Happy Birthday Eliana!

Back in July, our Eliana turned 12!  It seems like only a short time ago she was a toddler running around the house.

Because of COVID, we had to modify plans a little bit.    Instead of a 'real' party, she invited only two friends and they had a party on our porch.  Really it was just watching a movie together.   Elvin set up the TV outside and they watched "Greatest Showman" together.  

The snacks Eliana chose was orange Crush, grapes, and chips!

And then came time to blow out the candles.

These are chocolate cupcakes topped with raspberry flavored whipped cream.  Eliana made them herself from scratch and they were really moist.  There's twelve candles on them!

Eliana even hollowed each of them out a little bit and put a dollop of homemade strawberry jam inside as a little surprise.

Eliana also celebrated by opening her presents with her siblings.  She got a stand that you can set a cookbook on while baking in the kitchen.

She also got a thing that makes whipped cream using NO2 canisters.

She got an essential oils diffuser that she wanted.

And Eliana wanted chewing gum.  Emily found this deal online where you can buy a combo pack of Trident gum that has every single flavor they make.  They even had dragonfruit flavored gum!

She got a card from Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai.

And the last thing that she wanted was to get her ears pierced!  Emily was finally convinced that Eliana was responsible enough to keep her newly pierced ears clean, so they went to a jewelry store with a friend to get them pierced.  Here is our young lady with ears pierced!  

Happy Birthday, Eliana!!!

Chickens!

It seems like lots of families have been getting chickens because of COVID.  And we decided to jump onto the bandwagon as well!

We paid a visit to Wilco, our local farm store in early August.  While a little late to the game, the kids were still extremely excited about it.  The chickens usually take about 18 weeks to mature and start laying eggs.  We're not sure if they will start laying during the winter, most likely not...so maybe will start laying in the spring...

At the store, they are often sold out...but we called ahead this time.  Karina is admiring all the little chickies.

Here is the lady helping us with the new family members.  We got one that is a Buff Orpington and two Austrolorps.  Both are laying species (as opposed to meat birds) and supposed to be good with kids.

Eliana could hardly wait to get home...

We set them up in a big Rubbermaid tub.   We got them when only several days old and in the beginning they were just balls of fluff.

And then they changed day-to-day seemingly before our eyes.  They quickly sprouted feathers on their wings.

They are very curious little creatures and if you ever put your hand down into the bin, they would come over to inspect it.

The kids love carrying the birds around and this one is helping to read their email.

They also each have their own personalities.  The yellow one, who the kids named Chippy, is the most adventurous.  She will come over at peck at the camera if it is put within reach.

They also like to perch on top of anything high.  So we put a rock in there for them to sit on.  They immediately started pushing each other off, so they could stand on it.  

After a couple of weeks, they look more like chickens with longer necks and tail feathers.  Here again is Chippy approaching the camera.

We tell the kids to handle the birds every day so that when they grow into adult chickens, they will be used to people.  So during home school time, sometimes the girls will hold the chicks on their laps.

They are growing really fast and soon will be ready to move out of the house!

Happy Birthday Gabe!

Back in June, our Gabey turned 8!  We had a fairly tame birthday celebration at home.  In the morning, it was time to open presents!  Hmmmm...which should he choose?

He got a bunch of books, which he loves, since he's a bookworm just like Eliana.  One of the books he got was "Awesome Jokes for 8 year olds".  He got it from Eliana; last year she got him the "7 year old" version of the same series.

Gabe continues to be interested in sports and he asks to go play tennis...which is hard because the park close by with tennis courts had been closed due to the virus.  Nevertheless, we got him a new racket and a bunch of tennis balls.

We also got him a new basketball because his old one got a hole in it.

And his card and red envelope from Yeh yeh and Nai nai arrived.

And another gift Gabe wanted was a odometer and speedometer for his bicycle.  He loves knowing how fast he is going and measuring the distance that he has ridden.  You can see the little monitor mounted on to his handle bars.

Instead of having a party with friends, we set up a Super Nintendo for him and let him play that as much as he wanted, all weekend long!  He loves video games and this was a really special thing!  This Super Nintendo was the one that Emily had growing up and it was found and brought over from Emily's parents' house.  After not being turned on for years and years...it was still working perfectly fine!

