3 years old!

Even though we had a pre-birthday celebration for Eliana in California, her official b-day was on July 14, and so we had some family over for dinner on that Thursday night.



What did Eliana request for dinner?  Grilled cheese sandwiches.  That was easy enough to whip up. That day, Eliana elected to boycott her nap, so she was super tired by the evening.  After dinner, we did candles and cupcakes, but as you can see, it's hard being excited about your birthday when you'd rather be going to bed.

Karina enjoyed the cupcakes too.  Actually, she will usually eat anything that's put in front of her.

One of the presents she got was a digital camera from her grandparents.  It takes pictures, has a flash and zoom, and you can download the pictures to a computer.  Also, it's kid-proof--it seems sturdy enough to survive a drop it from a second story building.

It's also pretty easy to use.  Eliana got the hang of it right away.

Eliana also requested "princess" dresses for her birthday.  So Emily found some.

Eliana also got a new pair of scissors.  She's getting much better at cutting and can now cut out basic shapes.  But we still don't trust her fully and the scissors live in a drawer that is out of her reach for now.

And then on Saturday, Eliana had yet ANOTHER party, this time with her little friends.  Eliana requested a tea party and we did our best to comply.  We filled the tea pot with lemonade (Eliana's favorite), put pink paper plates over frilly placemates and topped it all off with white and pink streamers and ballons. 

After a light lunch, the girls got to ice their cupcakes and sprinkle different types of sprinkles on top.

The cupcake is really just a icing and sprinkle delivery device...

Eliana got a bunch of neat presents, including a vet clinic with vet equipment and cubby holes for you to stuff sick Beanie baby-sized pets into.

And here is our now three-year old sporting another one of her presents--a soccer uniform.  Doesn't she already look like a pro?

11 months old and crawling!

We are happy to announce that Karina is now crawling!  Last week, she apparently decided that she's waited long enough and she had places to go and things to see.  So she got on all fours and started crawling a few shuffles at a time.  A week later, she is now a pro at it.  Her preferred method of locomotion, however, is either being carried by mommy or daddy, or walking while holding onto our fingers.  So she won't crawl if we're in the room.  The only way that Elvin was able to get a video of her crawling was by hiding in the other room and holding the camera out around the corner.  In the video, you can also see her get on all fours and stick her bottom in the air--she's practicing how to stand up.

Karina is pretty good now at entertaining herself if there are toys or books around.  She has one favorite book--her peek-a-boo book--that she'll flip through.  It's been very well loved. 

She is her generally happy self.  She doesn't like weird textures on her feet, though.  Emily set her down on the grass once...

...and she stuck her foot out so it wouldn't touch the grass.  Then kept right on playing.

After a while, her leg must have gotten tired, because she started propping her leg up with her hand.

We usually do baths around 7pm and by the time 8pm rolls around, Karina is pretty pooped out.  Here she is just before going to bed...

With berry season in full swing, Elvin goes out to the backyard twice a week to pick berries.  We usually get a couple of pints a week.  Eliana comes out to help too.

Karina really really likes raspberries and can eat several dozen in one sitting.

Eliana doesn't like them as much but will snack on them, especially if it's the ones she's picked.  Here are the girls fighting over the last few precious berries.

Eliana has gotten a lot better on her bike.  She's now able to pedal by herself and can steer reasonably well too.  That is, when she is paying attention.  More often than not, something will catch her attention and she'll end up riding into someones lawn before she remembers to pay attention as to where she was going.  Needless to say, it'll be a long while before we let her ride in the bike lane.

She is also her usual, helpful self.  Here she is helping her grandpa water the garden.  This is a real treat, as she LOVES watering things, but we have our yard set on drip irrigation, so nothing needs to be watered by hand at our house.

Eliana is also obsessed with accessories.  She may have gone overboard one night.  After bath, she insisted on putting on four pairs of hair bands/hair clips.

And Eliana has taken a real interest in photography.  Here is a picture she took with Elvin's digital camera.

After a little coaching, she got it right! 

Trip to Monterey, CA

This past July 4th weekend, we flew down to California.  Elvin's side of the family was having a reunion in Monterey and people were flying in from all over the country as well as from Brazil.

Our flight was not nearly as long as Elvin's relatives that flew in from South America, but it sure seemed long to us.  Karina had a hard time and screamed during half of the flight--she was overdue for a nap but couldn't fall asleep in the strange surroundings.

Then we hopped into the car to drive down to Monterrey.  Both girls were tired and fell asleep immediately.  But Eliana woke up as we were making our way south from San Jose and hit some serious traffic.  After about an hour, she was screaming/asking to get out of her car seat but we decided to forge ahead.  We didn't realize it at the time, but she was probably car sick.  This dawned on us when Eliana started throwing up all over the car seat and herself.  We made an emergency stop to clean up.  She complained that her tummy was hurting so we put on a band-aid.  That did the trick.

