Growing up...

Eliana always likes new clothes - and she just got some! Nai-Nai sent her a fancy new dress, and she has new boots! She has been asking for boots for quite awhile, and we finally let her pick some out. There were plain brown ones (which Emily tried to point her towards) but she was very sure she wanted "the pink ones with zippers, Mommy". So...here they are!

Eliana has recently discovered the fun of making cookies, and asks to make them almost everyday. (we don't make them everyday, though) She especially likes to stir.

Here, we are making sugar cookies. She is very good at rolling out the dough -- and practices in the bathtub, singing "row, row, row the dough" -- and is not so adept at using cookie cutters effectively.

If you look at the shapes, there is a majority of dinosaurs. Eliana loves dinosaurs, for some reason. We have a set of dinosaur cookie cutters, which she wanted to use -no interest in the butterfly, flower, heart, or teddy bear shapes. And then the frosting! The only trick here is getting her to just frost the cookies, rather than frost her finger and eat it.
This one was a brontosaurus, before she bit its head off...

Continuing in her love of all things Karina's... here is Eliana eating her orange while sitting in the baby swing.
For all of Eliana's growing up, she still really needs to take a nap in the afternoon, or she just can't quite function by early evening. She is starting to resist naps, though. Here is the result: Dinnertime....but Eliana will NOT get up!

In this one, Ellie fell asleep sitting on the sofa reading. Doesn't look very comfortable!

In this one, Eliana fell asleep in the car, and couldn't even be woken up to take her coat off. (She has her pajamas on -- her favorite clothes. On days we don't have any plans, we sometimes let her wear jammies all day).

Karina is also growing up! She loves to sit at the table, and eats her "meals" with us now. She has two teeth on the bottom (which are very hard to get a picture of) and is starting to eat crackers and cheerios. You'll notice Karina is also wearing pajamas in this picture...and every picture you ever see of her. Because of her substantial tummy and thighs, it is very hard to find pants that don't squeeze her, if they even fit over her bottom. Also, due to her very stout legs, socks will NOT stay on her feet (they slide off), but her ankles are too chubby for shoes to go around. As a result, the only clothes that really fit her, and keep her warm are footie one-piece jammies. We periodically get asked if we ever put "real" clothes on her...

Karina is finally getting the hang of eating baby cereal and fruit and veggie mush. We didn't have much luck for a long time, she would only take a few bites, and was always grabbing the spoon and making a huge mess. We finally thought of warming the food up - and voila, she eats it no problem! (Our excuse for not doing this sooner is that Ellie never cared, she would and still does, eat food straight out of the fridge or freezer.) In the video you can see her eating, like a normal cooperative baby!

Karina still can't roll or scoot or anything, but she likes to contort her body around in funny ways. Her new thing is to flop over when we are holding her. Maybe seeing the world sideways for a change is more fun?
And, she can sit up! She is very very steady now, and can happily sit and play with (chew on) toys for half an hour or more! Yeah! Here she is holding her white rat, which Eliana is convinced is a hamster. "It's a hamster Daddy!"

Snowy morning...

Last week, it was unusually cold and huge flakes started falling in the morning. Not many forecasters predicted this and it caught some off guard. Soon the backyard was covered in about 1/2 inch of snow. The girls bundled up to take advantage of the snow!

This was finally Eliana's chance at building a snowman. Given that there was only a little dusting of snow on the ground and that it was so wet, the snowman was actually the size of a smurf. Lately, she has started a habit where she refuses to smile for the camera. She'll purposely make a morose face for the picture. If she starts to smile, she'll turn her face away.

Here's a close up of the snowman. Emily helped with the things on the face, but Eliana used a leaf as his hat.
Eliana enjoyed the snow so much that she stayed outside for a while, exploring her surroundings.

Happy Valen-time Day!

