Sprinklers!

Summer is finally here.  Because it's been raining so much, we've only had to turn on our sprinklers very recently.  So...to Eliana, they are a novelty.  They turned on in the morning, and she promptly put on her rain boots, grabbed her umbrella, and darted outside in her pijamas.  Karina also came out to watch.

Eliana had a good time running through the grass.

She discovered that when the sprinklers hit the umbrella, it makes a loud noise!

It's also fun to get wet!

Maybe not so fun if it sprays directly into your face!

Eliana continues to be her silly self.  She is now very conscious of the camera and sometimes plays it up for the camera.

Or decides to make very Calvin-and-Hobbes-esque faces.

Karina, obviously, is not impressed. Just another day in the Yuen household.

On Father's day, we had Emily's parents and brother's family over.  Elvin asked Eliana to set the table.  She actually did a pretty good job.

Eliana's memory is impeccable.  She has a book that her Aunt Sue gave her called "Waddle".  We've really only read this book to her once or twice.  One day, she sat down and started reciting the book out loud.  (Eliana wants to learn how to read pretty badly and this is how she pretends to "read" books.)  Amazingly, she had most of the pages more or less memorized.

We have a recorder at home that the kids like to play with.  Karina, ever the imitator, grabbed it but couldn't figure out how to blow on it.  So she would just mimic the sound of the recorder while putting it in her mouth. But every once in a while, she would accidentally blow out and get a note out.  The day after we took this video, we found her again with the recorder, and she had figured out how to blow on it.

Karina's personality is coming out more and more every day.  She certainly has a playful side to her.  During meals, she likes to drop her spoons into her chair.  Then we'll ask for the spoon so we can refill it with mush or yogurt for her to eat.  This time, however, the decides to have some fun...

Happy Summer!

We had an unusually cool spring, which is terrible for the tomato and cucumber plants, but is great for the snap peas.  They are growing like crazy and we went out to pick the first batch last week.

As with anything new, Eliana was enamored with them.  Even though she usually doesn't eat vegetables, she declared that she "LOOOVES" these.  Three bites later, however, she realizes that she doesn't like them after all.

Karina is happy to chew on anything she can get her hands on. 

She is eating a wider range of foods because all four teeth on the top have come in now!  Karina doesn't look like a vampire anymore.  She does have a bad habit of grinding her teeth.  It sounds like she's cracking open walnuts in her mouth--it's that loud.  It drives Emily crazy.

Karina has also taken to sleeping on her side.  Sometimes, when we put her down on her crib asleep, she'll wake up just enough to roll to her side, and then fall back asleep again.  By the way, she only rolls about three quarters of the way, but can't (or refuses) to roll all the way onto her tummy.  She's still boycotting that.

And Karina continues to mimic things we do.  After baths, her tousled hair makes her looks like a lion.  Elvin roared at her once, and she decided to roar back...

Eliana continues to be creative with her pretend world.  Here she is grocery shopping with her baby.  The basket has her play debit card as well as play car keys.  Also, if you look closely, you can see that she has accessorized herself with multiple bracelets and free shell necklaces that we got in Hawaii.

Eliana also likes to have tea parties in her bath.  She is obviously expecting many guests.  (Also, she has declared that she wants her birthday party to be themed as a tea party.  We will make our best effort to make her wish come true.)

Eliana's Portuguese has suddenly improved signifianctly in the past couple of weeks.  Whereas before she was only using short phrases, now whole sentences are coming together.  She'll speak Portuguese with Elvin if they are talking one-on-one.  In this video, Elvin is prompting Eliana to sing "Happy Birthday" in Portuguese, which Elvin has taught her.  But the word for "sing" is very similar to the work for "count" (cantar versus contar).  So at first Eliana does some counting until she realizes was Daddy is actually asking her to do...


And this past Saturday, Elaina was playing with the camera.  Here is a self-portrait and another picture she took...

Trip to the zoo...

Because the weather was so great a couple of weekends ago, we decided to go to the zoo.  But overnight from Friday to Saturday, it seemed like something was really bothering Karina, since she was waking up crying every 45 minutes.  We took her to urgent care in the morning and sure enough, she had an ear infection.  So Elvin took Eliana to the zoo while Emily stayed home with Karina.

Although Eliana enjoys looking at the animals, what she REALLY likes is playing with all the animal statues.  Most of the time there was spent climbing on things... 

  

 Or pretending that Eliana is a zoo keeper to these lion cubs.

 Or climbing this thing that's supposed to be an anthill.

  

 Or pretending to feed this little squirrel statue.

 And this bear plaque really caught Eliana's eye.  She wanted to take a picture with him.

