Visitors...

About a month ago, we had visitors two different weekends.  More specifically, Elvin's brother and his family came to visit, and then two weeks latere, Elvin's parents came for the weekend as well.

 

Elvin's brother and sister-in-law have a son, Elliott, a few months younger than Karina.  So of course, we made the requisite visit to the local park.  Karina loves being on the swing.  Elliott, however, prefers to push the swing.

 

 

Elliott, maybe because he does not have any of his own sisters to play with (and pester), very quickly figured out how to play with (and pester) his girl cousins.  At the park, he snuck up behind the bench where the girls were eating snacks (and you can see in the photo that Eliana is making a pretend phone call to a pretend somebody), and with a huge grin on his face, pulled on Karina's hair.  She didn't really know what to make of it.   



  

Elliott also gave out many hugs during the weekend.

 

Portland is famous for its food carts so for dinner one night, we made our way down to explore.  Emily got some Greek food, the kids had pizza, and Elvin ordered lefse (Norwegian tortilla-like flatbread spread with butter and honey) and deep-fried and breaded anchovies.

Karina, ever the adventurous eater like her Daddy, thought the anchovies were quite tasty.  The aioli dipping sauce was not to bad either.  Daddy was very proud that night.

 

Gabriel, on the other hand, dozed off after a meal of milk.

 

The following weekend, Elvin's parents visited and got re-acquainted with Gabriel.  They hadn't seen him since he was 6 weeks old and he had literally doubled in size since then.

The girls also had a good time hanging out with Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai.  The weather was unseasonably warm and they enjoyed eating popsicles on the porch. 

We decided to go hiking at a local natural preserve.  We ended up hiking for a few miles.  Interestingly, Karina walked much of the way, while Eliana decided that she needed to lounge in the stroller.

Gabriel snoozed much of the way.  He likes being carried, but lugging around a 20 pound baby is quite a work-out.

And that weekend, we celebrated Yeh-yeh's birthday.  Eliana helped bake a cake, and we later sang Happy Birthday and Karina helped to blow out the candles.

 

Overall, the girls had lots of fun both weekends and got to spend quality time with their family!

Waiting for Mommy...

Karina takes a one to two hour nap every day at about 1:00pm.  Sometimes Eliana will go out on a errand with Elvin, and if Karina wakes up to find her big sister gone, she gets very distressed.  The other day, Elvin stayed behind while Emily and Eliana went out.  When Karina woke up to find both Mommy and her big sister gone, she got very sad. 

 

So Daddy and Karina sat on the porch waiting for Mommy to come home.  

 

And sat...and sat.  For whatever reason, Karina complains that it's too bright when the sun is out.  (She is a true Pacific Northwesterner.)  So she had to wear her sunglasses too.  And boy was she happy when everyone came home!

End of Summer...



Summer is coming to an end here as the weather is getting cooler.  The past month has been full of activities.  We have been out and about doing various activities.

 

One of these activities is gardening.  In the beginning of September, Eliana announced that she'd like to plant some flowers and seeds.  Her timing was a little bit off with winter approaching (she should have asked 6 months ago), but we went to Lowe's anyways and Elvin built a small raised bed for the girls.  We got pansies and mums which will survive the cold of winter and planted cool weather crops like lettuce, beets, carrots and cilantro. 

 

Now, one of Eliana's responsibilities is to every day water the seedlings that are sprouting. 

 

Her other responsibilities are helping to set the table, feeding our fish (who is still alive after almost one year, surprisingly, huh?), and cleaning up the toys in the living room. It's an expectation that she'll do these everyday, but at the same time it's her choice. However: If she doesn't get all her responsibilities done, then no dessert. She has tested this out by skipping a responsibility one day and was dismayed to realize that we really meant to deprive her of dessert. 

 

To close out the berry picking season, we went blackberry picking at Emily's parents' house.  They have property and along the back there is a thick bramble of wild blackberries.  Both girls came, and grandpa came along and served as our guide.

 

Karina loved the berries.  Elvin donated many of his berries to Karina as she had a hard time reaching the berries without getting scratched by the nasty thorns.  Almost as fast as Elvin could deposit berries in her pail than she would eat them.

 

 

The Greatest Show on Earth made it's way back to Portland and Elvin took the girls in what is becoming an annual tradition. 

 

This was Eliana's third time and Karina's first.  What makes this more fun is that the cousins also come along.  Also a tradition is eating $12 cotton candy before the show starts.

