Yesterday was Karina's half birthday! She is now 18 months old and well into toddlerhood. It was mostly a normal day, but after dinner we celebrated with singing and some cupcakes.
Eliana had announced during the day that Karina doesn't know how to blow candles and that Eliana would do the honors. It turns out that Eliana isn't so adept either. It took her about 5 tries--Eliana was aiming her blowing about 5 inches below the flames.
Here is Eliana enjoying the cupcake, stuffing it into her mouth as fast as she can. Eliana really has a sweet tooth.
Karina, on the other hand, sometimes seems to prefer savory things compared to sweet things. But she still enjoyed the frosting off of the cupcake.
Karina is very much a little girl now, with her prefences and wants. She even threw her first full-fledged tantrum a couple days ago, complete with laying on the ground, rolling and fists and feet banging on the ground.
Eliana has an American Girl Bitty Baby doll that Karina really likes. Although her big sister is fairly generous about sharing her stuff, Karina was trying to claim the doll as her own. So Emily got down an extra Bitty Baby doll that she had gotten at a garage sale and was saving until later. But with Karina so fascinated with Eliana's, she got this one and LOVES it. We also put Karina is a little dress that she inherited from her older sister. It's one of the first times that she's wearing a dress and it's still a novelty to her.
Since Karina likes to laugh, she LOVES to be tickled. Here she is asking to be tickled over and over.
This past weekend, Eliana had her first ice skating lesson. She's been asking for it for a long time because she's seen ice skating in the books she reads. So we signed her up for a Parent and Me class at the local rink. Elvin strapped on a pair of skates as well and fiendishly tried to remember back to his junior high days when he last stepped onto the ice.
First things first...the teacher showed us how to fall down safely and how to get up from the ice by ourselves.
Then we learned how to balance and then take baby steps forward. Eliana fell on her bottom a few times. She probably got tired of that since towards the end she decided to stay on the ice and even tried to make a snow angel. It didn't work. We'll see how next weekend goes.
This weekend was also clear and sunny. So Elvin spent time in the backyard doing some overdue fall clean up while the girls amused themselves. Here they are playing with tubs of cornmeal and dried beans.
Eventually, Eliana went worm hunting. She also filled her bucket with leaves and dirt for the worms to live in.
In the evening, we went to a Chinese New Year event at a local church. Both girls were excited about putting on fancy Chinese dresses. They were admired by many and strangers would come up to them to take their pictures.
On Sunday, Eliana's Chinese teacher came over. (Eliana has weekly Chinese language classes for 30 minutes. Right now, she knows a few dozen Chinese words.) In honor of the end of the two-week long Chinese New Year festival, her Chinese teacher showed her how to make tang yuan, which is a Chinese dessert made with red bean paste and glutinous rice flour.
Karina also tried helping out. With all the practice from play-doh, she's gotten pretty good as using a rolling pin!
And here are the girls being silly in the bathtub. They continue to be good friends and are starting to play with each other more and more.
Here's an example of them goofing around after bathtime. Eliana will talk nonsense to her little sister. Karina really enjoys this...she's probably thinking: "Finally! Someone that speaks my language!"
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