We started our Halloween festivities with our annual visit to Bi-Zi Farms. This a local farm that sets up a huge number of activities every fall. We always go with Emily's sister and brother, and their kids. This means that the girls have their cousins along, which makes for a VERY fun trip! This is a local farm that puts on a HUGE pumpkin patch each year. They have a corn maze, tractor pulled wagons to go out to the fields and lots of kid activities. Here is Karina climbing the hay bale pyramid. It even has tunnels and passageways through the middle!
They have this huge pit, filled with corn kernels, a bit like a sand box. This is a big draw with the kids, and we returned to it many times during the afternoon. Gabriel is a bit wary of new textures and feels, and doesn't like to walk on sand and such. Initially he wanted nothing to do with this corn pit, but by the end, he was in there with the rest of the kids!
The farm also has a barnyard animal display. They have quite a variety of animals out: pigs, turkeys, calves, a donkey, chickens, rabbits and the list goes on! Here Karina and Gabriel are checking out a few pigs.
And now a turkey... He didn't look very happy. Maybe he realizes that Thanksgiving was just a few weeks away.
They also have ride on tractor tricycles in the barnyard. There is a lot of competition to get on one, so they watched each other carefully to get a vacant tractor.
There is an apple cider press, which Gabriel was fascinated by. They would take bucketfuls of these green apples, crush them, and put them through a press. Gabriel wanted to eat one.
Gabriel liked watching the machine.
And he got seconds, and thirds...
There is also a pumpkin launch area, where you get two little pumpkins, and you can launch them with these huge bungee cord things, and try to get one in a barrel at the far end of the field.
It takes a LOT of strength to pull back the cords. Here Eliana is getting a hand from Millie.
And...Go!
Karina got some help from Mommy...
Gabriel got put in the bin with the little pumpkins, but was not a fan of that...
After all that playing, we headed out to the pumpkin fields. You can traipse around looking for just the right pumpkin, then you pick it, and haul it back to the wagon. Here Eliana is trying to decide which one to take.
Look at all those pumpkins!
Gabriel tried very hard to find the smallest pumpkin in the field. He was quite pleased with his tiny selected pumpkin. He wanted to carry it himself.
A week later, it was time for the school carnival. Karina decided to wear our cat costume - very fancy cat!
Soon it was time to think about carving our jack-o-lanterns. Karina really liked posing with our pumpkin collection on the front porch.
The first night, we just got the pumpkins prepared, cutting off the tops, and scooping out the insides.
Even Gabriel got a knife/saw! Not sure how safe this is...
He did like picking the insides out, and dropping them into the bag.
Karina tried using the scoop, but for the most part, left this to Elvin to handle. She refused to touch the gooey insides and had Elvin clean out both of her pumpkins. (She had one from our trip to the farm, and she got another one because her preschool class also goes to the pumpkin patch.)
Eliana is able to do more and more things herself this year! It was quite hard to pull up the lid for the first time because of all the stringy seeds.
She even pulled out the insides!
That's a lot of pumpkins to process!
The next day we chose our designs, and marked them on the pumpkins. Our kids have learned about picking designs on the internet, and have no interest in drawing their own jack-o-lantern faces. Here Eliana is making the holes to show where the design should be cut.
Gabriel was very interested in all the knives and saws, an needed a bit of help staying occupied.
Karina first pumpkin. She chose a Hello Kitty witch.
Gabriel had a little tiny cat face.
Eliana was even able to do part of the cutting out of her pumpkin design this year! She did a Hello Kitty as well.
Gabriel just enjoyed stabbing the little saws into the pumpkins.
Here is Karina's other Hello Kitty pumpkin, with Elvin hard at work carving it.
The finished products!
Halloween night we trick or treated at just a few neighbors houses before heading to a friend's house to trick or treat altogether. Eliana was a Greek goddess, Karina was a purple ballerina, and Gabriel refused to wear a costume, just as we expected. He was just himself.
Off they go to get some candy!!
Our next door neighbors are like surrogate grandparents to our kids, and oohed and ahhed over their costumes as they gave them some candy.
All our pumpkins guarding our house as we left for the evening!
The night turned cold and very rainy. It was actually pretty miserable trick or treating, but the kids were troopers. It was the wetting trick-or-treating experience for us since moving here. Gabriel insisted upon being held every single second of the night.
Out in the pouring rain! You can't really see anyone's costumes, as all the kids were bundled up agains the cold and rain.
Back "home" after an hour or so. Those are some very wet kids! You can see how Gabriel felt about being put down for the picture.
Back in the house, the kids settled down to play for awhile. Karina discovered some Lego toys, and was fascinated with them for a long time. Perhaps an idea for Christmas?
This post is long overdue... Somehow the summer got away from us and we are only now blogging about our kids' birthdays, all three of which fall in the summertime. Gabriel was born in June, Eliana in July, and Karina in August.
In June, Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai (Elvin's parents) visited us from California so we decided to do the 1st (of many) rounds of birthday celebrations at that time. Karina was very excited, because she got a new bike! This bike has a basket, and a bell, and doll seat on the back -- pretty amazing!
Eliana also got her gift from Elvin's parents...