Eliana calls it Valen-time Day. Maybe she thinks it's similar to rest-time or nap-time. But she had fun making a card for Daddy and decorating cupcakes. When Daddy came home from work, he gave her a bouquet of red tulips and a card as well. She calls the tulips "roses". Eliana has taken a real interest of helping out in the kitchen. She wants to help make mac-n-cheese, scrambled eggs, and do other things. Here, she helped make bread dough by measuring the flour, water, salt, and yeast, and then using a pair of chopsticks to mix everything together.
This past weekend, we visited the Portland Children's Museum. We think it's less of a museum in the traditional sense and more of a indoor area with lots of different activities for kids. I guess it's important to have indoor playgrounds in this rain-soaked area of the country. Eliana enjoyed going shopping in the fake grocery store with a cart just the right size for her.

The Museum has a "water room" with a table where water flowed downhill. You can move the blue panels to create dams or to channel the water in a certain direction. It was funny watching all the engineer-type dads take over and attempt to recreate the Panama Canal or something. Eliana just enjoyed hoarding and playing with the boats. Eliana also enjoyed the clay room. Elvin also enjoyed it, as he got to re-live, for 10 minutes, his ceramics days from high school.

Karina is continuing to grow up. While she still can't roll at all, she has learned to sit up by herself reliably. The amazing thing is that on Sunday she could not and by Tuesday she had it down pat.

Every evening, our routine after bathtime includes putting on jammies, brushing teeth, reading two books, and reading Eliana's picture Bible. We also say a little prayer before bed and Eliana has also decided she wants to pray as well. It is very entertaining, as it reflects the stream-of-consciousness side of her personality.

Chinese New Year!

Happy belated Chinese New Year! Two weekends ago we invited some friemds for a dinner of hot pot. On Wednesday, Eliana got a red envelope--we stuffed a couple of chocolate gold coins in there.

Karina is happy and growing. She is now 6 months old and had her checck up this week. At 20.5 pounds, she is still off the charts. Her pediatrician checked her ears and said that the one thing small about her are her ear canals. "She has tiny ear canals."

She eats solids during dinner everyday. We've tried giving her baby food pears and other flavors, but her favorite by far has been butternut squash. Elvin is the only other person in the house who likes butternut squash.

We sometimes put Karina in this contraption. She will play in it for a few minutes.

Eliana, on the other hand, loves to climb in, and play for a long time. Look how scrunched up her legs are.
The problem is she can't climb out herself. Once she was stuck in it for 10 minutes while Emily was upstairs feeding Karina.
The sunny weather means trips to the nearby park.

It's been a while since Eliama's been to the slide.

Eliana's grandma got her a new helmet. Because Eliana has a humongous head, she got a helmet for a 4 year old. She likes wearing it.

Eliana has declared that she's ready for the big girl swing. She knows she's not supposed to let go of the chains ever. She also knows there's a special technique to make yourself go, but it still eludes her.

Karina continues to find her sister irresistible. Eliana's antics often makes Karina crack up over and over...

Teething...

Karina is almost 6 months old now. All last week, she seemed especially fussy. Then we realized the cause--she was teething. Just like when her older sister first started teething, Karina has two little teeth coming out on the lower jaw. And just like her sister, Karina started teething at 6 months. Eliana and Karina still get along really well. Eliana, most of the time, tries to be a good older sister. If she sees that Karina is fussing, she'll stop what she is doing to fetch a toy for Karina. And she does this without any prompting.

Karina is getting better at eating solids. She is finally getting the hang of swallowing food. Right now, she's having some rice cereal and baby yogurt.

As you will see, Karina likes to grab the spoon and put it into her mouth herself. Unfortunately, she sometimes misses the handle of the spoon and grabs the food itself, which makes for a messy meal.


In addition to Karina being fussy, Eliana caught a little cold. It actually didn't slow her down very much, except for the fact that she complained about a sore throat (actually, she said her neck hurt, which we then decoded) during the night. She actually enjoyed being sick because then she could take grape-flavored medicine. She seems to be 90% better now. We are lucky that this is the first time this winter that either of the girls have gotten sick. Unfortunately, the cold has spread to Emily, but so far Elvin and Karina have been spared.

