Sisters

Eliana and Karina probably don't remember what life was like when they didn't have each other and neither do we.  They are constantly seeking out each other.  If one is playing upstairs, then the other follows.  Even though Karina copies her big sister a lot, more often than not, Eliana will go and join Karina is a certain activity. 

They love each other's company and here's a little video dedicated to that...

Sprinklers!

We had a spell of hot weather and so it was time to turn on the sprinklers again, Eliana said.  She remembered when we did that last year.
After putting on her swimsuit (a little bit too small for her, but she refuses to wear her new swimsuit because "it doesn't have a skirt") and flip-flops, she was all ready....  And off she went!

Apparently its fun to get squirted in the face.  That's curious for a girl who doesn't like to dip her face into the water in the swimming pool.

At the end, she washed the grass off of her feet and flip-flops by rinsing them in the sprinkler.

Karina wasn't so sure about the whole thing.  At first she watched from the sidelines.

She decided to go out there, but can't move very fast on the grass and doesn't know how to get away from the water if it's getting her in the face.

But she wanted to join in on the action and had Elvin carry her.  Here's a video of Eliana, Karina, and Daddy running around.

In the end, we THINK Karina enjoyed it.

Happy Mother's Day!

We had a very low key Mother's Day...  trying to finish up last minute preparations before baby comes. 

Eliana made a very sweet card (with help from a babysitter) for her mom and here it is.

On the front cover, it says: "TO MOMMA" (Eliana writes in all CAPS only.  She refuses to learn the small letters, for some reason.)  And she decorated it with jewel stickers.

On the inside, it says: "HAPPY MOTHERS DAY" and then below "U LOVE YOU".  We think she meant to write "I love you."  The person she drew is a girl, with a mustache and beard, she says.  The drawing below is open to interpretation.  Eliana says that it's a drawing of our family.  Karina is the short one all the way to the right.  Emily is on the left--the circle around the belly shows the fact that she's pregnant.

And "FROM ELIANA" on the back.

Hope you had a good Mother's Day as well!

Another week...

Baby boy is due in 5 weeks so we are trying to take advantage of the time before #3 arrives.  We are also trying to take advantage of the good weather we are having. 

Here are the girls having a little tailgate party on our driveway.  However, instead of hot dogs and hamburgers, they are munching on slices of apples.

The girls definetely enjoy each other's company.  Even though they are two years apart, they find a lot of things in common to laugh about.

Becase of the sunny weather, the girls have gotten to engage in one of their favorite activities--taking a walk around the block.  Sometimes they'll both want to ride their bicycles, or in this case, they are both pushing strollers.  Weather permitting, they do this at least once per day and even though the distance is not very long (it would take a normal person about 5 minutes to walk around the block), the girls feel the need to stop and examine every bush, crack in the sidewalk, or lawn ornament along the way which means that this can take as much as 1/2 an hour.

Walking around the block, though, is not without its risks.  On a particular warm day, it was in the 70's here.  Karina was wearing shorts, fell down, and skinned her knees.  Since this is the first time she's skinned her knees in her life, we decided to document it.  She still has scabs on her knees and points them out whenever they get exposed.

Eliana recently got some hand-me-downs from her older cousins which included a full-body cat suit.  It is much to big for her, but that didn't stop her.  She asked when Halloween was and then put the suit on.  She even requested that Mommy paint whiskers on her face.

And because her older sister got whiskers, Karina wanted them too.

Eliana's really been into Scotch tape recently, for some reason.  She is obsessed with it and wants to Scotch tape everything. We will find random items with Scotch tape on them, including our clothes.

Here she is Scotch taping some paper onto her "Rain Graph" (her homework from preschool; it's to keep track of which days it's rained or not.)

Here is one of her drawings (made during Chinese lesson).  She Scotch taped it to her wall in her bedroom.  You can kind of make out the Scotch tape in the picture--she used about 3 feet of tape.

Here she is taping the wheels on a pull-along dog toy she got.  Not sure why...

And a couple of weeks ago, Eliana also was refusing to go to bed on time (she will keep herself awake by singing to herself, tossing/turning, drinking water then asking to go to the bathroom, etc.), getting up at night for an hour or more, and then getting up early.  This was making her very tired, which makes her very grouchy and also makes her pass out during the day if she lays still for just a while.  (She doesn't take naps anymore and stopped taking naps months ago.)  The reason why we normally don't let Eliana take naps is that it pushes back her bedtime by even more time than what she napped.  So it's a net loss of sleep.

She fell asleep again the next day.  That night she finally fell asleep at around 10pm instead of her usual 8pm.

