First Week of School!

Before the first day of school hit us, we had 3 fun events. 

First, Eli graduated to an orange belt! We were really proud of him. And he was so excited because now he can officially begin the sparring classes. He absolutely cannot wait.

Look at him doing his form!

Elina, on the other hand, decided to take a break from karate for this season. She doesn't have an interest in sparring at all and she said karate hasn't been as fun lately. So we'll have to see where this leads us with her. Eli is just so into karate and you can see it when he's doing his forms. Even if it's incorrect you can tell he loves it and he wants to get a black belt so badly. It's adorable.

Then we also had our annual back-to-school ice cream party with AM and his family. So much fun again!  This year I bought lots of different flavors, nothing really classic.  I got a few of the Ben and Jerry's Greek Frozen Yogurt flavors and even some Haagen Dazs gelatos.  I also splurged on 2 expensive pints that sounded so delicious, I couldn't resist.  I mean, when else am I going to buy myself a pint of ice cream for $6.75?  I figured this was a time to buy something like that to share with friends!  

This year there were no clear winners with the flavors and some of us were more stingy with our ratings as well.  It turns out all the Greek frozen yogurt flavors tasted more cheesecake-y.  Since Elina is really into cheesecake, she loved them!  Here were our top family favorites--
1. McConnell's Eureka Lemon and Marionberries: so zesty and delicious!
2. Ben and Jerry's Hazed and Confused: just plain yum!
3. Haagen Dazs' Black Cherry Amaretto Gelato: tastes similar to Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia, but still just as yummy!
We are really loving this new tradition!

The day before school started we also decided to take a family trip to Six Flags.  We figured it would be a good way to wear out the kids and have fun.  It wasn't crowded at all so it was pure heaven!  The kids rode all their favorite rides multiple times.  It was great!

Elina even got the nerve to try the new Iron Rattler and she absolutely loved it.  Bogie was so excited about it all!

The first week back to school was pretty great. Tiring but great. Eli only had half days so it was still fun.

For back-to-school cereals this year, we had Crunch Berries for Elina,

Corn Puffs (generic brand of Pops) for Eli,

and Lucky Charms for Evie.

Elina's new teacher seems really nice.  She's a former kindergarten/1st grade teacher, so we're thinking she'll be sweet.  Since Elina's school is a new school, the classes are small and she only has 16 kids in her class.  I'm hoping this will be a great year for her!  In addition to being at a new school, Elina is now riding the school bus home after school.  I just physically can't make it to Elina's school because of Eli's new pick-up time at his school.  Elina was nervous and so was I.  It didn't help that everything ran late the first day.  Elina's bus was 15 minutes late and I was almost frantic about it...you know, like a crazy mom.  But after that first day, things have been running smoothly.  Plus, Elina has a friend from last year on the bus, so she was super excited about that!

Eli finally has Elina's 1st grade teacher, Mrs. V....honestly, one of the best teachers ever.  Ever since Elina left 1st grade, Eli has been telling Mrs. V at school, "I'm almost there!  I'm almost in 1st grade!"  And now he's finally there!  Yay!

And now Evie is finally in school!  She's only there Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9am-12pm, but it's still sad to me.  I almost had tears in my eyes leaving her there and she quickly said bye and ran off to play in the play kitchen.  She's been so excited to go to school and I know I've probably been a bore at home...but it was hard for me to watch her go.  She had a fun week at school...I always love to hear her stories about new friends and activities.  She's been so excited to tell us about everything!

So what have Eulee and I been up to?  We've been running errands, visiting with friends, and going to Gymboree.  It's not a huge amount of time with just me and Eulee, but we've been making the most of it.  Love this girl!  I'm sad to see my kids go off to school...I always love love love summer, but it's also been nice spending some one on one time with Eulee.

Eulee Turned 2!

Eulee is 2!!

Weight: 26 lbs 9.5 oz (50th percentile)

Height: 33.5" (51st percentile)

Eulee turned 2 right after we got back from Mexico.  B's parents came into town that weekend to celebrate with us.  It was a fun-filled weekend for Eulee!

On her birthday she had orange birthday pancakes.  She loves oranges so we thought it was the right choice.  But actually, she thought the pancakes were too weird-looking and she refused to eat them!  She would only eat the ones that didn't have color.  Oops.

Then we took her to the Kiddie Park because it's one of her favorite places.  The 2 oldest kids weren't TOO interested, but I think they secretly had some fun.  Eulee's favorite ride this time was definitely the school bus ride.  There was a point where we couldn't even get her off of it.  She just refused to leave!

After a much-needed nap, Elina threw Eulee one of her famous parties.  First we ate a Fresh Orange Cake that I made for Eulee.  Her favorite fruit right now are oranges, so Elina thought it was the best choice for her.  And since she's such a big fan of Mickey Mouse, I bought a Mickey cake topper for it.  The cake was yummy and pretty cute!

Then Elina had the bonus room decorated and setup for Eulee to open presents and then to have a dance party.  Elina served up some of Eulee's favorite snacks--gummy bears, marshmallows, and dried shredded pork (ba hu).  Just your usual party fare.  =)

Eulee did a great job ripping open her gifts.

