Sisters...

Except for when Eliana is at preschool, the two sisters spend almost every waking hour together.  They play together, eat together, sing together, take baths together, and share a room.  So they have that special bond that only sisters have.  Karina has already started taking (borrowing?) Eliana's clothes and shoes to wear.  It's always more fun wearing your older sister's things, right?  They can also get on each other's nerves.  Because Karina is currently in her terrible twos (which for our laid-back Karina, is a pretty mild version of that), Karina will somethings snatch and run away with the toy that Eliana was playing with, just for the pleasure of hearing Eliana scream, "Come back, you little sister THIEF!"

But in the end, they always get back together again for whatever antic they come up with next...

Eight months old...

Gabriel is now eight months old.  We haven't weighed him in a while but feel like he's probably gained some weight in the past month.  At the same time, it seems like his weight has plateaued.  Elvin's co-worker commented that her 2 year-old weighs 25 pounds, which is about what Gabriel weighs, too.

 

He's getting a lot more mobile now compared to before.  From the sitting position, he'll reach and reach and reach for things until he's on his tummy.  

 

He's been doing this for a couple of weeks.  Slowly but surely, he's been getting better at wriggling on the ground.  Now, he realizes that he needs to bend his knees as well if he's going to get anywhere.  

And his arms are definetely getting stronger.  Here he is--it looks like he is doing a push-up right now.  With his arms propped up like this, he can walk his arms and pivot his body in either direction to reach whatever toy he wants.

Gabriel has switched from three naps a day to two naps, which is more convenient for us as far as going places during the day.  Then he goes to bed around 8pm but usually still gets up twice each night.

But lately, he has not been sleeping super well because he's been teething the past couple of weeks!  You can see two little white nubs poking out of his upper jaw.  We thought that the worst was over, when yesterday Gabriel didn't sleep well again and Emily realized that a third tooth is coming out next to the two nubs.  So in a few weeks, he's going to have four brand new teeth along the top to complement the two he already has on the bottom.

 

Here's a little video that shows what he's been doing the past month...

Two and a half...

Our little Karina is now two and a half (although if you tell her that, she'll stomp her feet and insist that "I'm TWO!").  She is growing up fast and jabbering away all the time.  Although not all her consonants have come in yet (she still can't say the "k", "r" and "s" sounds; two of these consonants are in her name, which when she says it, sounds like "da-we-na"), we can understand 90% of what she's saying now.  Unlike Eliana, who kept her English and Portuguese separate, Karina sometimes mixes the two up, no matter who she's talking to.  So sometimes she'll saying something in Portuguese to friends that come over, much to their confusion.

Here are some snippets from the "life of Karina" these days...

Karina LOVES the computer, the iPhone, any sort of electronics.  She is much more drawn to it than Eliana was.  Here, she is "writing email" on Elvin's clock that has a flip up screen.  She writes email on it a couple of times a week. 

Karina LOVES oatmeal, something we rarely eat, since Emily and Eliana don't like it.  The other night, Elvin offered Karina some for dinner, and she scarfed down two bowls like it was candy!

Even more than oatmeal, Karina LOOOOVES ranch dressing.  She has it with every meal, if she can help it.  She not only dips her cucumber in it, she also dips her rice, pieces of steak, and even strawberries in it.  The jar of ranch dressing ran out, so here she is trying to get the last bits of it out.

She's a pretty active little girl.  In concept, she thinks she would like jumping rope.  In practice, however, it's a little hard for her.  But that still doesn't stop her from having fun (or "pun" as she says it, because she can't say the "f" sound yet.) 

Karina is a pretty good sleeper, and crashes as soon as we put her to bed...  She has two of her favorite blankets that have lots of tags sticking out.  As she drifts off, she will rub her finger along the tags, and also, do the same with her toes.  She's our little monkey.

This may be partly because a few months ago, she decided she didn't want to nap anymore.  She holds up very well through the day without a nap, unless we go anywhere in the car after about 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon.  Here she is after the 15 minute drive home from Eliana's evening ballet class.

Karina is our "little engineer", as we have mentioned before.  She loves to build towers, and often confiscates all the cups to build a "big tow-wa".  She also likes to do this with full cups that have sippy lids on them, which is a little bit more messy...