A nightgown that matches her Josefina doll!
They also got some other gifts -- some mini dolls and such.
Gabriel got a set of kitchen appliances that are battery operated, and really spin/blend/drip/etc!
We had cupcakes, and one candle per kid...
Pretty exciting!
Later in the summer, was Eliana's actual birthday. We had gone camping that weekend, and came home just in time for dinner and presents. Gabriel is figuring out more about presents, and is starting to "help"....
A Fancy Nancy book! Gabriel is very into these right now. =)
A sewing basket. Eliana is starting to get into crafts and the like. She loves having her own stuff, which she keeps on top of the refrigerator to keep it safe from little hands!
We went to dinner that night, at Red Robin. Our kids love this restaurant, but we aren't big fans. So, once a year, for their birthdays - and they even get a sundae! You can see Gabriel is pretty interested in the sundae...Eliana did share!
Karina's birthday is August 6, which also happens to be Emily's brother's birthday, and also Emily & Elvin's anniversary! Karina doesn't really appreciate that she has to share her day with so many others, but, it does mean a big family gathering! Grandma and Grandpa, and also Uncle Charles (the brother with the birthday) and Aunt Sara and their two daughters, our kid's beloved Abby & Millie came over for dinner.
A pile of kids on Uncle Charles! (That is Millie under Eliana)
More gifts! For Karina this time. You can see that Eliana isn't thrilled to be watching the opening.
A playmobil farm! All three kids look pretty pleased!
And, the ultimate gift - a huge Minnie Mouse dress up doll set, with PETS! So many hours of fun!
Karina is NOT fond of cake, so chose to have a birthday bowl of ice cream, with the candy letters and number 4 candle.
We did have a cake for Eliana, as well, since this was her chance to celebrate with the extended family. Six years old!
Here is Eliana blowing out her candles (and Gabriel helping out too.)
Every year we have a little joint birthday party for Eliana and Karina with their friends. This year we were planning an alternate gathering (we took them and a friend to Disney on Ice) but in talking about it, Karina didn't believe she had every had a birthday party with her friends. The last two years she had thought it was Eliana's party, and never realized it was in her honor as well! Oops! So, we did a very small birthday party for Karina that weekend -- a tea party. She loved it!
Gabriel joined right in with the table of little girls and ate his share of jello and cake and lemonade!
We have used the same piñata for the past two years, and our girls now consider the purple flower piñata as an integral part of a birthday party. It has a little flap that lets the candy out, and it trickles out with each hit. Makes the piñata very exciting as candy keeps coming out, with every turn!
Gabriel tried to take a turn, but doesn't quite have the form yet.
All the girls (plus Gabriel). Happy Birthday!!
This year we decided to try and ask the girls a few questions, to track their answers as they get older. So, here are Eliana's respones:
How old are you? Six
What is your favorite color? purple and light blue
What is your favorite food? Macaroni and Cheese
Who is your best friend? Kate
What is your favorite thing to do? Go to the Adventure Park at Mt. Hood. Even going there and back is fun because you can see all the tiny beautiful trees on the mountains.
What do you want to be when you grow up? Be a mommy and go horseback riding. There's a lot of things.
What is your favorite subject in school? the Bible
What is your favorite day? Thanksgiving
What do you want to learn when you are six? Swimming
Karina's responses:
How old are you? Four
What is your favorite color? rainbows
What is your favorite food? pizza
Who is your best friend? Ann
What is your favorite thing to do? Spin around
What do you want to be when you grow up? Be a mommy
Who is your favorite cousin? Lena
What is your favorite day? Saturday, because then Daddy gets to stay home
What do you want to learn when you are four? how to do somersaults
For Gabriel, he isn't really ready to be interviewed, but we wrote down what his responses would most likely be today (November 8)
Back in the early spring, we had Karina evaluated for speech. She was very hard to understand, and we weren't sure if we should just give her time, or if she needed some help. Her evaluation came back that she wasn't using about half the sounds out there, and didn't use any blends (putting two consonants in a row, like sh or tr) at all! That would explain why she was so hard to understand! We knew her code (i.e.. K was said D, Th was said F, R was said W, etc) but even still we hard a hard time sorting out her meaning at times (instead of "Karina", she would say "Do-rena"), and other people often had no idea what she was saying.
So, speech therapy began! Usually the child goes back, by themselves, with the therapist. But, because Karina is not super keen on new people and new experiences, combined with the fact that our children seem to move as a pack, we ALL attended speech every week: Mommy, Eliana, Karina, and Gabriel!
The therapist had all sorts of board games and activities, and to earn a turn, Karina would have to say some word or sound or sentence that she was currently working on. It was funny to watch, because she very quickly caught on, and would switch into "speech mode", and start enunciating all sounds very clearly. She was a quick study, and the therapist said that she had never seen a kid so young make so much headway so quickly!
This fall, the therapist said that there wasn't really anything left for her to work on with Karina! The sounds she is still missing (th and r) aren't considered "late" until the kid is 7 or 9, so...she is done! Karina was so very pleased to be done, and for weeks afterwards told everyone that she "graduated from speech therapy!" Good job, Karina!
