Summer fun...

Summer is in full swing right now!  The weather is warm and the kids have had lots of free time to play outside and do fun things.

Our church had a week of Soccer Camp and you can't tell from this picture, but Eliana was really excited about it.  She got a pair of new sneakers because all she had were cutesy shoes.  These, of course, have pink on them.

At camp, Eliana played with the other 5 year olds and learned how to dribble, pass, and trap the ball.  At the end of the day, the kids would divide into teams and scrimmage.  We were not surprised that Eliana was not super aggressive and generally did not like getting into the mix of things.

Gabriel visited one day and enjoyed playing with a ball.

At the end of the week, Eliana got a certificate of completion.  

Eliana is growing up fast.  She is getting more clever every day and comes up with creative ways to get what she wants.  For example, both Eliana and Karina have library cards.  Karina, however, lost hers so we got a new set at the library.  The new set, however, were actually two cards (a normal sized one and a little one you can put on your keychain.)  Eliana became secretly jealous of her sister's new card and so, in a scheme to get a new set for herself, she threw her old card into the garbage and then told Mommy that she "lost" her library card and needed to go to the library to get new ones.  Emily thought it was too much of a coincidence and probed Eliana, who under the weight of interrogation confessed that she staged the whole thing.  We told her she doesn't have to scheme and lie; we can ask the librarian for a new set of cards if she really wants new cards.

She's certainly creative.  Who knows what scheme she will gin up when she's 15 years old and wanting to take the car out for a spin without us knowing?  Here she is holding both sets of cards.

Does she look remorseful to you?

So when they do have their library cards, the girls go to the library about once a week.  They looove reading books and can spend hours doing that.

Speaking of being devious, the girls also know how to beg really well.  When they want something, like dessert or a special treat, and they know we are on the fence about it, they will say, "PLeeeeeease?" in a really high voice.  It is actually quite cute and sometimes works (on Elvin only though.)

And you might have noticed that the girls are wearing matching pajamas.  With summer, the nights are warmer and so the girls switched out their fleece jammies for these lightweight cotton ones.  They love it when they match!

We thing we did was go to the mall to run some errands.  We don't go very often, and so the girls are absolutely enthralled with all the STUFF (junk?) on sale there.  It really is sensory overload for them and we kind of don't like taking them there because they end up coveting everything they see.  What makes it worse is knowing that the girls already have dozens of toys and hundreds of books and games and blocks at home that they could play with.

We did stop by See's Candies.  Eliana, with her keen sense of smell, said "This is a chocolate factory!" when we stepped inside.

They each got the free sample for the day...the first time they've had See's.

Other activities include extemporaneous dancing.  We have a tape player in the living room that will play old cassette tapes of Disney music and such.  Here is Karina doing a little performance.

Or the girls will play with their tea set, or wooden food toys.  However, they have learned that need to play somewhere where Gabriel can't reach--or else...  In the picture below, you can almost hear Karina saying "Noooooooo!"

Gabriel have become much more stable walking, which lets him go more places and do more things.  For example, now he is very good at standing on his tippy toes.  Because he is only 13 months old, we forget how tall he is and that he can actually reach things that are quite high.  Such as the door leading from our kitchen to the garage.  We now have to keep it locked because he can open that door quite easily.

He can also reach things that are on top of tables.  For example, we had recently gone out to Cold Stones, as we do once in a while.

Everyone were enjoying their ice cream when we realized that Gabriel could reach not only to the top of the table, but could also scoop out ice cream from the cup sitting in the middle of the table--all by standing on his tippy toes.

Gabriel is into everything.  We keep the kids' silverware in a drawer that is knee-high so that the girls can reach it easily.  Gabriel can also reach it and empties it multiple times a day.

He's also started to climb on things more.  The girls have a kid's sized lounge chair in their room.  Gabriel has seen them sit on it and can now climb up to it, then turn around and sit on it too.

The problem is that sometimes he also wants to stand on it too.

And in addition to sitting and standing on it, he's not that stable when he tries to get off of the chair,which is a little too high off the ground for him.

You may have noticed in some pictures that he is wearing a necklace and we've had some questions about it.  It is a special necklace made out of amber from near the Baltic Sea.  Supposedly, it has some substance in it that gets absorbed in the skin that helps with pain, such as teething pain.  So when Gabriel when through a 8-week spell when his four molars were coming out, he wore the necklace everyday.  They use this a lot in Europe, supposedly, and some people swear it works.  We're not 100% sure it helped, but I guess it can't hurt.

And Gabriel's little personality is coming out too.  We can tell that he is quite the ham.  He's learned how to scrunch up his face and now does it purposely to make us laugh.

We hope you're having a good summer too!