We had a very eventful Easter weekend. On Friday evening, instead of an Easter service, our church set up various stations you would pass through that re-enacted Good Friday. All the activities were kid friendly, which was great for us. The first station we passed through was a low table that re-created the Passover Feast.
The kids enjoyed eating slices of apples, grapes, and pita bread.
There was another station where the kids were invited to wash their hands in a bowl, just like Pilate washed his hands...
And they set up a fake tomb outside, which was heavy plastic spray painted in grey hung over camping tent poles. The kids (but not Gabriel) got to carry candles. It was a good learning experience for all of us.
Saturday morning was our church Easter Egg hunt. They divide the grounds into three sections, and the kids hunt by age. The youngest crowd is the 0 -3 year olds, so Gabriel and Karina were together. It was fun to see Karina as one of the biggest and on the top of the food chain, and she did quite well. =)
You'll notice our kids are carrying Halloween plastic trick or treat buckets. When we got the Easter baskets (natural wooden ones) out of the closet, the neon plastic Halloween baskets were sighted. For Karina and Gabriel, it was no contest, they had to use the Halloween ones. Eliana went with the Easter basket. Gabriel found quite a few eggs too.
Eliana was in the 4 - 8 year old range, and they were out in a huge field. The church purposely does not cut the grass before the hunt, so a lot of eggs are invisible until you are standing right on top of them. The church put out over 4,500 eggs! But there were a lot of kids too, so you had to really run!
Found one!
Once it was over, the girls gathered with some friends to check out the contents of the eggs. Candy!!
Later that afternoon, we dyed Easter eggs. Here the girls are watching the dye tablets fizz in the vinegar. Pretty cool!
Emily is demonstrating how it's done.
Gabriel woke up and decided to join in on the action.
He was more interested in peeling the freshly dyed eggs.
And chopping…and stirring…and mashing… He eventually poured some of his milk into that measuring cup and came up with a concoction that was surprisingly similar to deviled eggs.
All the Easter baskets and eggs are ready for Sunday morning. We traditionally do an Easter egg hunt inside our house on Sunday morning. You'll notice that the girls have a book and a toy, and some Peeps and the like in their baskets. Gabriel has…a new set of nylon kitchen knives that really cut food, but not fingers! He was delighted! Emily got a big canister of cotton candy, which the girls demanded she share.
Sunday morning they got their Easter baskets, got dressed, and then it was time for our Easter egg hunt. It was funny watching them, they didn't just focus on finding eggs, they called each other to each new stash. It was neat to see how they worked together. Gabriel was designated the blue and green eggs, but was very slow, as he would stop to open each plastic egg when he found it. In the end, the girls just started delivering all the blue and green ones to him.
Found one!
By half way through the hunt, Gabriel was done with that activity, and decided to crack and peel some more hard boiled eggs.
Finding eggs never gets old...
After the hunt was over, the girls emptied out the contents of the eggs…more candy! Karina basically ate candy for breakfast...
After church, and Gabey's nap, we went to a local tulip festival, and explored the grounds a bit. Karina was quite impressed by how tall these tulips were.
And Gabriel was just running everywhere. They had a nice path to walk through this garden, and all the children were walking on it…and Gabriel was off IN the garden. We had to hover over him as his first instinct is to snap off all the flowers with one inch of stem. It took all our vigilance and every ounce of willpower on his part to keep himself from doing that.
They had various varieties of flowers. This variety was amazing…the colors were so vivid they seemed to be glowing.
They had a U-pick field, that the girls really enjoyed. We did not let Gabriel see them picking the flowers, though!
We let each girl pick five tulips.
Their "bouquets" from the U-pick field…Karina gave hers to Grandma, and Eliana gave hers to Abby and Millie! Pretty generous, we thought!
We then went to Emily's parents house for dinner. Emily's brother, Charles and his family were there, which means that the girl's favorite cousins, Abby and Millie were there. So, they of course had to sit with them at dinner.
Abby and Gabriel…for some reason, Gabriel always lets these girls hold him.
And, one MORE egg hunt, in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard!
The kids had a very fun weekend filled with eggs hunts and candy. Here they are as our day draws to a close. They are in their jammies (except for Gabriel) ready to go home at the end of a busy weekend! We hope you also had a Happy Easter!
Do all 3- and 5-year old girls start planning for their wedding this early? Karina and Eliana do. Today they were talking about Karina's wedding day and Eliana drew a picture showing how they dream it will be like… It will be a sunny day (and the sun will have a big smile and long eyelashes), it will be at a church that has heart decorations with a heart window. A car-like thing will deliver the bride, who will have long flowing hair and be wearing a tiara…
Our little Gabey is now 21 months old! He has changed a lot in the past several months; he's rapidly leaving toddlerhood and becoming a little boy.
Gabriel has a really sweet personality and is fun loving. He is always smiling, laughing, and trying to make other people laugh. He is very social once he gets to know someone and likes to go up to them to make conversation.
We think this picture, taken from inside See's Candies is very reflective of our kids' personalities. Eliana is a leader and rule-follower, so is posing for the picture very attentively. Karina is our day dreamer and so is not really aware that a picture is being taken of her. And Gabriel is our social butterfly and has a smile ready for the camera.
We go to See's Candies because the girls loves getting the free sample. Of course, Gabriel wanted one too...
Here's what happens when you let a one year-old suck on a chocolate almost as big as his mouth. He ended up not liking it and handed it back to Elvin.
