Eliana ballerina

During the school year, Eliana has been taking a combined ballet and tap class at a local dance studio.  She really likes ballet and incorporates the moves she's learned in class into her extemporaneous dances that she does every once in a while in the living room.

It was our routine every Wednesday evening to pile into the car as soon as Daddy came home from work to drive her to class, with Karina tagging along.  At the end of the year, the class culminated in a performance, on a stage (which was very important to Eliana--she likes being on stage she says), in front of a large audience.  As the big date approached, when asked if she was excited about the performance, she would say "sort of."  When probed further, Eliana articulated that she was both excited and nervous at the same time.

In the end, the class did very well and the crowd was very pleased!

Little musicians...

Our girls love to dance.  They also like playing musical instruments, sometimes tunefully, other times, not so much.  Because Gabriel also really likes instruments, our instrument toys are always out.  The other day, Eliana and Karina had been playing around quite a bit with them, and decided to do a show for Daddy when he got home.  You will notice they have rather different techniques...  They also both love to bow and curtsy and get applause.  Someday, perhaps, we'll have a "real" recital to post for you.

Toddler?

Last week, Gabriel started out as a baby.  But by the end of the week, he's almost become a toddler.  As you know, he has started taking his first steps and walking.  Every day, he could take more and more steps without falling down.  The improvements from one day to the next were significant and noticeable.

To the point where now, he can walk across the room and rarely resorts to crawling anymore.  Our little baby is suddenly a toddler now!

Gabriel also, for some reason, really likes pulling and pushing on big objects, like doors, boxes, and drawers.  He got a little scooter/bike for his birthday but he doesn't really have any interest in sitting on it right now.  Instead, when his sisters ride it (which they like doing often), he likes pushing them on it.  And they think it's really fun...

And lastly, Gabey likes to mix imaginary objects in a container.  He will grab a spoon and either a bowl or one of his toy metal pans and mix, mix, mix!  We think partly he just likes to make noise.  When he has a plastic spoon and a plastic bowl that isn't as noisy, he gets bored easily.

So that's our Gabey...always on the move!