 That weekend, we also went to Emily's brother's house for dinner.  Karina usually doesn't like being held by people she doesn't know, but is more accepting of other kids holding her.  She was fine with being held by her cousin Millie.

 Eliana is really into ballet right now.  So cousin Millie and Eliana both changed into ballet clothes.  And Millie showed Eliana some ballet moves.

At the end of the night, cousin Abby played a piece on the piano for all of us.  Eliana spontaneously decided that she needed to dance with the music and Millie joined in...

The two girls still get along well.  Eliana still likes playing with her sister and likes to hold her.

We've been spending more and more time outside now that the weather is nice and spring is in full swing.

Karina's skin is very fair, just like her Mommy's, so we try to keep her under the shade.

We got a new bike for Eliana.  It doesn't have pedals.  Rather, you use your legs to push yourself foward.  It's supposed to teach kids how to balance on their bike.  Eliana still needs to practice.

Karina comes out to watch.

Eliana has a different bike with training wheels.  After some weeks of practice, she can pedal on it pretty well now.  But it takes so much concentration that she keeps looking down at the pedals while going foward.  This makes it hard to steer in the right direction.

We feel like our little girl is growing up way too fast.  In one more month, she's going to turn three!  When you ask her when her birthday is, she says "Fourteen July" -- meaning, July 14th.  She's very excited about that, because she knows that she can go to preschool when she's three.

 

 

Karina is learning more every week as well.  She can get around in her own way and entertains herself by getting into everything around the house.  We're back to baby proofing our house 100%, which means vacuuming the house constantly and being on the look out for things that she'll tear apart or destroy.

When Karina wants something, she'll get there eventually--but not on her tummy.  She's developed a special technique that doesn't require her to be on her belly--which she hates.

 

And last weekend we went out to a German restaurant just for fun.  (Eliana LOVES going out to eat.)  Prost!

Spring is here (finally)!

Up until last Thurs., it was cold, rainy, and windy.  A typical June-uary in the Pacific Northwest as they say.  But the weather has turned, so Eliana and Karina have been going to the park almost every day.  Eliana's getting better and climbing on the playground.  She doesn't need help climbing these anymore.

Once at the top, she needs help getting onto the fireman's pole (she can't reach it), but can go down by herself too!

Going up the slide in the "wrong" direction is fun.

Karina enjoyed hanging out on the swing. 

When she got tired of that, she was content being carried around and watching the kids around her play.

Last weekend, we took the girls to the local community pool.  Eliana was so excited about it that she put her swimsuit on ahead of time--about 1 hour ahead of time.  Here she is killing time by leafing through her books.

We went to Target to buy some household stuff.  We realized that we never take Eliana to the toy section of any store.  We did pass by the toy section this time and Eliana felt drawn to the toys like a moth to a candle.  She could hardly tear herself away.

And Eliana has her own sense of fashion.  She loves anything that is brightly colored and vivid.  So sometimes the result can be very "unique."  This past Thursday, Eliana wore striped leggings, a purple shirt and another patterned shirt on top of that.  The outsite shirt has snaps that go down the back.  But Eliana purposely wore it backwards so that the snaps would go down the front--just like Daddy's "work shirts"!  (Elvin wears button-up shirts to work.)  And you also see Eliana hanging out in her sister's crib.  She likes climbing in every once in a while.

This was a June-uary day last week.  Eliana needed to go outside, so put on some gear--not all of it waterproof.  Needless to say, her fleece mittens were soaked.

Eliana is a very creative little girl.  She has a teapot set, which has been adopted as a bath toy, so that Eliana can have tea time in the bath tub.  We sometimes fill it with cold water from the sink.  One day Eliana was thirsty but had not cups handy.  No worries, she still had herself a drink!

Not to be outdone, Karina wanted something in her mouth, just like her bigger sister.  Karina has started copying and mimicking things that we do.

One thing that Karina has started copying is wiping the table.  Since she likes smearing her food everywhere, we always wipe the table around her at the end of every meal.  One time the rag was within reach and we noticed that Karina grabbed it and started wiping the table around her.

Karina's mobility is increasing.  She can lean over while on a sitting position much farther than before.  Also, she can scootch along her bottom pretty well. 

Karina is consistently waving whenever we say "hi" or "bye", both in English and Portuguese.  Also, she can clap on command and have fun doing that.

And Karina likes making music.  Or noise.  She figured out that if she drags the step stool along the ground (we keep a step stool handy so that Eliana can see what's going on on the counter), it makes a loud noise.  And if you do it 20 times, it makes A LOT of noise.

Karina continues to be a happy baby, and giggles at everything around her.  She certainly keeps us smiling all the time.