One night, Eliana came up with a creative position to sleep in. She adjusted her pillow sideways, then propped up her feet onto her bed rails. Then fell asleep. We took her feet off of the rails, just in case she was cutting off the circulation to her poor little feet.
What happens when you leave a two-year old with casette tapes? Yes, we have casette tapes and actually use them all the time. We have a tape player that Eliana can operate herself, and Eliana plays tapes of children's music that Emily actually had when she was a kid. This red casette tape, however, is done for.

A sunny week...

Karina is starting to say some consonants, like "gooo" and "baa". She grab things well (she got Elvin's glasses the other day) and is learning how to stand up more and more. She is content to sit somewhere or lay on the floor if there is something entertaining going on.

Karina still enjoys bathtime, for the most part. As long as she has a toy to suck on, she is happy.

We're trying solids again with Karina. This time, she is actually swallowing some of the food instead of spitting it back out. But after every bite, she likes to suck on her bib, so it's anyone's guess as to how much she is eating versus how much is getting plastered onto her bib.

Karina likes playing peek-a-boo. Her little giggles are quite infectious.


This past week, we have had quite a few days of sun. Eliana's comment about this was, "I never see that before!" She put on her sunglasses in celebration.

Sunny weather means that Daddy can be in the backyard finishing up the fall cleanup. Eliana also came along to help. She used her shovel to fill up a bucket full of dirt. She asked Elvin to put worms in it, then she buried the worms. "I love worms," she says. We think she likes worms because she associates worms with gummy worms. But, in her defense, she really does like worms, and will hold them and play with them.

She also helped rake the leaves off of the grass.

"I want paint hands, Mommy!" That's what Eliana calls finger-painting. After putting on an old T-shirt, she is ready.

The masterpiece comes to life. Eliana actually did a pretty good job, but wasn't used to her hands being covered in paint. She asked Emily to wipe them clean periodically.

This past weekend was Grandma's birthday, so some family and cousins came over to celebrate. Eliana wanted to help blow out the candles and pre-emptively blew out about half of them before we could stop her.
All the girl cousins hung out and played with each other.

After almost everyone had left, Grandpa and Eliana stayed in the living room to relax and read books.

Eliana's Half-Birthday

Eliana's half-birthday was last weekend. Just for the fun of it, we decided to celebrate it. It was the first weekend in a while where we had no big events planned and could just take it easy the entire weekend. We got a coupon for a free ice cream from Cold Stones. So we told Eliana she could get ice cream on her half birthday. She was very proud of her coupon and pretended that she could read what was on it...


On Sunday afternoon, we visited Petsmart, which is closer than the zoo and almost as interesting. We saw dogs, kitties, and birds. She didn't like the snakes or lizards.

We also made cupcakes in the evening. She thought all her cousins were coming over for her half-birthday party (they came over for her 2-year party), but we told her this party would be a small one, just our family. We put two candles in the cup cake, plus another one sticking out halfway. She blew them out all by herself (during her 2-year party, she didn't have the coordination to do that.)

This past week, Emily also took Eliana and Karina clothes shopping. Eliana has always admired her girl cousins' night gowns. Now, she has one of her own. Here she is modeling it.

Karina got some new outfits as well, since she is growing like a weed. She is now wearing 12-mo. pajamas!
Karina has, thankfully, stopped her raspy throat sound, and makes more normal, baby-like noises. She makes a pitiful sounding whimper when she is not happy. Elvin thinks it is very cute.

Karina continues to be her happy self. She can kind of sit up by herself already and has a grip as strong as anyones. Elvin has had his cheek grabbed by her and felt like she almost tore his skin off. At the same time, she can't roll at all; she wouldn't be able to roll if her life depended on it.