Our silly Gabriel is almost two and a half years old! He continues to be the active, fun-loving, and smiley boy that he has always been. As you can see, his cheeks are still pudgy and we still get comments about them, but they are much slimmer than when he was a baby.
So what keeps our little boy busy? Well he loves food, so he spends a lot of time foraging in our pantry. And this one time, he found our bag of 200 paper cups from Costco. And he got them all out, and put some of them into his shopping wire basket, and others he stacked into towers. In the interest of not giving dirty cups to our guests, we put these away where he couldn't reach and he was pretty upset about that.
Putting things in our pantry where he can't reach has become more and more of a challenge. The shelves we have are made of wire. So what's one to do if there is something interesting on the third shelf? Climb up like a monkey of course!
And, very much like a monkey, Gabriel will grab something and throw it to the ground. Then he climbs back down, and checks to see if what he got looks tasty. If not, he'll climb back up and throw something else to the ground. Yes, it can get quite disorganized in our pantry.
Gabriel still loooooves to pretend to cook and spends hours and hours at his toy stove. He recently found a cookbook of Eliana's and has started flipping through that book. He flips through various pages to point out the ingredients, pots, pans, and cooking utensils. He is pretty much obsessed with cooking.
Here's a video showing some of what he does all day long. Because he practices cooking so much, he can actually use the pan to flip a (toy) pancake, like how a chef flips an omelet.
Gabriel is a curious little boy and has figured out how to turn on the camera app on the iPhone.
Using that, he enjoys taking pictures of various people around the house.
Here is a picture he took of Emily using Elvin's phone.
And, here is a picture he took of Elvin and amazingly, it came out pretty well.
Gabriel hates wearing hats. We have not been able to get him to wear hats--ever! Except that he loves to wear things that belong to the girls, and so he decided to wear Karina's sun hat one day. This is really the only documented instance of Gabriel wearing a hat.
And he is still taking a nap every day. He goes down at about noon or so, and sleeps for about an hour or two. If necessary, he can skip his nap, but then by 6 or 7pm, he becomes a very dramatic and sad boy, where anything and everything can make him upset.
Other than when taking a nap, Gabriel is quite active. He is always running around, or chasing his sisters, or opening cupboards. He loves playing tag in the backyard with his sisters. Here's a video of him chasing his sisters. The only thing is that neither him nor Karina understand the rules of tag. They think the point of the game is just to chase each other, tag a person (any person), say "tag", and then repeat with anyone else...
Gabriel has shown an interest in putting on and taking off his clothes. If wearing sweatpants, he can take them off by himself. He still needs help with his shirts (partly because his head is so big, it barely fits through the neck.) If he really doesn't like a shirt we have put on him, he can usually rip it off by himself, though! Here he is trying to put on a pair of shorts (his favorite shorts, which he asks to wear everyday, rain or shine.) He hasn't quite gotten the one foot in each hole part figured out, nor which is the top or the bottom of the shorts or pants.
Gabriel copies his older sisters in everything they do, so consequently, he likes to dance whenever there is music on. His dancing style, however, has diverged from his sisters' ballet-influenced style. As you will see, his is a cross between tai-chi and "the robot". We are not sure where he got either...
Gabriel has taken a liking to wiping things down with his wet wipes. He will grab one or two or three wet wipes and give whatever is within reach a thorough cleaning...
And lastly, our silly boy likes to sing. So every once in a while, he grabs the microphone and belts out whatever is on his mind...
And, a few of Gabriel's current "sayings":
A million times a day: "What that noise?" for any sound he hears.
And also: "What's that?"
"Why, Mom? Why, Mom" and conversely "Porque, Daddy?"
"Let me see that."
While playing on a toy phone: "Hello? Oh, it's Gabriel!"
He LOVES to tell us, "I like that!" "I NO like that!" about everything in his world (especially clothes!)
This summer, we made a point of having Eliana is swimming lessons as much as possible. She looooves the water, but we didn't feel like she was really competent in it. So, swimming lessons began! Part way through the summer, we were able to get into lessons that a local lady does in her backyard. This was great, as Karina and Gabriel could then play outside during the lessons. (Neither Karina nor Gabriel are ready for swimming lessons -- Gabe just started being willing to go into the pool in September, and Karina will not, for ANY reason, put her face in the water.)
Eliana started out with her usual floating and putting her head in, but NO real swimming. Then, all of a sudden, one day she could swim!!! Yeah!!
She still looks like she is drowning while she swims across the pool, but in reality, she knows what to do and does make forward progress. It is super nice to not be worried about her safety in the water now! Because she made so much progress right at the end of the summer, we decided to keep going with swimming lessons this fall, to really cement what she is learning. Unfortunately, fall swim lessons have to be done at the local athletic club, so Karina and Gabriel have to sit in chairs along the wall and watch. Not nearly as fun as playing in the backyard! Karina regularly asks to go back to the other swimming lessons.
As you can see, Karina and Gabriel and a lot of fun there, too!
They even had a swing set and a tree house to play in!
Here you can see Eliana's new skills!
And she can even jump off the diving board now! These videos were taken in August, she has improved a lot since then.
