6 months old!



Our little Gabriel is 6 months old now!  Time has flown by and he is growing up fast.  He now likes playing with toys and can entertain himself with them for little tidbits of time.  It turns out that one of his favorite chew toys is a silicone spatula.  It is nice and soft and must feel nice on his gums.  It's also too big for him to accidentally shove all the way into his mouth.

 

He also enjoys normal baby toys.



He is a happy baby and if he hasn't seen you in the past minute or two but looks up to see you smiling at him, he'll smile back at you.

As you probably know, everything goes into his mouth.  Some people said that his cheeks actually look smaller than before.  This may be true, because yesterday he went to the pediatrician where he weighed 24 pounds--so did not gain weight as much as before.  But he has grown 1 inch since the last visit, which would explain why last week his 12 month onesies were really tight on him and we had to upgrade him to 18 month onesies.

 

We recently started giving him water to drink.  He won't drink from a baby bottle, but only from a straw cup.  He loves sucking on the straw and also chewing on it, of course.

 

 

We've also tried giving him some baby food.  He swallows some but mostly he sprays it back out.  Yes, the food doesn't just dribble out of his mouth, but he'll spray it all over the counter.

 

His two little bottom teeth which started coming in a few weeks ago are now more than nubs.  You can see them in the picture, where Elvin has pulled his lower lip down.

 

Gabriel still enjoys taking baths.  Even though he gets fussy in the evenings, when he hears the water running in the bathtub, he gets very excited and starts flapping his arms like a bird.  Here he is enjoying the warm water.

His sisters are still very fond of him.  Karina will give him hugs and say, "My Gabiel..."  (She can't say the "r" sound yet.)

 

Here she is showing Gabriel her telephone.  He wants to grab it to stick it into his mouth, of course.

We are happy to announce that he can roll over!  He will roll over from back to front, but only towards his right side.  And when he does this, his right arm gets pinned under his body, which you can see below. 

 

And he is still a big-time thumbsucker.  He'll suck mostly on his left hand and mostly when he is tired.  Pretty much every time he takes a nap, in goes the thumb, until he is asleep.

 

Our Gabriel is a funny baby.  We can't wait to see what the next 6 months holds!

 

 

 

 

 



The theater...

Portland has a theater group that puts on plays just for kids.  Recently, they put on a musical about Pinkalicious, which is a book that Eliana has read.  It's about a girl who eats too much pink stuff and wakes up to find herself turned pink herself.

This seemed like a fun outing, so Elvin took the two girls plus their cousins to see the show.

This was Eliana and Karina's first time seeing a live musical. 

The show is about to begin.  Since it is geared towards kids, the show is only 1 hour long, as opposed to 2 or 3 hours.

 

Here's a picture after the show was over.  Eliana liked the musical and understood the plot.  Karina probably was not following the story, but she said she enjoyed it.

 

Because the storyline involved the main character eating one too many pink cupcakes, the theater partnered with a local cupcake bakey to create "Pinkalicious cupcakes."  Elvin picked up two for the girls as a special treat.  They are big cupcakes, but they really only ate the frosting.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year at Emily brother's house, which is a short 20 minute car drive away.  We're thankful that we don't have to board a plane on the busiest travel day of the year with three little kids.  Thanks to our nephew Tim who took most of these pictures.

 

There were about 30 people there and lots of food!

 

Gabriel, of course, couldn't have any of the food.  But he took in all in.  

 

Gabriel's little cousin Jace was also there.  Jace is about 2 months older and came in from Colorado.  This weekend was the first time that they met.

 

The girls were very happy because their beloved cousins were there.  Also, they got to eat lots of candy.  Notice the little cup full of Lindt chocolates that Eliana is holding.

 

Karina tried a peppermint candy but deemed it too spicy so returned it to Mommy.



 

It was a long evening for Gabriel but he handled it pretty well.  The 30 min. nap in the middle of dinner helped!

 

The next day, some of the family members gathered again to hang out some more.  We put the two little cousins together so that they could spend quality time together.  Watching them interact became quite the attraction.

 

The little boys were very cute...they were getting to know each other not by using words, but by poking at eyes, grabbing ears, feeling each others fuzzy hair, etc.



5 months old!

Our little baby is 5 months old and doing new things every day.  Gabriel is very adept at putting things into his mouth now and likes to suck on everything--just like his older sisters when they were babies.

He is also teething!  About a month ago, he was sleeping through the night but that ended a couple weeks ago, when he would wake up 3 or 4 times a night.  A couple days later, Emily noticed that two little bottom teeth were coming in.  Hopefully the worst is over and he is started to sleep longer again.

Here is a video of his recent life...

Our "little" baby boy...

Our Gabriel is growing...fast!  We can't take him anywhere without people commenting on how chubby he is, and how big his cheeks are.  We are amazed not just at his cheeks, but at how fast he has grown, weight wise, and in length.  Elvin often puts Gabriel to bed at night, and will sometimes have Emily take a picture of him holding Gabriel.  These pictures do a pretty good job of showing his growth through the last 5 months!

 

1 day old...

 

3 weeks old...

