipping around the house and amazingly enough, it all clicked together!

Eliana's bangs were starting to grow over her eyes.  So we took her to the hair cutting place, since she needed a trim in the back as well.  As you recall, she cut her own hair a couple months back.  Because of that, Eliana's hair was very layered in the back. 

After the haircut, her hair was about 1 inch shorter.

Eliana continues to be a force of nature in our house.  As you can see, she has been blessed with lots of toys and does a great job making sure that she plays with all of them at least a little bit.

Her coloring skills are improving as well.  She is starting to color between the lines.

Karina is growing as well.  She has quite a little personality.  When Elvin comes home from work, she works herself up into a frenzy.

Karina is starting to get interested in books.  Being a second child, we don't read to her nearly as much as we did to Eliana.  But she seems to enjoy it and can turn the pages.

Her mobility is improving week by week.  She can scooch on her bottom a little bit at a time, especially when trying to get something just out of reach.  But she won't go from a sitting position to her tummy--at least not voluntarily.

Karina's appetite continues to astound us.  She eats bread, baked yams, cut up scrambled eggs, cheese, potato, banana, cheerios and raspberries.  She absolutely LOVES avocado and can eat 1/4 of one in one sitting.  At that point, we don't give her anymore, although she would keep right on going.  She is also extremely messy.  We've started lining the kitchen floor underneath her because of all the debris that she lets dribble (or intentionally throws) on the ground.

Karina has learned how to turn off the lights in the bathroom.  We sit her up on the counter after she takes a bath.  The light switch is within arms reach and she did it once by accident.  Now she does it because it's fun.

Karina also has learned how to wave "bye-bye."  You usually have to prompt her, but sometimes she does it by herself. 

With the weather nice here, the girls go to the park several times a week.  Karina enjoys the swings and Eliana enjoys being a good big sister by pushing her.

Eliana likes playing on the playground.  Karina will tolerate sitting on the ground by herself for a while.  But she does NOT like sitting on the grass directly--only on a blanket. 

Hope you have a good week!

Tulip Fields

Last weekend, despite the threat of showers, we drove an hour south to catch the tulip fields that were still in bloom.  There were acres and acres of tulips.

Eliana has entered a phase where she won't cooperate for pictures.  (Notice the sullen look in the picture above.)  Only once a blue moon does she decide to flash us a nice smile when we have the camera pointed at her.

Karina is much more cooperative and free with her smiles.

The tulips were not very exciting for Eliana.  But the farm had a playground.  Eliana enjoyed this swing, which is a car tire cut and bent into the shape of a horse.

Apparently the owners of the farm are originally from Holland.  The Farm is called the Wooden Shoe Farm.

The farm had these fun paintings with cut-outs for your face.  Eliana quite enjoyed these.

She enjoyed even more riding on the Cow Train.  They were converted 50 gallon drums pulled by a mini-tractor.  It was a very bumpy ride, but well worth the $2.

Karina is growing and developing more and more each week.  She had her 9-month check up and weighed in at 22 pounds.  Also, her noggin was even farther off the charts than before.    She still can't crawl, but after getting her assessed by a physical therapist, we realized that it was because we didn't put her on her tummy enough.  She used to hate being on her tummy, so we hadn't pushed the issue.  Her pediatrician says that learning to crawl is actually pretty important, so we've made a point of giving her tummy time several times a day.  In the two weeks we've done this, she's actually progressed pretty quickly and can now scooch...backwards that it.  But at least that's better than being 100% immobile, which is where she was 2 weeks ago.

She's also getting more coordinated with her hands.  She thinks it's fun to look through this container lid.

And Karina continues to be a great eater.  Although she's teething and has two teeth on the top coming in, they're just barely poking through.  So for now, we give her soft foods to eat.  She used to like being fed with a spoon.  But now that's not good enough.  She wants to feed herself.

Visit to CA...

Last weekend, Eliana and Elvin flew down to California together to visit Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai [Grandpa and Grandma].  They were throwing a party for Eliana's 5 month-old cousin--Elliott.  This was the longest that Eliana has been away from Mommy and she did very well.

At the party, Eliana was initially a little overwhelmed with all the guests--there were over 50!  But she eventually got used to the crowd and wandered around by herself.

In fact, she got so comfortable that towards the end of the night, after the cake was cut, she got a plate of whipped cream for herself, plopped down in the middle of the kitchen and lounged on the floor while enjoying her dessert.

The next day, we went to visit a farm.  Eliana had never seen a cow before and wanted to check one out.  They had a nice garden with lots of veggies that Eliana enjoyed exploring.

The farm also had a bunch of chickens.  We pulled up grass for the chickens to eat.

The chickens are apparently not fed enough, because they were ravenous.

Overall, Eliana had a very busy and fun weekend, especially since she got to spend time with her cousin Elliott.  

Karina stayed in Vancouver with Mommy.  During mealtimes, she likes feeding herself.  Actually, she almost demands it.  Karina does not like to be spoonfed anymore, so we tear off little bits of bread for her to pick up.  She also is pretty good at sucking up water through a straw cup.  She, however, forgets that there's water in her mouth and will smile and let it all dribble back out.  Needless to say, the front of her shirt gets soaked.

Happy Easter!

During Easter weekend, we did another Easter egg hunt in our house.  Eliana had the luxury of finding the eggs at her own pace--no competition from Karina.

She had a good time and collected quite a bit of loot by the end. 

Emily got Eliana a container full of cotton candy.  Our Eliana, though, sometimes refuses to try new foods based simply on how they look.  So despite a lot of coaxing, Eliana did NOT want to eat cotton candy.  "I don't like it," she said.

Then the girls put on their pretty dresses and off to church we went.

After church, we ate lunch at Grandma and Grandpa's place.  Eliana is munching on hard-boiled egg dipped in mayonnaise while her cousin downs a pint of strawberries.

Here is our best attempt at taking a family picture.

Because the weather has been better, we get to do more outside activities.  Eliana loves going on the swing hanging from our old apple tree.

One day last week, she decided that she wanted to take her nap on the floor.  Given her lack of clothing, she eventually got a little chilly.

We also went hiking a couple of weekends ago.

Karina came along for the ride.  She seemed to enjoy the outdoors.

The trail wound around the perimeter of a lake.  Several times, we would lose sight of the lake from the trail.  When it reappared again, Eliana would say, "Hey, Mommy, there's another lake!!!".

The trail was connected to a picnic area and playground.  Off course, we had to stop and swing around for a bit.

We're not quite sure what Eliana is doing here.  We stopped to admire a little creek and she struck this pose.

And here are the girls posing in their matching outfits.  Eliana loves wearing the same clothes as Karina.