Ten months old!

Gabriel is now ten months old!  He is growing up fast and learning new things every week.

 

He is VERY mobile now.  He's mastered his crawling skills and probably crawls better than either of our girls ever did, despite his humongous size (27 pounds).  He loves standing up and can pull himself up onto the coffee table and every other thing he finds.

This also means that he can reach more things than ever before and loves getting into everything.

Because he is crawling so well, he also has taken an interest in the stairs.  He can climb up the steps now, so...

Up went the baby gates!  So that the girls can make it over the gates, we set up a chair on one side and a step stool on the other.  Karina needed help at first, but got the hang of it really quickly.

Other things that Gabriel enjoys doing is opening cupboards and drawers.  Some of the cupboards have baby-proof latches, so they only open about 1 inch.  Gabriel finds this really annoying and screams in frustration when they don't open all the way.

Gabriel likes playing the piano.  This is because he really likes to make NOISE.  Whether it's banging on the piano, banging two plastic cups together or hitting the ground with a metal spoon, he likes making his version of music.

And speaking of making noise, one of Gabriel's quirks is his obsession with door stops--the springy type that make a loud "twaaaang" when you bend it and let go. Like a heat seeking missile, he will seek out the door stop whenever he can and start to twang away.  Eventually though, he always works it loose and then will put the whole thing in his mouth and start sucking on it.  Needless to say, we have put taken out and put away all the doors stops in the house for now.

Another favorite pasttime is pulling books off the shelf.  Apparently it's really fun to pull a book out, see if he can tear it apart, and when finding out that he can't, moving on to the next one.

He does like being read to as well.  He will sit still as long as the book is short and sweet.  =)

So that's what's going on with our fat little baby.  Hope you are doing well.

Spring is here!

The weather is warming up, the flowers are in bloom, and the sun is coming out (every once in a while).  Spring is here!

 

We have daffodils growing in the backyard and Eliana enjoys bringing them in to the house for display.  We were able to get two big bouquets in.

And here's a bouquet of tulips that Eliana harvested.  It's a gift for our neighbors, an older couple that Eliana is really fond of.  She loves poking her head above our waist high fence and yelling: "MISTER MAAAAAARK!  Are you THERE???" into their yard.  If he is, she will talk his ear off for about 15 minutes straight until her attention span runs out.

 

With spring, we have started seeds in little peat pots.  The girls planted a bunch of petunia flower seeds.  We'll see what happens.

 

With the weather improving, the girls are spending more time outside.  Time to put on sun hats, to take the baby dolls out on a stroll.

Gabriel also enjoys the outdoors.  But you need to keep the stroller moving!  If it stops even for one minute, he gets fidgety and starts squawking.

Karina also decided to get onto a bicycle that Eliana used to ride, but has outgrown.  Eliana, the good big sister that she is, is trying to help Karina figure things out.  

In addition to playing outside, they are continually finding new things to do indoors, too.  Here, they are having what looks like a birthday party.  Karina seems to be the birthday girl.  Their stuffed animal cats and a baby doll are participating too.

Here, the girls are playing house.  Karina is pretending to be a baby and Eliana is Mommy.  After putting the "baby" to bed, Eliana is spending some alone time sewing. (As a side note, Emily has not done any sewing for fun in about five years...not sure where Eliana picked this idea up)

Another favorite pastime is playing with bubbles in the sink.  Eliana knows how to plug the sink, and 20 squirts of soap later, voila!  Bubbles!  And don't worry, Emily didn't drop Gabriel, even though it looks like he is going to fall. 

 

And if you run out of things to do, it's fun to just wrestle!  There's tickling involved in the wrestling below.

 

 

We put Gabriel into the mix, to try to take a picture with his siblings.  He wouldn't cooperate, though, and wanted to crawl away.

Eliana, every once in a while, gets inspired to do homework and schoolwork.  In getting prepared for homeschooling next year, Emily posted a numbers poster.  Eliana then took it upon herself to learn how to count to one hundred.

