Getting to know extended family (part 2)

Back in March, several weeks after we came back from China, Elvin's parents paid us a visit from California.  They were coming to see their grandkids, and were especially interested in meeting Xiao Yu for the first time.

When they arrived, they said 'hi' to all the kids.  Gabriel showed off his watch that (at that time) he wore 24/7.  He acquired it in China and was very attached to it because it was green.  It also happened to have a Hello Kitty on it, much to Elvin's dismay.

They also gave the girls comic books from Brazil.  Elvin used to read these as a kid.

They enjoyed watching the kids play piano.  Eliana performed a couple of her songs.  Karina also pretended to play songs off of the music sheet.  She is interested right now in learning how to play the piano because she sees her big sister playing.

One of the activities we did that weekend was to go to Toys R Us.  This was because Gabey needed a new bike since the push tricycle that we had for him would now go to Xiao Yu.

The kids found the drivable cars section, which is next to the bicycle section, and wanted to test drive some of the cars.  Gabriel go into this one, because it's orange--his second favorite color.

The girls of course ooooh-ed and aaah-ed over this car.

We had Gabey try out the classic Radio Flyer tricycle and it seemed to fit him just right.  Xiao Yu, of course, wanted to try out bikes too.

Xiao Yu had to take a nap soon so we fed him lots of snacks.  He loves pretzels.

He did not like as much this baby food-in-a-pouch.  It was some sort of banana-mango combination.  

Afterwards we went out for pizza sans Xiao Yu and Mommy.  Xiao Yu headed home to take a nap.

We each got personal pizzas.  The one for Gabey was half olives.  He absolutely looooves olives and the other day asked for his dessert to be a bowl of olives and mushrooms.

After he woke up, Xiao Yu also got to eat some pizza  too.  

And he saw Daddy drinking carbonated water.  He REALLY REALLY wanted to drink it despite Elvin telling him "no."  So it seems harmless enough to let him learn the hard way.  Here is his reaction when he had some...

And we've noticed that Xiao Yu doesn't necessarily learn from his mistakes.  After not liking the first sip, he apparently thinks that the 2nd sip will taste better, but it doesn't...

Each kid got to pick a toy from Toys R Us.  Karina picked out this Play Doh set where you press down on the lever and it serves up soft serve ice cream which you can press into a bowl or a cone.  This toy has gotten hours and hours of play time in our household.

Here is the ice cream cone that Gabriel made.

This is Karina's multi-flavored ice cream cone.

And here is Eliana's.  

Gabriel's gift was the trike.  Yeh-yeh assembled it while Gabriel watched on and occasionally assisted.

And he really liked his new tricycle!  This was his first time steering by himself so it took a little bit of getting used to for him.  Also, previously he had refused to wear helmets (he hates wearing hats or anything else on his head) but we convinced him that from now on he needs to wear helmets.  We even bought a new one for him.  But since he has a ginormous head, we bought one that is "youth size", meaning a size that normally a teenager would wear.  That's our Gabey!

And we had fun going to the park to try out our bikes!

A couple of months later, Elvin's parents returned for a visit.  This time we visited OMSI, which is the local science and technology museum for kids.

They had this cool exhibit with a bunch of small animals including rats.  One of the activities was to take bits of food for the rats, and then wrap them up in card box or stuff them into paper towel tubes so that the rats would have to "work" to get to their food.  This keeps them from getting bored in their cages.

Here is Karina sprinkling carrots, apples, flax seed and meal worms onto an eggs carton lid.

The kids weren't afraid of touching the meal worms which were very much still alive.

Then the worker would use string to tie up the contraptions into the rat cage.  He would hang them from the ceiling to make it more challenging for the rats.  They were very hungry and got to the food in about 1 minute.

The museum also had this wind turbine that blew air upwards.  You could take these paper cone cups (that are usually found by water coolers) and cut slits into them to bend the ends into helicopter propellers.  Then if you let go of the cups in the wind just at the right moment, they would fly up in the air!

At that time, Gabey was really into his construction hat, so wore it in the van.

And fell asleep in it.  His head got really sweaty.

After lunch, we visited a clothing store where Nai-nai got the kids some clothes.  They got to try stuff on using the changing room.

This was a first for all the kids!

Once back at home, Xiao Yu was up from his nap and got some pushes on the swing from Yeh-yeh.

Yeh-yeh explored the backyard together with the boys.

In the backyard, Elvin has a collard green plant from last year which has grown quite tall and now had bolted (gone to seed) with the warming weather.  The kids like to rips off stalks filled with the yellow flowers.

And just before leaving for California, Gabriel gave Nai-nai a stalk of collard green flowers as a parting gift.  He is a sweet boy!