Daily life...

Eliana is overall a pretty good eater. She loves milk and some of her favorite foods are steak (with A1 sauce), white rice, watermelon, cheese, and frozen fruit such as berries or peach slices. She also loves butter and would eat it by itself if we let her. Here she is picking the butter off a slice of bread.

A couple weekends ago, we went to a Chinese restaurant that specializes in noodles. Eliana LOVES noodles. But the aftermath can be quite astounding. For every spoonful that makes it to her mouth, another spoonful falls onto the ground.

Eliana has noticed that there are infant diapers around the house now, in preparation for the baby coming. So one night, she decided that all her stuffed animals needed to wear diapers as well.

After putting on pajamas, we always brush her teeth. Her dolly came with us and needed her teeth brushed as well.

And the dolly's hat is always fun to play with. Except that when Eliana puts it on, she unwittingly blindfolds the doll.

2 years old!

Eliana turned two on July 14th! It seems like time has flown by. She had quite a special week, that started with a trip to Cold Stone. Emily signed her up at the Cold Stone website and she got a free ice cream for her birthday. Eliana got sweet cream with sprinkles mixed in, or "candy" as she calls it.

We then had a mini-party on Wednesday, which was her actual birthday. Emily's parents came over for the evening and we opened presents. She still doesn't fully understand the concept of presents, and is most interested in taking the bows off. She started the get the hang of it, though. We had cupcakes--she requested these because she thinks that's what you're supposed to have at a birthday. Later in the week, we had a full party on Sunday with her aunts, uncles, and cousins coming over. We had pizza (again at her request) and more cupcakes.

Finally summertime...

After one of the wettest and coldest springs in the past 10 years, it's finally summertime for good. So Eliana is enjoying all the summertime-type activities, including...

Picking raspberries in the backyard (but she doesn't eat them. She only likes them frozen.)


She went to the zoo again this past week, and enjoyed a snow cone.

Last week, she went to a park that had a merry-go-round. She liked that the horses went "up and down."

Eliana's cousins Millie and Abby slept over last weekend. Besides running around, pretending to cook things with the toy stove, and playing ball, they also read quietly.

And, as you'll see in the video, Eliana has become more and more independent. She picks out books to read to her animals in the backyard. She also likes playing "futebol" and chess with Elvin.

Happy 4th and Visit to the Zoo

We celebrated "July 4th" on Saturday the 3rd at Emily's parent's house. Eliana's cousins came over as well and they all played together in the backyard.

She ate an ice cream sandwich for dessert. The only problem was that 1/4 of it ended up on her shirt.

The neighborhood dog, Noodle, came over to visit. Noodle loves kids and likes the attention from Eliana. Eliana is getting over her apprehension of dogs...
On July 5th, we visited the Oregon Zoo. This is Eliana's second time to the zoo. The first time, when she was just barely one year old, she was a little too young and didn't really get much out of it. This time, she knew all the animals and requested them by name.

Here she is trying to hug the huge fish.

This zoo has a great petting area. Eliana loved petting the "nice goat" and his soft wool. Elvin, however, didn't like the goats--one of them tried to eat the corner of his jacket.

At the seal exhibit, a huge 6-foot long seal approached the glass.... Eliana thought this was a bit scary. We don't know where she learned this, but when she is scared, Eliana covers up her mouth.

All in all it was a fun trip to the zoo. We bought a 12-month pass--so we'll be going back!

If you're happy...

As you can tell from the last post, Eliana really enjoys music and singing. Besides "Twinkle, Twinkle..." and the ABC song, she also knows "If you're happy and you know it," "Humpty Dumpty", "Jesus loves me" and some songs from her videos.

Here's her singing (sort of) one of them...

23 months old...

Eliana's language has really taken off, especially in English. She conjugates some verbs, uses plural for some nouns, and has mastered the word "MINE!" Although she can say all the colors, she recognizes green and pink really well. She can count to twenty if prompted, and also knows how to use "and." She also recognizes all 26 letters, if they are capital and has started to learn the phonetics sounds of some, thanks to an educational video. Her Portuguese is not as developed, of course, but she is saying new words in Portuguese all the time as well, such as "depois" [after], "em cima" [on top of], and "esta ali" [it's there].

Here she is singing head and shoulders, knees and toes.

And the World Cup is on, so the Yuen household is watching with rapt attention. Eliana's favorite breakfast is waffles (or "butter syrup" as she calls it) and breakfast is made all the more enjoyable watching a game online.

Life at 22 months...

With a new baby sister on the way, we thought that Eliana would appreciate having a doll so that she can be her doll's mommy. Last weekend, she got her American Girl Bitty Baby doll (Elvin had never heard about Bitty Baby's until recently). She likes making it sleep by laying the doll on her back and then making it "WAKE UP!" by jerking it upright. Also last weekend, Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai flew up from California to visit for the weekend. This means that Eliana got to play and dance with them for two days straight. Here she is being silly while dancing to some music.

We went to Ikea and picked out a new rocking chair for Eliana. It's a tiny bit too big for her right now, but she can rock on it back and forth.

In honor of Memorial Day, our church had a BBQ with ponies! We weren't sure that Eliana would like it because she tends to shy away from large animals. But she loved riding on them and when her turn was over, she cried and cried and asked to ride again. We rode three times but Eliana would've stayed on the horses for hours if she had a choice.We also installed a new swing on a tree in the backyard. It doesn't go as fast as the swing at the nearby park, but satisfies her swing cravings temporarily.

Because it's been an usually wet spring, we've had to come up with lots of ways to entertain ourselves indoors. We brought in from the garage a Duplo set that she inherited from her cousins. She built this tower all by herself, complete with a "fan" (that's what she calls the propeller") on top.

Another fun activity is tea time with all the stuffed animals, dolls, and plastic dinosaurs. (Excuse the lack of pants in this picture.)

The weather finally got warmer on Saturday. Elvin was outside cleaning the car and caught Eliana hitching up her pants in a very stylish way.

And Eliana always gets a kick out of being silly. Before bathtime, she wore her shirt like a wig, which is especially interesting to do in front of the mirror.