It took a few times, but she got the hang of it!  (And notice that Karina likes to help out too!)





The girls also enjoy painting.  These sheets of paper come with their own watercolor inkpad.  Karina likes to join in and can get really creative sometimes.  As in the picture below, she decided that she wants to paint by holding the brush with her mouth.

Emily got a cool paint set for the kids.  The cups that holds the paint have lids.  They also have a small opening that the brush will fit into, which make them semi-spill proof.  Karina enjoys using them.

 And Eliana also likes to express herself artistically using them.

And one day, Eliana tried, again, to see if she could wink.  Not quite yet...

Karina had a hard time, too.

 

And of course, the girls are capable of sitting in front of the boob tube watching TV for hours, if we let them.  For a couple of weeks, they were addicted to Mulan.  We have both the first and second movie, and they watched both several times.

 

There is a scene where Mu-lan and the rest of the Chinese army train to use fighting sticks.  Apparently, this made quite an impressions with the girls, because they decided that they needed fighting sticks, so Elvin made them some from branches from our apple tree.

And they love to reinact the scene over and over in the backyard. Enjoy.



 

Happy (Belated) St. Patrick's Day!

The Yuen wants to wish you a happy belated St. Patrick's Day.  What's the occasion?  While Eliana was playing on the front lawn, she happened to find a 4-leaf clover.  How did she spot it?  What are the chances of finding one?  We're not sure...  But she was pretty excited about it.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!  We had a very full weekend, because the girls participated in no less than 3 Easter egg hunts.  They lucked out this year.

 

On Saturday, our church held a hunt, which was very fun for them.  There were hundreds of eggs and they divided the kids up by age.  Emily stayed with Karina while Eliana went off with a friend she knew from pre-school.

It turns out that Eliana and her friend found a section of the lawn that no other children had discovered.  As a result, they made off like bandits because there was no one else to compete with.  Notice Eliana's big smile and how full her basket is.

 



The next morning on Sunday, we had the Easter egg hunt inside our house like we always do.  Eliana was very excited, almost as excited as when it's Christmas morning.

 

Here are the girls coming downstairs.

 

The first thing they got was their Easter baskets full of goodies.  They got marshmallow Peeps ("pink birds" Karina calls them) as well as some Hello Kitty trinkets.

Eliana always has her hands in other people's stuff.  Just making sure that everything is equal and fair.

Gabriel also got a basket!  His, however, had no pink birds or any candy for that matter.  Instead it had a board book.  From the looks of it, it didn't meet his expectations.

Then before the hunt, the girls changed into their Easter dresses.  We asked them to pose for pictures and Eliana complied obediently, knowing that the quicker we got pictures taken, the sooner she'd be able to pounce on the eggs strewn around the living room.

And then they were off!  Eliana found alot and Karina did a good job too.  

Found one!

 

Eliana was very generous with her little sister.  She would point out the location of certain eggs to Karina, instead of hoarding all of them for herself.

 

Here they are taking stock of their treasure.  Almost all the eggs were filled in just one jelly bean.  Eliana got a baggie to save them in.  Karina, on the other hand, would pop each into her mouth as soon as she opened each egg.

 

After the girls and Emily came back from church, we took a break.  Emily's family, including the girls' beloved cousing, Abby and Millie, were coming over for dinner.  For the girls, the wait for them to arrive seemed like an eternity.



Their older cousins finally did come!  The girls ran out to greet them.

The girls all played together.  Karina was decked out with all her accessories.

They also did silly things, like putting Hello Kitty hair clips into Uncle Charles' hair!

 

After hanging out a bit, the older cousins set up another Easter egg hunt for the girls.



 

Karina was getting pretty good at this.  Practice makes perfect, I guess!

 

 Gabriel was not able to hunt for eggs, but enjoyed reading his new book with Mommy.

 

 

The fun day ended with a big dinner and then dessert.  The girls had a blast and we hope you had a good Easter as well!