Being silly...

Eliana is in the "let's try on Mommy's shoes" phase. This time, however, she put on Emily's fake Ugg boots, which go up to Eliana's thighs. Even though it is very awkward, she seems to like walking around in them...





You may not hear from us for a while... As you can see below we are packing (and Eliana is un-packing) for a trip. We are going to Hawaii! We will be spending a week at a time share in Kauai with Emily's parents. We hear Kauai has a lot of feral chickens running around everywhere. We expect that they will be a hit with Eliana--we'll let you know.

Happy Easter!

We had a full and eventful weekend. Spring is here. Even though a cold and windy storm passed through our area this weekend, we had a chance to go into the back yard.

Eliana, ever aware of tiny little things on the ground, spotted a "lady buh". Daddy picked it up and she loved looking at it. But she refused to let it crawl on her hand.

Elvin was putting in asparagus plants into the backyard. But from the picture below, we're not sure who was actually in charge.

At the local farmer's market, there were (Easter) bunnies for sale. The last thing we need is a pet bunny, but I guess the next best thing is being able to look at them for 10 minutes straight. She would reach into the cage and pet the rabbits with her index finger.

She got her second haircut on Saturday evening. The haircutting lady had a 17 month old herself and was very good with Eliana. Eliana has never been squirted with a spray bottle before.

On Sunday after church, we held an Easter egg hunt in our living room. We hid about a dozen eggs. This being her first egg hunt, she needed a lot of coaching on how to do this activity. She found one under the piano bench.

Elvin put a Reese's peanut butter cup into each egg. When she realized that with egg #1, the hunt came to a screeching halt--she needed to "eat cahn-dy".

But for some reason, she would only take a nibble then drop them on the floor. (Elvin dispatched them later so they wouldn't go to waste.)

On Sunday evening, we drove 20 minutes to Emily's parents' for dinner. Eliana's cousins, who she loves to spend time with, were there as well. We walked to the creek in the backyard to look for frogs.

No frogs were to be found, but Eliana had a great time playing with her cousins Abby and Millie.

It's a girl!

So...Emily is pregnant again and expecting #2. We found out last week that it's a girl! She is due the first week of Aug. and according to the ultrasound tech, "She moves a lot!"
We've told Eliana about the baby. How much she understands, on the other hand, we're not sure. For now, she goes about her merry way, which includes figuring out new ways to have fun with her slide.

The other day we made blueberry muffins and Eliana helped to put the paper cups into the pan.
She scooped the mix into the bowl.

And mangled a raw mufffin by stabbing at it repeatedly with her spoon.

This past weekend, Eliana's cousins from Seattle were in town. She had fun on the swing with her cousin Lena.
Lena picked a few dandelions and tucked one behind Eliana's ear.
And for a midnight snack, Lena ate a Clementine orange. Eliana, always the copy cat, proceeded to eat one as well. Then ate another one, and a third.

And once in a while, we give Eliana a mochi ice cream. This is ice cream surrounded by mochi, which is a Japanese dough made of rice flour. Eliana uses her teeth to burrow through the mochi, and the sucks out the ice cream like a spider sucking the innards out of a fly. It's fascinating to watch.

Visit from Grandparents

Elvin's parents paid Eliana a visit last weekend. Much to her delight, she had two adults who were willing to play with her anytime and all the time, and lavish her with attention.

Eliana found someone to play the tambourine while she played the drums. She can't quite throw the ball yet, but likes watching it drop and roll away.

Ye-ye [grandpa] helps her watch videos on the laptop of herself. Meanwhile she pretends the financial calculator is a telephone. Multi-tasking already?

On Sunday, the rain held off so we went to the park.

She stayed on the swing for about 30 minutes straight. That's about 28 minutes longer than she usually stays on the swing.
When it was time for her grandparents to go, she even helped pack a box that they were checking in.

Eliana's New Tent

Actually, it's a hand-me-down from her cousins. But it's new to her and very fun to go in and out of. She likes to play hide-and-seek in there and also pretend that she is sleeping in her tent.

Making scrambled eggs...

Eliana is picking up new words every week. She is now stringing three and four words together in a row. For example, she'll say "Mamae car Elya Momma?" (Translation: Mommy is driving Eliana to Grandma's?) Some of her new words are "careful", "broccoli", and "band-aid." She is also saying many words in Portuguese now, whereas before she mostly stuck to English.

A typical dinner for her is a small bowl of steamed rice, frozen corn, scrambled eggs, and sometimes frozen berries and peaches for dessert. If we are having steak or ribs, she likes eating that too. She does not eat any vegetables except for corn and cucumbers.

Now that she is so good at copying what we do, it is fun to watch her pretend to fry scrambled eggs on her play frying pan.

Snow!

To catch the last bit of snow for the season, we drove 1 hour southeast to a sno-park near Mt. Hood, Oregon.

We stopped at a play area and walked around for a bit, but didn't find anywhere to go sledding.

When Emily first set Eliana on the snow, she was very apprehensive and didn't want to walk around. She has a pretty cautious nature.

Later on, she gathered enough courage to walk around the uneven surface herself.
We got back into the car and found another play area. It was pretty bright out and so we put sunglasses on. Eliana wore hers for about 20 seconds before tearing them off.We decided to stay at this park. They has a slope where kids could go inner tubing. They even had a mini-slope for toddlers. Eliana went down on Emily's lap. We weren't sure if she'd like it, but she ended up asking to go again and again and again...