And since Eliana was born in the Year of the Rat, we think that this has made her into a pack rat.  She likes to accumulate things.  Anything shiny or trinkety will get stuffed into a purse, or in this case, a drawer in her night stand.

And Emily calls Eliana's bed a rat's nest.  One time we counted 12 stuffed animals, 4 blankets, two head bands, 3 dolls, and one magic wand on her bed.  (In the picture below, we also found a little sister on her bed too.)

Karina is growing and talking more every day.  She is also putting two and three words together.  Her new words are usually in English and/or a sign, but every once in a while, a new word will be in Portuguese.  Recently, she started saying "mao" (hand) and "abrir" (open). 

Here is Karina telling us to pray before our dinner starts.  If we ever forget, she reminds us.

Karina's hand-to-eye coordination continues to amaze us.  The other night we were eating ramen for dinner.  Because Mommy and Daddy were using chopsticks, she wanted a set as well.  It turns out that she was actually able to get food into her mouth.

Karina's insatiable appetite contributes to her robust belly.  At 30 or so pounds, she is only 8 pounds behind her big sister.  At the same time, her growth does seem to have slowed down.

Karina has taken a real interest in helping Elvin out in the kitchen as of late.  Here she is trying to mince garlic with Daddy.  It wasn't very easy to do with the butter knife.

Here she is helping Elvin make grilled cheese sandwiches.  She piled on about 4 slices into the one sandwich.

And then she assembled it.  The only catch is that Daddy had to take it apart in order to put it on the griddle.

And Karina finally has the attention span to sit down and watch videos for more than 2 or 3 minutes.  This is partly why her language has taken off...she is getting a daily dose of the Baby Signing Time videos where she picks up a lot of her signs.  And Eliana is such a TV addict that she is willing to watch almost anything on TV and so joins in with Karina.

Karina's gross motor skills are also improving.  Eliana is good at hopping and jumping and Karina has always wanted to jump along with her sister.  As you can see in the video, she still has a hard time defying gravity.

The two girls entertain each other in varous ways.  Here's a game they devised which escalated into something else...

And the girls enjoy doing a game where they hug/wrestle each other.  It's sort of not fair for Karina since her big sister outweighs her by a fair amount and her big sister's arms are about 8 inches longer too (good for grabbing little sister around the neck.)

 

And there you are.  We are using up our last few weeks before the baby comes doing some last minute projects around the house.  Elvin has been busy putting in the garden (tomatoes, cucumbers, beets) and we're trying to organize various things in our house before baby arrives.  Hope you are doing well!

Easter Weekend

Happy Easter, everyone!  We had a pretty full weekend.  We started it off by decorating some eggs on Friday evening.  This was a new experience for both of the girls.

Sometimes getting in on the action can be a contact sport!

Eliana helped dip (i.e. drop) some of the eggs into the dye.  All of her fingers also got dyed in the process.

Karina watched.  Sometimes she can be a patient little girl.

And the girls finished things up by putting stickers on the eggs.

The next day, it was a perfectly nice day and Eliana's cousins from Seattle and Portland got together at Oaks Park, a small amusement park south of Portland.  Eliana rode on a merry-go-round as well as other rides.  There was a super tall slide where you sat on a piece of slick carpet as you slid down.  Elvin and Eliana rode on that about 30 times.  Karina, unfortunately, was sick and stayed home.

Both girl cousins got cotton candy as a treat and shared some with Eliana. 

 Later on in the day, they hung out at Grandma's before Easter dinner on Saturday.

Sunday started off with an Easter egg hunt at home.

Instead of filling all the eggs with candy, we bought a little Hello Kitty set with small toys and stuffed those things in the eggs.  Eliana thought that was very exciting.

Karina got her share of eggs too.

We felt like we put out enough eggs for the both of them.  But obviously, they didn't agree.  Karina is very good at saying "mine!" and hiding the coveted object behind her back.

Plenty of eggs had jelly beans and marshmallows too.

We hope you had a good Easter too!

Karina's Antics

Sometime in the past month, Karina has transitioned from being a baby/toddler to a little girl.  She is much more communicative now, playful and mischevious.  One of her favorite activities is to offer food or a toy to someone.  Then just as you're about to accept it from her, she'll snatch it back and (in the case of food) stuff it into her own mouth.
Here she is trying out mommy's slippers.

And here she is trying to track down Emily's whereabouts.  Instead of wandering around the house looking for Emily, Karina will instead yell "Mommy!!!" at the top of her lungs until Emily responds. 

And the other day, Emily put some pony tails in Karina's hair.  It totally changed the way she looked and made her look months older. 

But Karina isn't used to them and generally doesn't like things in her hair...

So after about a minute...

Off they come!

And now she's back to 'normal'!