Happy Birthday, Gabe!

This year, Gabe turned 7!  We can't believe it either.  Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai were in town and they brought Elvin's aunt and uncle, who happened to be visiting the U.S. from Brazil.  So on Gabe's birthday we celebrated together.

Instead of a traditional birthday cake, Gabe instead wanted brownies.

And then it was time to open presents.

Eliana has started buying presents for her siblings using her own money.  This year she bought a book called "Jokes for 7 year olds."  It was a big hit and Gabe has memorized every joke in it.

His favorite joke is:  Why should you NOT sharpen a broken pencil?

Answer: Because it's pointless!

Gabe is still into stuffed animals and now sleeps every night with this stuffed animal platypus that Karina bought him.

He has outgrown his bike and so off to Walmart we went to purchase a new one.  He chose this green one.

Karina made it clear which one she would want if it were her birthday...

Here is Gabe taking it out for a spin...

Gabe also had a party with his friends.  Karina helped make the cupcakes.  You may notice in the picture brown smudges on Gabes face. This is because he found cocoa powder on the counter and smeared it all over.

Gabe wanted a soccer themed party.  So we did it at an elementary school and set up a soccer field for him to play at.

We served Gatorade in keeping with the sports theme.

And the kids beat up a soccer ball shaped piñata.

After several whacks, the candy spilled out.  Then the kids descended on the piñata like a pack of wolves to tear it apart by hand.

Gabe blew out the candles on his green and blue icing covered cupcakes.

Here are the friends he invited.

And here are the friends he invited acting silly and crazy!

Congrats, Gabe, on another birthday!!!

Happy Easter!

Spring has arrived in our garden and so preparations for Easter were also happening!

The marketing geniuses out there decided that gingerbread houses were not just for Christmas but also for Easter.  And when they made these available at Costco...well the kids just had to have one.  So they had fun decorating it and not too much of the candy made it into their mouths instead of the little house.

We also went to the annual Easter Egg hunt at our church on Saturday.  There were thousands of eggs laid out on the field, but also hundreds of kids.  So you have to be quick!

Afterwards, the boys checked out their loot.

Eliana happened to find one of the coveted golden eggs.  There were only a handful available.  She didn't find one in the field though. She found it by searching through the bins where people returned/recycled their empty eggs.  She found a golden egg that someone inadvertently returned.  She turned it in for a prize!

And then came Easter morning.  Every year, we also do an Easter egg hunt in our house.  We have just remodeled our home and not all the furniture was back in.  So it made it more challenging hiding eggs because there weren't as many hiding places!

Some were on the window sills.

It was still very exciting finding the eggs.

And best of all...some of the eggs had money inside!

And with Easter morning came Easter baskets!  Besides the obligatory Peeps that the kids always get, they also got cotton candy and other treats individualized to their tastes.  For example, Karina doesn't like chocolate so she got a bag of Lay's plain potato chips, which she really likes.  Gabe and Eliana do like chocolate so they got chocolate truffles and chocolate with cinnamon crisps, respectively, from Trader Joe's.

They also got a toy in their baskets.  Guess what Xiao Yu's new toy was?

They also got a little Lego set.

Our Easter breakfast was bacon and crepes.  Yum!

So that was our Easter.  We hope that yours was good as well.

Spring Sports

Spring is here and sports are starting up again.  Gabe is interested in learning basketball and so we signed him up for a basketball sports camp.  It was two 2-hour sessions on a weekend.  The coach taught the 15 or so kids the fundamentals of dribbling, passing, and shooting.

It was a great first exposure for Gabe and he now wants to play basketball more.


Gabriel and Karina also started spring soccer.  Luckily, this spring has been mostly dry.  They each have practice one night a week and a game on Saturdays.

Gabe has rotated into the goalie spot every once in a while.  He loves playing in the game.

This is his team.  This is the first time that he has been willing to pose in the group picture with the rest of his team.