(look how baggy his pajamas are on him!)

 

 

 

5 weeks old...

(the cheeks are starting to fill out)

 

7 weeks old...

(the chubbiness is coming in)

 

 

2.5 months...

(look at how much longer he is)

 

 

3 months...

(the ankles don't show anymore)

 

 

4 months old...

 

And 5 months old...

 

Happy Halloween!

We survived another Halloween!  Eliana was very excited about Halloween and talked about it all month.  The weekend before, we rolled up our sleeves and set out to carve our pumpkins. 

 

Of course, the girls wanted nothing to do with squishy pumpkin guts, so Elvin had to do the dirty work for the four pumpkins. 

Eliana did a little bit of the carving, but Elvin did most of the rest.

 

He pretty much did all the work while the girls supervised.

 

Elvin's pumpkin's got carved into Chewbacca.  (And Eliana asked who Chewbacca was, which took Elvin a rather long time to explain, and turned into a complete summary of Star Wars, edited for a very sensitive, easily scared four year old.)  Eliana claimed one of the pumpkins as her own and the other she claimed for Go-go, her stuffed animal cat.  The little tiny one the size of a baseball was Karina's pumpkin.  All these other pumpkins got carved with Hello Kitty image.  No scary faces on our pumpkins this year.

 

This year, a friend invited us over to their house for pre-Halloween dinner and trick-or-treating around their house with a bunch of Eliana's little friends.  But before that, the girls got into their costumes.  This year, both girls wore official Mulan costumes from the Disney Store. 

 

We did trick-or-treat in our neighborhood a little bit, before taking off for the party.  Our next door neighbors are very fond of the girls and said that although they weren't planning on handing out candy to any of the neighborhood kids out there, they did want our two girls to come over and knock on their door...  It was very sweet because our neighbor put together a package for each girl with candy, a halloween pencil, glow in the dark Pez dispensers, Halloween mugs/bowls, clips, and glow-in-the dark bracelets!

 

At our friend's house, we got together for one more picture--this time with Gabriel in a Yoda costume.  The costume is for 0 - 9 month olds, which is why the green skull cap does not fit on his big head and why the velcro straps that are supposed to clasp under his chin are dangling partway  down his cheeks.

 

The girls had a fun night out trick-or-treating and we hope you did too! 

Another week....

 

Our baby is growing and growing.  He had a check up recently and weighed in at 23.5 pounds.  At this weight, he would be average--if he were a 14 month old.

 

He doesn't sit up yet, but is enjoying sitting in the Bumbo chair.  It gives him a new perspective on his toys, and makes it easier to put them in his mouth.  

 

He's definetely a grabber and a sucker--he'll try to grab anything in sight and stuff it in his mouth, just like his sisters.

 

 

 And he is also a talker and generally a happy baby.  He is not stingy with his smiles.

 

And one of his favorite activities is still taking a bath.  Even if he is fussy and tired, when he hears the sound of the water running in the bathtub, he cheers right up. 

 

He likes splashing around in there but will accidentally splash water onto his eyes and will start crying because he doesn't know how to wipe the water out of his eyes.

 

And Gabriel gets to watch his sisters' crazy antics.  Such as when Karina is feeling mischevious and decides to torment her older sister.  In the picture below, Eliana is minding her own business when Karina decided to sit on her.  And not get off.



Eliana is all of a sudden turning into a little artist, and goes on "kicks" where she draws the same things again and again.  Here she had just figured out how to draw hearts, and had drawn a picture of Mom and Dad, surrounded by hearts.   (And she is wearing a princess crown, of course).

 

We are homeschooling Eliana, doing a Kindergarten curriculum.  Most of the work is pretty easy for her, but we are finding her weaknesses.  One is a complete inability to write her numbers facing the right way.  You will notice here that every number that can be inverted (other than 5, she is very good at 5) is!   We're also not sure if she truly can't write the numbers correctly or if she is just doing this out of stubborness. When we ask her why she writes the numbers backwards, she says she likes them better that way.  She sometimes likes to write her name backwards as well. 

 

We aren't too worried, since she can write all her letters the right way! 

 

 

Karina isn't that into accessories, but she probably thinks she's supposed to like them since Eliana wears necklaces, rings and anklets all the time.  In the picture below, Karina sort of looks like Mr. T with a ring on each finger.

And Karina is a very good helper.  She has started helping with setting the table, even though this is Eliana's job.  Of course, Eliana is more than happy to let Karina take over.



And here is Karina after a bath.  Her hair is very fine, so when we dry it with a towel, it ends up looking like a stringy mess.

 

This past week, since it's gotten colder here, the girls got new fleece jammies.  It's very exciting to wear matching pajamas!

 

After bath comes bedtime.  Here is Eliana's bed currently.  There are four blankets on it, probably 8 or 9 stuffed animals and a couple of dolls on it.  When asked why she needs so much stuff on it, she answers that she needs them to fall asleep.

 

Maybe she's right.  One night she decides to cover her head with a pink fleece blanket and get under another one.  She ended up waking up an hour later, hot and sweaty and crying.  Oops, too many blankets!