 

Karina seemed to enjoy watching the show but probably didn't get the concept of a circus.  Eliana likes the various animals and seeing the ladies dressed up in pretty costumes.  In case you're wondering...Karina is using sound-blocking ear muffs and Eliana is using ear plugs.  This is because the music in the stadium is super duper loud.  Not sure why the circus chooses to damage the hearing of the kids they're trying to entertain.

Elvin thought this year's show was better than some in the past.  One of the more interesting acts were these feats of strength done by these gymnast types.

 





At home, the girls know how to entertain themselves too.  Eliana invented a game where she pokes one of us in the back and we'll act surprised to find someone behind us.  Karina has copied her bigger sister and looooves playing it too.  But instead of poking, she tends to jab as she doesn't know her own strength.

 

Eliana's becoming a little artist.  She drew this picture of a field of flowers and also did a craft (frog cut out.) She was very proud of both and asked Elvin to take a picture.

 

And Eliana's artistic abilities of course finds other outlets as well.  During breakfast, she decided that instead of syrup, she wanted honey (which is what Elvin prefers on his pancakes.)  And she also decided to draw a smiley face with it.

 

The girls will draw together and usually are able to share the pens well.

 

Karina is starting to get the hang of drawing as well.  She's getting the concept of coloring within the lines--sort of.

 

Playing with their dolls is a mainstay.  Here, the dolls are taking naps, just like baby brother does.

 

Speaking of Gabriel, he continues to be a pretty laid back baby.  He usually takes a couple of shorter naps in the morning and then a longer one in the afternoon.  Then sometimes he'll take another short nap right around dinnertime before going down for the night around 8pm or 9pm.  He is much more sensitive to loud noises now, of which there is plenty with the girls playing around.  So he sleeps upstairs in his crib now.

 

Gabriel still loves taking baths.  We give him a daily bath to wash away all the crusty spit up stuck in the copious folds in his neck.  According to the bathroom scale, he is now 20.5 pounds.

 

Gabriel has never liked the pacifier but much to our delight, he has taught himself how to suck on his thumb and it works like a charm.  There have been many times when he will wake up from a nap or in the middle of the night but still feel tired.  In goes the thumb and within a few sucks he is back to sleep.  Neither of the girls did this and we are still amazed at this effective tool!

 

And Gabriel still has his cheerful and happy personality.  He is very generous with his smiles and looooves to talk.

 

Here's a video of him talking with Elvin.  You can hear in the background Karina imitating some of the sounds.  She's actually pretty good at Gabriel-ese and sometimes you can't tell the difference between the two.

Eliana has started up preschool again.  As part of her bedtime routine, she has to lay out the next day's outfit so that everyone can get out the door that much quicker.  We do this because Eliana has the ability to stall and move at glacial speeds if she puts her mind to it.  Last year, there were many a time when she was late to school.

 

She goes to a co-op preschool, which means that either Mommy or Daddy volunteers in her classroom every 6 weeks.  It lets us get to know the teacher well, the other kids, and also we get to observe what Eliana is like in a group setting.  She is a model student at school--always obeying her teacher, sharing, and taking turns.  

Karina is extremely jealous that Eliana gets to go to school.  On the first day, Karina enjoyed playing with the toys there.  But threw a huge fit when she realized that she couldn't stay.  It's hard being a little sister sometimes!



And in addition to preschool, Emily also does homeschool several days a week with Eliana.  She is learning how to read and knows how to write things like "the" and "cat".  She generally enjoys it.

 

As you can see, the girls had a fun summer and we hope you had a good one too!

Karina is growing up...

 

Karina is just over 2 years old and in the last month has changed a lot.  She has definetely entered the terrible two's, but because she has such a laid back and agreeable personality, it's just not that terrible!  She will, of course, snatch toys away from Eliana or every once in a while, defiantly refuse to obey, but for the most part, if you reason with her, she'll says "Oh" and do what you ask.  She loves swinging in the backyard, maybe because then she gets one-on-one time with Mommy or Daddy.  It's hard being the middle child!

 

As you can see, she is becoming more independent...insisting that she put on her helmet by herself but not quite knowing how...

 

Karina's speech has also taken off in the past two weeks.  She used to only be able to say a handful of consonants, which makes understanding her real hard, especially when she is not signing the word at the same time.  Now she is saying more consonants and also stringing 3 words together.  She has also recently learned her colors and can count to three.

