Nursery Rhymes

With her young age and young brain, Eliana has an impeccable memory.  She has memorized many songs and books and nursery rhymes.  We are always amazed when we will say a word that will trigger her to break out in song, even weeks after we had last talked about that particular song.
Mommy and Daddy were mentioning something about "will he" and our little eavesdropper, out of the blue, started reciting the Wee Willie Winkie nursery rhyme.  Here are the lines in case you need a refresher:

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown,
Tapping at the window and crying through the lock,
Are all the children in their beds, for now it's eight o'clock?

1st day of preschool!

Our little Eliana has grown up fast and is now officially a pre-schooler.  We were not necessarily planning on sending her to preschool this early but about 6 months ago she announced to us that she wanted to go to preschool.  So we scrambled to find out more about the preschools in this area and found one that we are happy with and that Eliana loves.

Last week was her first day of school and she got a new outfit!  It's a dress with a matching outfit for her doll.  She also has her official preschool backpack which she takes to school every day with her official preschool folder.

Elvin was feeling especially sentimental that morning.  He hugged her and kissed her goodbye about 10 times before heading off to work.

Eliana, on the other hand, was not feeling sentimental at all, but wanted to get the show on the road.  The preschool is close by, only 10 min. by car and is held in a neighborhood church building.

Eliana goes to preschool two times a week, from 9am to 11:30am.

Many of Eliana's twelve classmates were clingy on the first day of class.  But not our little extrovert.  She waltzed right in and acquainted herself with the toys and activities.

Eliana likes her teacher, Mrs. Walker.  She has years of experience teaching little ones and it shows.  Because this preschool is a co-op, the parents take turns helping out in the classroom.  Elvin volunteered this past Wednesday and got to see Mrs. Walker in action.  He was impressed by her even keel and patience with the kids.  He was even more impressed that she does this day in and day out.

How was preschool?  It was a cinch!  Here is Eliana relaxing on the couch at home after school.

Copy Cat

Our Karina is now 13 months old and an active little girl. She now crawls or walks everywhere in the house (where there aren't baby gates.)  She likes following around Mommy, Daddy, or her big sister and likes getting into cupboards, drawers or anything else.  Here she is dragging stuff down from the shelves in the pantry.

She's saying the word "ball" and "book" (in both English and Portuguese) and she is signing "all done", "more", "ball", "milk", "water", "please", "dog", "bird", "fish" and--very important--"eat."  She's stopped grunting but now just makes a whiny sound when she wants something.  She is still a voracious eater, and likes a wide variety of foods like teriyaki chicken, ham, white rice, bread, scrambled eggs, watermelon, blueberries, and cheese.

Here is Karina gnawing on a piece of bacon.  (If she sees something we're eating, she'll cry and whine until we let her have a piece...even if it's something that she can't really chew on.)

Here she is trying out Eliana's rocking chair.  Karina is obsessed with chairs right now, even though she doesn't really have the ability to get in or out herself. 

Karina is also an avid copycat and is copying EVERYTHING she sees.  Here she is trying to figure out the mouse.

When Eliana sits down to read a book, Karina grabs herself a book to "read" too.

Especially when the weather was hot, we had a hard time making sure the girls stayed hydrated.  But one way of doing it was to make them share the same glass of water.  When one would see the other drinking, they would copy her until all the water was gone!

Then they used the straws as toys!

Every morning Eliana changes out of her nightime diaper and into panties.  Karina saw her doing that and started trying to put on panties too.  Elvin thought it'd be fun to grant Karina her wish.  Since then, Karina is perpetually taking underwear out of Eliana's drawer and carrying it around the house.  We find random pairs of undies all over!  She also tries to put them on, by laying them on her foot...she doesn't quite get it yet...

Karina has also seen Eliana use the little kid potty in the bathroom.  So Karina wanted to see what it's like to sit on it.

And when brushing teeth, Karina wants to brush as well.

Eliana enjoys using the Swiffer vacuum to clean our kitchen.

So Karina wanted to join in too.

 

A couple of weeks ago, Eliana got a pair of fake Ugg boots from her grandparents.  Karina grabbed them and tried unsuccessfully to put them on.  So Elvin decided to help her out.

Karina had fun walking in boots too big for her and we had fun watching her.

Karina started taking her first steps about 4 weeks ago and now she walks everywhere.  Here's a video showing a progression of her getting better and better at walking...

Karina also likes to accompany Daddy into the backyard to pick cucumbers.  We've been getting about 5 a week, with the recent hot weather.

Up until last week, Karina was still taking 2 naps, but was getting harder and harder to put to down for her naps.  So we decided that Karina was only going to take one nap per day.  For a few days, she would go down at about 11am or noon and would sleep for about 1 hour and sometimes 2 during her mid-day nap.  Right now, she alternates between just one nap and two.

