Snow day!

This past week, we finally got the snow that Eliana has been wishing for.  We got 2 inches of snow overnight and in the morning, Eliana ran into our room shouting, "It's snowing!  It's snowing!".  Technically, by the morning it had actually stopped snowing and had started raining, so we bundled up quickly to play outside in the snow before everything melted.  Elvin went in to work late to spend time with the girls outside.
Here is Eliana getting bundled up.

The snow was beautiful outside.  But walking through it made you realize that there was a lot of slush at the bottom.

It is awfully hard making a snow angel on only 2 inches of snow.  But Eliana tried anyways.

Eliana and Daddy worked at making a snow man.  The snow was so wet that it wasn't hard to do at all.

Here is the final product.  We didn't have a carrot handy, so a branch from last season's collard greens made a nice stand in.  The snow man is about 4 feet tall.

Karina came out too.  But her footing was a little unsteady and she refused to budge without holding someone's hand.  All in all, it was lots of fun.  In the afternoon, it had warmed up to the 50's and the snow was all gone by then.  Crazy weather.

Because it's been rainy recently, we've had to come up with fun indoor activities.  We used a big box and made a house out of it.

At Eliana's request, Elvin cut out windows, which are very fun to look through.

Karina has to copy everything that her older sister does.  It's cozy in there, but often both girls go in there at the same time.  The girls brought in a set of silverware into the house.  Also, Eliana decorated the front door with a wreath (a holdover from Christmas, I guess.)

Karina has turned out to be quite ingenious when it comes to reaching things that she wants.  If she sees something on the counter that she wants, she will take a step stool or cardboard box, push it to the right location, and then climb on it to reach whatever she wants, in this case, grapes (a favorite snack of hers.)  We have to keep a close eye on her ALL the time.

Karina's attention span for books has also taken off recently.  Whereas before, she wouldn't read a book for more than 15 seconds, she will now flip through pages by herself for a while.  Reading a book while laying on the ground is a favorite position of Eliana's, so Karina copies her. 

Karina's language is also developing a lot too.  She can now sign "sleep", "doll", "duck", "elephant", "monkey", and "orange" (the fruit).  Also, she's gotten a lot better at mimicking words we say.

And Karina has lately been sleeping pretty well.  She is usually in bed by 8pm and the majority of the time, she sleeps through the night until about 7am the next day.  Hallelujah!  Here she is in her sleep sack (she often gets cold at night but moves around a lot in her sleep, so a normal blanket would never stay on top of her) and her favorite blankie that she sleeps with every night.

It's a boy!

We are having a boy!  Emily is 20 weeks pregnant and we just found out the gender this past week at the ultrasound.  Although we didn't have a preference for either boy or girl, it took us by surprise a little just because this will be a new experience for us--having a boy in the house. 

Eliana and Karina went along to the ultrasound appointment, and Elvin came in from work as well.  At first, the girls were content to watch whatever was going on on the computer monitor.  Eliana didn't know what to make of things but was still excited to find out she was going to have a baby brother.

Then the girls got bored and started their usual antics.  Elvin got a couple of surgical gloves and blew those up.  That kept them occupied for a little while.

The ultrasound tech was a really nice guy.  He might have small children himself because the yelling/laughing/screaming going on 5 feet away from him didn't phase him at at.  Included in the CD-ROM he gave us was a short video.  It shows our baby boy swallowing, he says.  It also shows the heart beating.

Here is one of those fancy-shmancy 3D ultrasound pictures.  It creates a picture that's a little strange, we think.

Emily is due at the very end of May or early June.  We are excited and look forward to a very busy summer!