As we said earlier, he's always trying to make us laugh and knows how to be silly. He found a pacifier and decided to pretend that he's a baby--even though when he WAS a baby, he didn't really like pacifiers.
Because he has two older sisters, and because they leave all their possessions laying around, inevitably Gabriel wants to try on their accessories. Here he is wearing Eliana's hair band like a headband. Cute huh?
And here is Gabey wearing Eliana's pink flowery sunglasses. They are pretty big on him. Because of that, and his big forehead and big cheeks, Elvin thinks Gabriel bears a striking resemblance to the late Kim Jong Il from N. Korea.
Gabriel is also starting to use pens, crayons, and pencils more. He likes to "draw" every once in a while. We are in the process of trying to teach him to only draw on paper. Right now, Eliana's chair has quite a few pink scribbles from when he got a hold of a highlighter.
One of Gabriel's favorite places to hang out is the pantry. It is full of things for him to re-arrange, explore, and carry out into the living room. He is also very strong and can tear open packages if he thinks a goodie inside looks tasty or fun to play with. Once, he tore open a big package of pasta which was fun for Emily to clean up.
And he, of course, likes to get into the cabinet with all the pots and pans to play with. Below, he is surrounded by about 7 pans `like a pig in mud! We have since installed a baby-proof lock on that cabinet. He is strong enough to carry any of the pans, some of which weigh two or three pounds, but we'd hate to think of what it would do to his little toes if he dropped one.
When he still had access to them, Gabriel would remake the living room into his own personal kitchen. The toy food items would be his ingredients. He would spend hours playing like this by himself.
Other times, he would carry over plates to serve food on.
Our Gabey is a little climber. He likes to climb onto chairs, tables, and anything else. If you are laying on the ground, he will try to climb on to you. Because of this, when we put him in a shopping cart, we buckle him in or else he will climb right out.
He gets onto the rocking chair in our living room, because he likes to reach the light switches to turn the lights on. And then he'll say "yight!"
He is getting pretty tall and we forget that he can reach things on the kitchen counter if they are semi-close to the edge. The other say he found a gallon ziploc bag full of chocolate chips cookies and took a bite out of one cookie then sampled another one and so on.
And our little monkey is getting more and more clever. He learned that he can push the dining chairs around the kitchen and by doing that, he could reach things that were on the counter, play with the microwave, reach the butter dish and do any number of things.
It became alarming because he could reach the stove (which he loves because of his cooking addiction) and even figured out a way to turn on the lights over the stove.
Because of this, we've used string to tie the chairs to the table. This worked--until a couple of weeks ago when Gabriel learned how to use scissors. He learned how to use scissors to cut paper. Then on Sunday, we caught Gabriel with a pair of scissors. He had climbed onto Emily's desk, found a pair of scissors, climbed back down and snipped the string that tied the chair to the table. We were both flabbergasted and also a little proud that Gabriel outsmarted us.
Besides outsmarting his parents, Gabriel is enjoying books. He likes to read books, especially Good Night Zoo, Row Row Row Your Boat, The Wheels on the Bus, and Where is My Cat?
And he also likes the iPad. We sometimes use the iPad when we're desperate or when he was sick. We needed to put ear drops in his ear, so we used the iPad to bribe him to lay still on his side.
Gabriel has been sick twice this winter so far. Both times he got a fever and did not sleep very well, which made for very long nights.
The second time he got sick, he got a ear infection. We took him to the doctor because he kept pointing to his ear and saying "hurt" and sure enough, it was infected.
Now that he is over his colds, he is actually sleeping quite well and sleeping through the night. He still wears a sleep sack at night because he tosses and turns so much.
He is taking one nap during the day, sleeping about two hours--if his sisters aren't making too much noise.
Eating is still one of Gabriel's favorite pastimes. He likes steak, rice, beans, chicken, various fruits like apples, strawberries, frozen blueberries, as well as junk foods like chips (which he can ask for by name) and cookies. He also likes to each artichokes dipped in mayonnaise, just like his sister Karina.
But once he's done eating, he likes to pretend he is cooking with it. Here he is spooning all of his oatmeal and blueberries (a regular breakfast for him) into his glass of milk.
Here is Gabey playing with food.
He stabbed a piece of chicken and is trying to feed it to his older sister...
Success! It made it into Karina's mouth.
Here is Gabriel signing "all done!" after eating a bowl of noodles.
Gabriel is starting to transition out of signing and saying more words. He is saying lots of things, like names of foods he likes ("steak", "boo-neigh" for blueberries, "pao" which is Portuguese for bread, "mill" for milk, and "wah-wee" for water.) He also likes to play with the light switches ("ligh") and likes to switch them on and off ("gee-gee-gah" for "desligar" which is Portuguese for turn off.)
Gabriel has three stuffed animals which are his favorite--a bear, a puppy, and a cat. Every night, he goes to bed clutching one of these. He thinks it's lots of fun to play with them...
And so that's our silly Gabey. His personality is coming out more and more every week, and he is a constant source of laughter for us.
In our house, we celebrate (or at least acknowledge) half birthdays. Because of that, being three-and-a-half is a very distinct age from being 3, as much as being 3 is different from being 2. Because Eliana had her half birthday a few weeks ago, Karina has been very aware of her upcoming half birthday, and asks daily, "Am I three and a half yet?" Now that she is 3.5, she told us she is not a big girl, but almost a grown up!
We keep it low key and usually just have cupcakes with icing. Karina, the half-birthday girl, however, wanted an ice cream sundae instead. Her bowl of ice cream was loaded with gummy candy.
