Iron Chef

All little kids have their various interests.  Gabriel's is cooking.  He LOVES all cooking utensils, rarely goes anywhere without a spatula, and spends almost all of his play time "cooking".  He puts various items into one of his frying pans (he has commandeered a set that we had out for Goodwill, and also our cooking pans, plus he has toy frying pans from our kitchen set) and then stirs with a spatula or spoon. He also makes very realistic frying sounds.  Most little boys make car noises...but not Gabriel!

He has gotten pretty adept at using a spatula, and can lift and flip food pretty well!

Any small toy lying around can be used to cook with...

He also likes to lay out plates and put food out on each.  Setting the table for a banquet?

The kids also have a toy stove.  When Gabriel started playing with the frying pans, and trying to put them up on our stove, we brought this out from storage and Gabriel plays with it every day, all the time.  He puts the frying pans on tops and likes to twist the knobs.

There is also an oven door that flips outwards.  He likes to put things in there, such as his crackers or his water sippy cup.  We have also found in there a half-eaten apple or his beloved teddy bear.

Here he is cooking toy lizards, and if you look in the background, you can see he has laid out some plates.  He will serve one lizard onto each plate, carefully lifting it on his spatula, and carrying it over to the plate, and then scooting it off the spatula.

Cooking is serious business and in this video you can see the concentration on his face.  This time he is cooking these glue pens filled with glue sticks.  It doesn't matter to Gabriel--as long as he can stir fry them.

Gabriel also likes to have stuff that he can really mix and stir.  Here he is playing with some leftover baby cereal mix (the dry oatmeal flakes).  He had lots of fun stirring and pouring, until it got dirty and all over the cement.

Since taking these pictures, Gabriel has also started to make the distinction between toys and "real" food.  He prefers to have food now, to cook with, and is always running off with a cracker, or his water bottle, or an apple, and putting that into his frying pan, to cook up!

Camping Trip

A few weeks ago, we went camping for one night at Battle Ground Lake State Park.  This park is only about 40 minutes away from home so it seemed like a good first foray into camping.  If we needed to go home at night for some reason, then we could.

Also, this campsite has heated cabins with beds.  It seemed a lot easier to camp there with a baby instead of in a tent.

So off we went on a Saturday.  We went with some other friends who met us at the park.  The kids really liked the park because there is a lake that they all enjoyed playing in.  Gabriel loves digging in the dirt with a shovel and spent his time doing that.

The girls enjoyed playing in the water.  Since this lake is not fed by runoff from snowmelt and only by rain, the water was not cold at all.

They enjoyed wandering around, looking at the rocks in the water.

Eliana, our little amphibian, really enjoyed playing in the water.

She started chasing after a pair of ducks and didn't understand why they didn't want to play with her.

And meanwhile, Gabe kept digging in the dirt.

After a while, Karina got tired of playing in the water and wanted to get out and dry off.  Eliana, on the other hand, stayed in the water as long as she could.

We borrowed a kayak from Emily's brother.  The girls enjoyed riding in the kayak with Daddy.

After changing and drying off, it was time for dinner and the kids were ravenous.  Mac and cheese to the rescue.

Gabriel also enjoyed the pasta.  And watermelon.  And crackers.  And chips and other things.  He ate for about 45 minutes straight and our friends were astounded by his endless appetite.

In the evening, we roasted marshmallows for s'mores.  Eliana enjoyed doing this.

The cabin was pretty roomy, clean, and can sleep up to 5.  It had electricity, too!

When it was time to go to bed, Karina, for some reason, did NOT want to sleep in the cabin.  We were not totally surprised, because Elvin and the girls camped out in a tent a few weeks before, and Karina ended up waking up crying after a couple of hours in the tent and we brought her inside to sleep in her own bed.  So Emily ended up driving home with Karina and she took Gabriel too.  We figured Gabriel would end up sleeping better at home too.

Eliana, on the other hand, really enjoyed sleeping in the cabin in her sleeping bag.

It rained overnight but cleared up by morning.  Both Elvin and Eliana slept well that night.  The sounds of the raindrops drumming on the roof must've helped them sleep.  

As we wandered around in the morning, we saw huge banana slugs out and about.

Emily and the two younger kids joined us at the campsite again in the morning.  As we were packing up to leave, Gabriel the Scavenger, got a hold of a bag of Cheetos and really did a number on them.

After we were all packed up, we split up again.  Gabriel headed home so he could take a nap.

Meanwhile, Elvin and the girls headed off to the lake again.  The girls found puddles to stomp through.

They hiked for a little bit through the woods.

We were hiking around the perimeter of the lake looking for a spot to go fishing from.

We finally situated ourselves and settled in.  After casting and waiting for 3 minutes, Eliana declared that this fishing thing takes "forever!"

She asked if she could walk around the shore of the lake. Elvin said yes, but told her to be careful that she doesn't fall in.  Next thing that happens is that Eliana somehow had wandered too far into the lake and now needed to empty her boots which were full of water.

We never did catch anything but sure had a fun time.  We wrapped things up by heading into town for lunch at Burgerville.

Karina was really tired and on our drive home, drifted off to sleep...

Dance Performance

Almost a daily occurrence in our house is the music on in the living room with one, two, or all three kids dancing along.  Lately, it's been a tape (yes, we still have cassette tapes) of Disney tunes.

The girls are also getting ready for Halloween and put on their costumes.  Karina is a fairy and Eliana is a princess.  Eliana's name, when dressed up, is Princess Violet, as her dress, crown, wand and beads are all purple.  Karina reminds us to call her "Fairy" when she is in her costume, but also refers to us as her servants.  She will say, "Servant, will you please help me put on my crown?"

Once they are all dressed up, they call for the audience to come and sit on the sofa, and then turn on the music.  They then quickly run behind the rocking chair, and once the music begins they leap out from "backstage" to perform.  There are lots of interesting moves, and the dance is NEVER over until the music ends.  They then do a dramatic final pose, and prompt the audience "applause, applause", in case we haven't started clapping yet.  They then quickly run back behind the chair, to perform the next song.  It is interesting to see the different dance styles that go with different types of music.

Gabriel also gets into the spirit and dances along.  He has a very unique style, which involves some combination of tai-chi and turning in circles until he falls down, with a lot of stops to lean on our legs.