Happy Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year at Emily brother's house, which is a short 20 minute car drive away.  We're thankful that we don't have to board a plane on the busiest travel day of the year with three little kids.  Thanks to our nephew Tim who took most of these pictures.

 

There were about 30 people there and lots of food!

 

Gabriel, of course, couldn't have any of the food.  But he took in all in.  

 

Gabriel's little cousin Jace was also there.  Jace is about 2 months older and came in from Colorado.  This weekend was the first time that they met.

 

The girls were very happy because their beloved cousins were there.  Also, they got to eat lots of candy.  Notice the little cup full of Lindt chocolates that Eliana is holding.

 

Karina tried a peppermint candy but deemed it too spicy so returned it to Mommy.



 

It was a long evening for Gabriel but he handled it pretty well.  The 30 min. nap in the middle of dinner helped!

 

The next day, some of the family members gathered again to hang out some more.  We put the two little cousins together so that they could spend quality time together.  Watching them interact became quite the attraction.

 

The little boys were very cute...they were getting to know each other not by using words, but by poking at eyes, grabbing ears, feeling each others fuzzy hair, etc.



5 months old!

Our little baby is 5 months old and doing new things every day.  Gabriel is very adept at putting things into his mouth now and likes to suck on everything--just like his older sisters when they were babies.

He is also teething!  About a month ago, he was sleeping through the night but that ended a couple weeks ago, when he would wake up 3 or 4 times a night.  A couple days later, Emily noticed that two little bottom teeth were coming in.  Hopefully the worst is over and he is started to sleep longer again.

Here is a video of his recent life...

Our "little" baby boy...

Our Gabriel is growing...fast!  We can't take him anywhere without people commenting on how chubby he is, and how big his cheeks are.  We are amazed not just at his cheeks, but at how fast he has grown, weight wise, and in length.  Elvin often puts Gabriel to bed at night, and will sometimes have Emily take a picture of him holding Gabriel.  These pictures do a pretty good job of showing his growth through the last 5 months!

 

1 day old...

 

3 weeks old...

(look how baggy his pajamas are on him!)

 

 

 

5 weeks old...

(the cheeks are starting to fill out)

 

7 weeks old...

(the chubbiness is coming in)

 

 

2.5 months...

(look at how much longer he is)

 

 

3 months...

(the ankles don't show anymore)

 

 

4 months old...

 

And 5 months old...

 

Happy Halloween!

We survived another Halloween!  Eliana was very excited about Halloween and talked about it all month.  The weekend before, we rolled up our sleeves and set out to carve our pumpkins. 

 

Of course, the girls wanted nothing to do with squishy pumpkin guts, so Elvin had to do the dirty work for the four pumpkins. 

Eliana did a little bit of the carving, but Elvin did most of the rest.

 

He pretty much did all the work while the girls supervised.

 

Elvin's pumpkin's got carved into Chewbacca.  (And Eliana asked who Chewbacca was, which took Elvin a rather long time to explain, and turned into a complete summary of Star Wars, edited for a very sensitive, easily scared four year old.)  Eliana claimed one of the pumpkins as her own and the other she claimed for Go-go, her stuffed animal cat.  The little tiny one the size of a baseball was Karina's pumpkin.  All these other pumpkins got carved with Hello Kitty image.  No scary faces on our pumpkins this year.

 

This year, a friend invited us over to their house for pre-Halloween dinner and trick-or-treating around their house with a bunch of Eliana's little friends.  But before that, the girls got into their costumes.  This year, both girls wore official Mulan costumes from the Disney Store. 

 

We did trick-or-treat in our neighborhood a little bit, before taking off for the party.  Our next door neighbors are very fond of the girls and said that although they weren't planning on handing out candy to any of the neighborhood kids out there, they did want our two girls to come over and knock on their door...  It was very sweet because our neighbor put together a package for each girl with candy, a halloween pencil, glow in the dark Pez dispensers, Halloween mugs/bowls, clips, and glow-in-the dark bracelets!

 

At our friend's house, we got together for one more picture--this time with Gabriel in a Yoda costume.  The costume is for 0 - 9 month olds, which is why the green skull cap does not fit on his big head and why the velcro straps that are supposed to clasp under his chin are dangling partway  down his cheeks.

 

The girls had a fun night out trick-or-treating and we hope you did too!