That evening we had dinner together with the extended family.  There were more than 30 people there.

The next morning, while others were playing tennis or bike riding, Elvin and Eliana headed off to the Aquarium while Emily stayed behind in the hotel so that Karina could take a nap; she still takes 2 naps per day.

Eliana enjoyed looking at the various sea creatures.  She knows that these jellyfish have "tentacles that sting!" (courtesy of Finding Nemo).

The Aquarium had a play area with activites and games for kids.  Eliana really enjoyed it, especially when another boy left and she didn't have to share the toys with him.  Here she is displaying her hoarding skills.

Karina caught up to us at the Aquarium after she woke up.  Everyone remarked at how friendly and smiley she is.

The hotel room was nice but it was an adjustment for our family to all sleep in one room.  Eliana wanted to sleep on one of the two double beds but we didn't let her as they were very high off the ground and no bed rails were available.  So we made her a little bed/nest in one of the corner of the room, which she liked sleeping in.

Eliana got many presents from her Nai-nai.  One of them was a bathrobe, which she uses every day now after taking a bath.  "It has flamingos!" she likes to announce.  She is learning how to tie a knot, now that she has a belt to practice on.

In the afternoon, we headed off to the beach.  Eliana got her new baseball cap on.  Her cousin Elliott was ready to go too.

It was hot and sunny; a little bit too hot for us Pacific Northwesterners!

Like Eliana before her, Karina did not like the texture of sand on her feet.  She kept trying to lift her feet off of the sand.  Then she would grab her feet trying to figure out why the stuff was sticking to her.  And then she would try to eat the sand off her hands...

One of Eliana's favorite parts about the trip was hanging out with her cousin Elliott.  Their hotel room was next to ours and she was constantly asking if she could go visit next door. Karina was also interested in her younger cousin (just a couple of months younger.)

Our hotel room didn't have black out shades like we have at home.  So Karina woke up with the sunlight.  So that Karina didn't wake up Eliana, Elvin whisked Karina out of the room when she woke up and they went out for a walk.  It was a beautiful morning and they enjoyed walking by the marina close to the hotel.

Everyone headed back to Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai's house on Monday, July 4th, in the afternoon.  Thankfully there was no traffic and the car ride was much less eventful.  Both girls slept the majority of the way back to San Jose. 

The pace in San Jose was more relaxed and we were able to just hang out at home.

We had a mini-pre-birthday party for Eliana so that she could celebrate it with Elvin's parents.  She got three candles on top of her ice cream cake.

We sang for her in English and Portuguese.  Forgot to sing in Chinese.

One of her presents was a blue tutu from Costco.

It matches the blue ballet dress up doll clothes that she got from her grandparents.

The next day, we visited Happy Hollow, a park with rides geared toward little kids.  Eliana's been to this park about 4 times and every time wants to ride on her "beautiful, fancy horse" on the merry-go-round.  When we arrived at the park this time, another girl was sitting on the horse and Eliana had to sit on some other animal.  Extremely loud crying ensued until the girl went away and Eliana finally got to sit on HER horse.  (We told her that it's not her horse, it's Happy Hollow's horse.)

Eliana got to ride on her favorite rides and play on the playground before we headed back for a nap.

Karina stayed back home to sleep.  Lately, she prefers to sleep with her feet hooked onto the bars of the crib.  We're not sure how this position is more comfortable, but to each his own.

With all the hectic-ness of traveling mostly over, Karina slept for a loooong time--she took a 2 hour nap.

Eliana also spent some quality time with Tia Juliana (Aunt Juliana).  Juliana speaks mainly Portuguese, and Eliana did just fine playing with her.  Eliana would speak what Portuguese she knew and fill in the rest with English.  Here, Eliana is the Mommy and Tia Juliana is the daughter and is taking a nap.  Because Eliana was surrounded by so many Portuguese-speakers during those four days, her Portuguese improved noticeably by the time we came home.

Eliana also got a new play-doh set.  Should we keep the colors from getting mixed up?  Not if Eliana can help it!

Karina can say "a-boo!" (as in peek-a-boo) now.  She likes looking through the tupperware lid...

Karina also loves standing up and trying to walk around.  By the end of our time in the Bay Area, she was comfortable enough with Elvin's parents where she was letting them hold her up.

Just before taking off for the airport, we tried taking a picture with the grandkids and grandparents.  Both babies ended up crying, and Eliana decided to join in with some fake wailing.

We took another picture sans babies.  This time Eliana cooperated.

So there you have it...this was our trip to California.  Both girls help up pretty well, Eliana had lots of fun and as we were heading off to the airport, said she didn't want to leave California!