 

Karina is very good at puzzles, much better than Eliana at this age.  When she is playing by herself, she will do puzzles, play with her train set, leaf through books, or enjoys playing with her dolls. 

 

When it's time to play with Mommy or Daddy (we've recently tried to institute "Karina time" and "Eliana time" when one of the parents give undivided attention to the particular child for 10 min.), Karina always breaks out the Busytown boardgame.  Although she doesn't totally understand the rules, she has a fun time moving the pieces around just like she's seen Eliana do. 

 

Karina has also gotten better at climbing and monkeying around in the playground.  She's catching on quickly how to climb ladders and how to do other things at the park.

 

Karina has her silly side as well.  While enjoying her after-dinner ice cream cone, she decided to use it like a chapstick and also happened to get some on her nose as well.  (There are melted sprinkles on the ice cream, which is why it looks blue-green.)

 

Karina is not into jewelry or accessories nearly as much as Eliana, but does enjoy accessorizing once in a while.  We keep colored hair bands in their bathroom and Karina likes to pick them out and wear them like jelly bracelets.  She's such an 80's girl!

 

At her last dental check-up, her dentist gave Karina an "ok" to start using a tiny bit of real toothpaste, which is very exciting for Karina, who has until now has had her requests for toothpaste cruelly denied by her parents.  She loves her toothpaste because it's bubble gum flavored and also has a Hello Kitty on the tube.

 

And one night, Karina was reaching into the sink when at the same time, Eliana--who was also brushing her teeth and had a mouth full of gargled water--decided to spit into the sink.  Guess whose sleeve got soaked with water/spit/toothpaste sludge?

 

Part of our bedtime routine is saying prayers.  Karina knows to close her eyes and clasp her hands but her prayers are modified.  She whispers, "Mommy...yeah...Daddy...yeah...baby...yeah...Jie-jie [big sister]...yeah...me...yeah", then repeat.  She will sometimes do this many many many times!  

 

Last week, Karina all of a sudden decided that she was going to potty train herself.  Before that, she had no idea about going pee-pee voluntarily.  Then seemingly overnight, she started requesting us to take her to the potty.  She's been going strong for about a week now and we can count on one hand the number of times that she's had an accident.  And this is usually when she's preoccupied with something else and forgets to tell us (and we forget to ask) that she needs to go.

 

As a reward for going potty, Karina gets one M&M!  Which she calls "Em Em!"   

 

Karina is also our timid one and gets really intimidated by animals.  So when we visited the zoo and she saw the elephant...

 

She decided that it'd be safer to stay behind Mommy's legs.





 

At the zoo, probably Karina's favorite part is not an animal, but a statue of animals.  (Eliana was the same way for about a year.)  There is a statue of a lion family and the girls played there for about 15 minutes.

 

It was also fun to see how they measured up to bears.



Our little Karina is growing up so quickly and we're excited to watch her personality blossom even more.

Almost 12 weeks old!

Our little baby boy isn't so little anymore!  At his two month check-up, he weighed in at 17.5 lbs!  To put this into perspective, Eliana at her 2 month check-up was 12 pounds and she was at the 95th percentile.  Gabriel's pediatrician didn't believe how much he weighed; she closed his file and reloaded it on her computer because she thought there was a mistake. 

Gabriel has definetely moved out of the infant phase and into the baby phase.  He has a definite sleeping pattern now and even though he is still feeding every 3 hours, we think that he might start going longer between feedings any time now.  If you go up to him and smile, he will smile right back and tries to talk to you.  He is also starting to grip things with his little hands.  And we think he will be a thumb-sucker.  He is already trying to put his fingers in his mouth to suck on and every once in a while, he is successful.  Just today his success rate increased dramatically!

His sisters are still very fond of him and give him plenty of attention. 

We hope your summer has gone well as we head into the autumn season!

Ballet Camp

Eliana loves taking ballet classes so this summer, she went to ballet camp at one of the local studios.  It was princess themed and also a bunch of her little friends from church attended. At the end of the week, there was a little recital for the parents to watch so we all went.

In the beginning, they went up to the railing to do some warm-up exercises.

And they did some stretching. 

And then the dancing began!

And afterwards, the girls feasted on a tea party.  Besides strawberries and blueberries, there were chocolate coated pretzel sticks dipped in sprinkles.  Guess which Eliana wanted to eat first?  We all had a good time and Eliana hopes to take more ballet classes in the fall.