And mid-season, Gabe's soccer cleats gave out.  The sole detached from the shoe, so we make an impromptu trip to Big 5 and buy him another pair.  Either the original pair of cleats were cheapo, or he did a lot of kicking with that foot.  Here he is holding an old shoe and the new one.

We had a really really hot weekend recently.  It was in the 80's.

Karina's reaction to the hot weather was to pour water on her head.

As for Gabe... For some reason, he decided that he needed to wear his sweatpants that day.  That's why his hair is all sweat soaked.  (And this is the same boy that wears shorts and a t-shirt in the winter when it's in the 40's out.)  Not sure about his logic.

Karina also really enjoys soccer.  She has really improved dribbling the ball and being more aggressive with her play.

She has also played goalie, which she says is a lot of pressure.

And we are working on her being able to kick with more power.

This is Karina's team.  They've tied twice but won the rest of their games.

And the kids are also doing swimming.  Karina is learning strokes and getting pretty good.

Gabe...well he still refuses putting his face in the water.  This means that he is stuck in the first level of swimming and won't progress out of that class until then.  He is not a fan of swim class, as you may be able to tell from this picture.

Hopefully some time soon he'll put his face in!

Book worm

Last fall, Gabe started learning how to read in earnest and he made great strides.  Then in the beginning of the year, he become more and more of a fluent reader--reading all the street signs and store signs everywhere.  And then, all of a sudden, he picked up a novel and never looked back.

Now, instead of playing with Legos or drawing, we often see him immersed in the pages of a book.

He is a voracious reader and will sit and read for hours.

The location does not matter.  Even on the stairs is fine with him.

Often while eating a snack.

And now sometimes, he will keep company with his book worm older sister.

Sledding in Sunriver

Last year for Spring Break we had a staycation.  This year we decided to head out to Sunriver near Bend, Oregon.  (We also headed out in order to vacate our house--contractors were doing a little bit of remodeling at our house.)

The kids tolerated the four hour drive by listening to books on tape.

On the first day it was a little rainy and so we went to the local indoor pool, which was fun.  We played ball, and swam around too.  Karina can pretty much swim by herself without a life jacket.  Gabe has not progressed much in swimming because he's not willing to put his face in the water!

We also went to the local park and played, of all things...tetherball.  It was definitely a blast from the past for Emily and Elvin who have not played it since they were in elementary school.

Because it is at a higher elevation in Sunriver, there were still quite a few ice chunks left over from the many inches of snow they got this past winter.

The kids also got to play on electronics (the iPads) which is a special treat.

We had stopped at Costco on the way in and dinner was made up of various Costco items.  The pre-made scalloped potatoes is one of the kids' favorite.

And for dessert, they were allowed to pick out ice cream at the local market.

The next day we drove about 20 minutes to a higher elevation on Mt. Bachelor.  There was an awesome sno park with a very looooong sledding hill.  We were able to pick up extraordinary speed on the sleds!

At night we watched some Jeopardy and also had a movie night--we watched Greatest Showman and the kids are now addicted to the soundtrack of that musical.

The third day we checked out of the condo we rented and headed back up to Mt. Bachelor again, this time to a ski resort.  It was actively snowing up there and there was fresh powder on the ground.

We got passes to the inner tube hill and went down that lots of times.

And then the kids wanted to play in the snow.  We read that there were hundreds of inches of snow up there but didn't believe it.  Until we saw this.  This is a wall of snow on the edge of the parking lot of the ski resort.

But it was not snow anymore but mostly solid ice.

There was a mini-crevasse in there, which the kids thought was fun to go into.

In the crevasses, apparently some of the ice was melting but then re-froze into icicles.  Karina found a long one and wanted to bring it home.  We told her that was pretty much impossible.

She also made a pear out of snow and wanted to bring THIS home.  Also not possible.

Xiao Yu took advantage of the snow on the ground to make a snow angel.

After that, we got into the van, changed clothes, and then headed home!