What the kids played the most was Super Mario Kart.  They raced against each other or played Battle Mode against each other.  It's amazing how grainy the graphics were compared to games today.

As a special treat, Eliana made Gabe cake pops as his "cake".  She got a cake pop maker a while ago for her birthday.  It took a long time!

Here he is blowing out his "cake" after dinner.

And everyone got to enjoy them...

And Gabe also got to drink Guarana, which is a soft drink from Brazil.

And in a trip down memory lane, for some reason we were looking through his baby pictures and we amazed, once again, at how chubby he was!  

And now he is a 8-year old boy!  Happy Birthday Gabe!

Happy Mother's Day!

This year's Mother's Day was much like other ones.  The kids "surprised" Mommy with breakfast in bed.  They helped with it, including toasting the Eggo waffles and heating up the Mrs. Buttersworth syrup.  Nothing but the best is served here!

And then they all watched Mommy eat breakfast.

Afterwards, Mommy opened up her presents.  They were cards that the kids got for her.  They were paper cut outs and as you open the card, a bouquet of flowers pops up.

They also got her a larger bouquet, which is still sitting on our mantel.

She was pleased with the gifts.  Happy Mother's Day!

Arm all better!

After four weeks in a cast, Karina went back to the hospital for a check-up.  She would get her cast off and then go for X-rays.

Then the doctor would decide whether her arm was healed enough or if she needed to be in a cast for another two weeks.  She REALLY wanted the cast to be gone, but we warned her that it was up to the  doctor!

They took the cast off in order to get a good x-ray.

The doctor decided that her arm was healed up enough so she came home without a cast!  It was a little stiff after being in the cast for a long time.  Also, there was lots of dead skin sloughing off, but Karina was very happy to finally be free!

R.I.P. Swishy

Elvin and the three older kids went away for the weekend on a backpacking trip.

When they came back, they came home to the news that there was a casualty in the aquarium.  Swishy, the white betta fish, unfortunately expired that morning.  There he was laying on his side, lifeless, at the bottom of the tank.

In retrospect, in the past couple of weeks, he has looked more and more sluggish, often resting on the bottom of the tank.  Overall, Eliana took the news fairly well.

So someone needed to scoop up the fish and bury it.  The task fell to Karina because Eliana was too grossed out.  Karina made sure to put on a latex glove for this job.

Eliana did dig a little hole in her raised bed in the backyard.  Karina solemnly placed the fish in there.  And then Xiao Yu helped to pile the earth back on.

Rest in peace, Swishy!

More new family members! Lots of them!

Eliana has a love for animals.  In March, she started researching fish and learning about how to set up and maintain an aquarium.  She also has built up some funds from a babysitting gig she does, so after a bit of planning, off to PetSmart we went.

She ended up getting a 5.5 gallon tank.  She bought the gravel and also several underwater plants.

This tank was made "official" with a filter, themometer and heater for her tropical fish that were soon to come.

It is now all set up!  It just needs several days to rest, according to Eliana, so that the water can get conditioned properly.  

We then headed off to Petco.  However, once we got there, they were ALL sold out of fish.  (And also birds, rodents, reptiles, ferrets--everything!  Apparently we were not the only ones looking for new pets during quarantine.)

She then called Petsmart and found out when their shipments usually came in (Thursday.)  And so on that day, off we went again.  She ended up getting a betta fish and also three little shrimp, called ghost shrimp.

The betta has a pinkish color but is mostly all white.  His name was, at first, Zoomy, because he zoomed around the tank when he was first put in.  And maybe also because the kids have to do Zoom calls for school and they have "zoom" in their brains.  But then they started calling his Swishy...which is the name of the previous fish they had.

The ghost shrimp are really cute and fun to watch.  They hang around the bottom and try to find scraps of food that the fish didn't get.  They are also hard to spot as they are almost the same color as the gravel and are only 1/2 an inch long.

And Eliana also got three fish called zebra danios.  They are tiny little things, about an inch long and dart around like crazy.

Getting to feed the fish is a treat for everyone and many times, the kids can be found doing this...fish watching.