Here is Karina stacking the little paper Dixie cups we use when brushing teeth.  She likes stacking them, then un-stacking them, then stacking them, etc.

Here you can see more of her tendencies...she is lining up our LARGE collection of Little People animals, all single file along the piano.  Eliana will semi-participate in activities like this, but it would NEVER occur to her to it herself!

Karina continues to idolize "AbbyMimi" (Abby and Millie, her older cousins who live about 20 minutes away).  They periodically spend a day at our house, or we see them and Grandma and Grandpa's, which is a HUGE delight for our girls.  Karina asks about them about 3 times a day.   They have taught the girls to do somersaults, and Karina actually caught on pretty well.  Here, they are practicing that, or something else, all that matters to Karina is to have Abby or Millie's attention, and to copy what they are doing. 

Karina is really getting into books more, and loves to lie around "reading".  She also uses it as a stall tactic to not doing what she is supposed to be doing, in this case, putting on her pajamas and getting ready for bed.

When we can, Elvin often takes the girls to the monthly "Kids Workshop" at Home Depot.  Here, Karina is sporting not only her official apron with her pins for the completed projects, but also Eliana's sunglasses!  (Like all little sisters, Karina is starting to borrow [sometimes without asking] Eliana's stuff and clothes.  Karina likes wearing Eliana's skirt, socks, and has even made off with Eliana's underwear.  And in the picture above, Karina is laying on Eliana's bed.  It will be interesting to see how this progresses as they become teenagers.)

Karina is actually getting pretty good with a hammer and nails, and built this last project herself!  She can start the nails and pound them in without any help.  We think this might be a little disconcerting to some of the other parents, who are still holding the hammer with their 10 year olds!

We celebrate half birthdays with a cake or cupcakes, and a candle blowing out.  Eliana likes to turn off ALL the lights for this, so Karina donned Elvin's headlamp, so she could see better.  (Karina's head is so big that Elvin's headlamp fits her head perfectly.)  

 Happy two-and-a-half, Karina!!

Weekend with Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai

Last weekend, Elvin's parents flew up from California to visit.  It'd been 4 months since they'd seen the kids, because we cancelled our Christmas get-together with the three kids being sick.

 

So they hadn't see Gabriel since he was 4 months old.  Now he is several pounds heavier and two clothes sizes bigger.  Yeh-yeh (grandpa) really enjoyed holding Gabriel.  Gabriel, however, at first was no so sure about the whole thing.  You can almost see what he's thinking, "Who is this person holding me?"

 

On Saturday, Elvin, the girls, and Elvin's parents went to OMSI--the local children's science museum in Portland.  (Gabriel stayed home with Emily to take his morning nap.)

 

It was everyone's first time to the museum and we all enjoyed it.  Here is Eliana looking at a funny mirror.



There is a water activities section that had lots of water tables.  Eliana came out of this session with her clothes still all dry.  The same could not be said for Karina, however.  

After watching a IMAX movie in the museum, it was time to eat lunch.  We stopped at a little noodle shop in Portland that serves hand-pulled noodles.  The girls (and Elvin) really like these noodles.

Although Eliana used a fork to eat, Karina insisted on using chopsticks like the grown-ups.  She can actually get food to her mouth with chopsticks.

 

 Gabriel seemed to get better with his stranger anxiety that weekend.  By Sunday morning, he was letting Nai-nai (grandma) hold him. 

 On Sunday afternoon, we started making dumplings.  It's a tradition to eat dumplings during Chinese New Year and so that's what we did.

 Karina helped laying out the dumpling skins. 

We didn't let them touch the filling which has raw pork, so they had fun taking the skins, adding water, and squishing them into play-doh.

 In the end, we ate the feast.

After dinner, Elvin's parents whipped out a ice cream birthday cake, since Elvin's birthday is coming up soon.  The girls couldn't resist sticking their fingers in the icing.  

 We sang "Happy Birthday" in a couple of languages and everyone helped blow the candles out.

 

On Sunday, we also went to a studio to get pictures taken.  The photographer was GREAT with kids...

And we got great photos from that session!