The Greatest Show on Earth!

It's becoming an annual tradition that we take our kids to the circus on opening night.  We go early because before the show starts, you can walk on the floor of the circus and do things like sit on the motorcycle.

During the pre-show show, a bunch of performers from China came out to do a tai-chi performance.  We weren't very impressed because they were not synchronized very well.

This year, we brought Gabey along.  The girls started going to the circus at age two so we decided to try it.  He is a little weirded out by loud noises, so we weren't sure if one of us was going to spend the entire show in the lobby of the arena with a scared 2 year-old.

He was a little apprehensive at first but by the 2nd half was enjoying the show.

One of the biggest highlights for the girls is getting cotton candy.  We tell them that we only get one bag (due to the exorbitant price) and that we all have to share.  They dive in like sharks...

Gabriel also knows about cotton candy...

The show was fine.  We saw the elephants, as always...

There were also the acrobats who stand on a launcher and land on their compadre's shoulders--somehow.

The kids had fun and we'll be back next year!

No more training wheels!

We went camping recently with a bunch of families from our church.  All the kids brought their bikes and rode around the campground for hours.  Some of the kids that were Eliana's age rode their bikes without training wheels.  Eliana was still using training wheels and asked us to take them off...

So, a couple of weekends ago, we drove to a local middle school where they had a track that was made out of the rubberized material--thinking that if Eliana fell, she wouldn't get hurt too badly.

We raise the wheels on one side and she seemed to ride fine.  Then we raised the other side.  Elvin ran alongside and behind Eliana some of the time....

The other kids brought their bikes as well.  Karina wanted her training wheels off too.  But Elvin had his hands full already and so we told her we would do that at another time.

And here is Gabriel on this trike.  He is still learning to steer.  He can steer when he wants to.  But he has the attention span of a goldfish and after about one minute something else will catch his attention, and he will forget to steer.

 Eliana had a great time.  By the end of the 1.5 hour session, we had both training wheels raised.  She was a tiny bit wobbly, but got the hang of it really quickly!  She never fell once!

Here she is riding like the wind!

Piano Recital...

This past year, Eliana started piano lessons.  At first she was very excited about taking lessons, but as with all things, the novelty wore off.  Even though making Eliana practice the piano became a chore, she still made lots of progress.

At the end of the school year, Eliana's piano teacher held a recital.

When each student went on stage to perform, they had to introduce themselves, name the songs they were going to play, and talk about what new piano technique they learned from that particular song.

Here is Eliana's performance...

Gabriel watched patiently, through many of the performances, even though the recital was about an hour long.

Both sets of Eliana's grandparents came to watch!

And here is a picture of Eliana with her piano teacher, Miss Betina.

And what did the kids do after the recital was over?  Run like wild animals all over the stage of course!

First (real) haircut!

Right around when Gabriel was two years old, we decided that he needed a haircut done by a professional.  We had been trimming his hair every now and then.  And despite our best efforts to the contrary, he ended up with a cross between a bowl haircut and a bob.

So this is his "before" picture...

We took him to a local haircut place that caters to little kids.  They had a little toy house with a toy kitchen, so he was in heaven.

That is, until they started working on him.  He did not want to sit in the chair by himself, but only on Daddy's lap.

And he was glued onto Daddy the entire time like a baby koala.

He went into his "shut-down" mode.

But in the end, he survived.  And came out with a "normal" boy haircut.  (And a lollipop.)

Here he is holding his "My 1st Haircut" certificate.

Manicures!

This past summer, the girls were challenged to stop biting their nails.  Eliana has had this habit for about a year, and it was getting out of control.  Karina, in true little sister fashion, had decided to start biting her nails too, just because it seemed like a popular activity.  We had tried different things to get them to stop, but had no luck with Eliana.  They have been asking for a long time to get their nails painted, so we said if their fingernails could grow out, they could get them painted.  This was no problem for Karina, as she was just biting them out of copycatness.  Eliana, on the other hand, took a long time to break herself of the habit....but, she did!   It took some convincing, but Daddy finally relented and so the girls were off to get their nails painted!

They got their nails trimmed, and then the edges were sanded...

They each got to pick the colors they wanted...

Eliana opted for the multi-colored sparkles.

Karina also got the special treatment...

And opted for pink fingernail polish, which is of no surprise as that is currently her favorite color.

1st Day of Preschool!

Even though the weather here is still in the 80's and 90's, fall is in full swing with the start of school.

Karina, who is now 4 years old, is starting up pre-school again.  She was very excited, which we are happy to see because last year, she was ambivalent about attending school.

 She was all ready with her backpack to head off to school!

Here is the obligatory picture in front of the sign to her pre-school.  She wanted to be standing, however, instead of sitting.  Also, we tried getting Gabey to be in the picture but he refuses to pose for pictures; we're not sure why.

Karina knows the drill--before going into class she needs to hang her backpack up on a hook.  Since she's a Yuen and the hooks are assigned alphabetically by last name, her hook is the last one!

Karina says "hi" to Mrs. Walker, her teacher.  Mrs. Walker was Eliana's teacher two years ago and already knows Karina.

Karina got right into the swing of things...and so did Gabriel.  He is used to tagging along when Karina was getting dropped off or picked up last year at pre-school.

Gabriel spotted Pixie, the class guinea pig.  Except that he thought Pixie was a squirrel and kept doing the sign language sign for squirrel.  Pixie didn't seem insulted.

We look forward to a good year of preschool for Karina.  It's amazing to think that perhaps next year, Gabriel will be going to preschool as well!