Eliana is very attracted to Karina's crib.  She loves climbing into it and in the instance below, piled in a bunch of her prized possessions from her own room next door.  Then she made a little nest for herself and pretended she was a baby sleeping in the crib.

As soon as we hear Karina waking up from a nap, Eliana asks to "go check on my sister".  And tells us (usually Emily) "don't come yet, I want to check on her mySELF".  She then climbs in with Karina, and they will play and goof around for quite awhile!  Emily has to run upstairs when the playing deteriorates to crying (on Karina's part).  Karina has gotten to the throwing fits stage, and when things don't happen the way she wants, she will lay herself down, scream and cry, and sort of writhe around on the ground.  Disturbing and entertaining...but a sign up her growing up!

Here the girls are during some happy moments in the crib together:

Using toothpaste!

For a long time, Eliana has been asking whether she can use toothpaste when brushing teeth.  And all along, we've been telling her that she has to wait until her 3-year check-up with her dentist, so that we can get an "ok" from him. 

The check-up came and Eliana not only got a new pink princess toothbrush, princess floss, but also a tube of Crest for Kids toothpaste.  She was oh-so-excited.  In the first three days, she brushed her teeth about 12 times.

First, just a dab of toothpaste.

Then brush, brush, brush.

And she has to remember to rinse her mouth and spit out the bubbly white stuff, NOT swallow it (even though it tastes good, at least to her).

And then she rinses out the toothbrush when done.

Now repeat...

Trip to Lincoln City, OR

A couple of weeks ago, Elvin's parents flew up from California on Friday morning and we headed off to the Oregon coast for the weekend.

We timed the 2.5 hour drive pretty well--Karina slept most of the way, and Eliana, well, talked most of the way.  =)

By the time we got to Lincoln City, it was time to eat lunch.  While we were waiting for the food to arrive, Elvin's dad whipped out his iPhone and Eliana became an expert user within 30 seconds.

After lunch, we headed off to the beach.  Even though it was in the high sixties and windy, the girls ended up loving the beach.  All Karina wanted to do was walk on the sand and into the water.  Emily thought it was way too cold to put her feet in the water for long, to Elvin got to do the honors.

This particular beach had a very shallow sandy river running out into the ocean.  This was perfect for wading and made the water not so cold.

In the end, we had to drag Karina back to the car--she didn't want to leave!

Eliana also had lots of fun.  We forgot to bring beach toys.  But a quick trip to the dollar store solved that problem.  Eliana enjoyed building castles.

When it was time to eat dinner, we had a hard time convincing Eliana to leave as well.

We got a sleeping bag for Eliana just for this trip.  Guess what color it is?  Pink, of course!  Eliana loved the "bed" we made for her in the corner of the room--it was merely a comforter folded in half.  As this was her first time sleeping in a sleeping bag, it took some getting used to for her.  She rolls around in her sleep quite a bit but we could tell she felt constrained at times.

The next day, we drove about 45 minutes down highway 101 to Newport, where the Oregon Coast Aquarium is.  The last time we had visited this Aquarium, Eliana was one and a half and Karina hadn't been born yet!

Eliana enjoyed looking for the sharks...

She also enjoyed playing on the statues of different sea animals. 

Meanwhile, Karina stayed in the stroller stuffing her face.  Elvin's parents were time and time again amazed at her appettite.

Eliana also got to touch thing in the tide pools.  She stroked the sea anemone for a long time, but refused to touch the starfish.

During the drive back, everyone took a nap!

We headed back out to the beach...as you can see from the picture below, our hotel was right on the beach, which made it really convenient for us.

Once again, Karina LOVED walking around in the wet sand.

Eliana liked finding rocks and throwing them into the water.

Yeh-yeh helped a bit.

Here's a video of Eliana enjoying the water...

We're not sure what this look is, but it sure makes her seem older than 3 years of age!

Here are the beginnings of a sand castle.  For a three year old, a sand castle is a mound of sand with sticks and other beach debris sticking out the top.

Eventually, lots of sticks, shells, and seaweed got added to the castle as decoration.  You'll notice in the picture, Karina always likes to sit down with her legs crossed for some reason...

Things got really fun for Eliana when we started using a blanket as a sled.  She enjoyed being dragged on the beach.

The next morning, we ate a quick breakfast, and then...

Back to the beach!  That's all Eliana really wanted to do...  And another castle got built.

Before leaving, we stopped by the local outlet mall.  What shoes did Eliana pick out?  Pink sparkly ones, of course!

And we made it back home that evening. The girls had a fun-filled weekend and seemed to enjoy it.  Karina also passed a very important milestone while in Lincoln City--she took her first steps.  She had been cruising for a long time and decided that she would make the leap...