The kids got her the classic Fisher Price record player and she is loving it so far.  She also got a Mickey Mouse book and she loves saying his name--
Then Elina turned off the lights and turned on her "Party!" sign and party lights and we turned up the music and the kids just danced.  It was crazy, but super fun!  I just loved watching them all do their things.  LOVE their dance parties!

The next day we also took the kids to the Children's Museum because it's another one of Eulee's favorite places.  This year we asked the grandparents to get memberships as presents.  So B's parents got the one for the museum and my parents got the zoo membership.  (Thank you very much!) This way Eulee can have fun while her siblings are all in school!  There were lots of special things for Eulee's age group that day...a story and craft time...and a special tot play area.  The other kids were actually saying, "I wish I was a baby!"  Ha!

We just can't believe Eulee is already 2 now.  She's super sweet and snuggly.  She loves giving out hugs and sitting in your lap.  BUT she is also super feisty.  She won't hesitate to slap you if you take something away from her.  Seriously.  She can be vicious.  Even the kids are starting to dodge her hands when they know she's not happy about something.  If things have been peaceful for a solid 10 minutes, I know that I will hear someone crying, "Eulee!!!  Be soft!!" soon enough.  It's unnerving.  The good thing is that we've been really working with her for the past few weeks and we are FINALLY FINALLY seeing some results.  If she hits someone after a warning, then we call it an "Uh-oh" and we put her on the stairs by herself.  She hates it...and now it seems to be working because after a warning, she'll be soft and say "sowwy" and give hugs.  At least we know she's learning something.  It's definitely been a rough couple of weeks over here...lots of injuries caused by a 2 year old.

Other than that, Eulee is just a  funny little girl.  She loves to copy her siblings.  In fact, there are lots of things that she says and does that totally remind me of them.  It's really scary sometimes.  Her favorite playmate though is Evie, just because they spend so much time together.  They play tag, dress up, and sleepover together all the time.  They're like 2 peas in a pod.

She also loves to sing and dance.  Besides the songs from "Frozen," she can really belt out Katy Perry's "Roar" and Sara Bareilles' "Brave."  It's awesome...truly awesome.
She also loves to swim.  She doesn't stop once she hits the water.  She will jump right in whether or not someone is standing there.  It's actually kind of frightening.  Needless to say, whenever we're at the pool with her, it can be pretty exhausting.  She's just so brave...maybe it's a 4th kid thing.  She sees everyone doing things and she just wants to go for it.

Eulee is defintely growing up quickly.  She even knows how to smile well for a camera now so it's been a lot easier getting good pictures of her.  What a cutie!

Happy 2nd birthday, little one!

Elina at 9

This year Elina turned 9.  She is still a petite thing, but definitely growing up.

Weight: 49 lbs 11.5 oz (5th percentile)

Height: 48" (3rd percentile)

Elina is definitely more helpful than ever these days.  She has learned to cook a few things and her cornbread is really delicious.  Seriously.  And I'm not saying that just because I'm her mom.  Of course I handle the oven portion, but besides that I let her get all the ingredients, mix everything together, and then clean it all up.  It's pretty great!

Most of the time, Elina is great with chores around the house and she is even more helpful with the little ones.  I'm always thankful for her help!  She's become such a wonderful big sister...she finds all kinds of ways to make them laugh.  They just adore her.

Now that Elina is 9, she is definitely showing signs of "tween" characteristics.  Sometimes she is more defensive when she does something wrong...even if it's an accident.  She can take words and phrases out of context and misinterpret things.  She also has this tendency to take on this "woe is me" attitude whenever she makes a poor choice.  She'll say things like, "I'm the rudest person in the world."  Dealing with all this hasn't been the most fun, but I try to nip things in the bud when I can.  She's a great kid, but now it can be mentally exhausting some days.  We were really seeing it a lot right before the summer, but since summer began it's definitely calmed down some.  Phew!

For the most part though, Elina is a sweet little girl.  She still enjoys drawing, telling jokes, catching bugs, doing puzzles, and reading.  She also throws the best parties at our house.  Of course, it's usually only family but they're actually thoughtful, fun parties!

Elina definitely provides a lot of the entertainment at the house!  We love this girl!


Here are Elina's favorites now that she's 9--

Favorite animal: a turtle and a tortoise

Favorite color: green

Favorite book: The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Favorite activity: drawing

Favorite food: red bean bao zi (steamed buns) and mapo tofu

Favorite drink: vanilla bean frappuccino

Favorite restaurant: Yummi Sushi

Favorite show: My Little Pony

Favorite movie: Despicable Me 2

Favorite song: Brave (Sara Bareilles) and Roar (Katy Perry)

Favorite dinosaur: allosaurus

Favorite piece of clothing: my tulip skirt

When I grow up, I want to be...an artist, photographer, and paleontologist.

The Riviera Maya Yao-cation!

We just got back from a family vacation with my parents and my sisters and their families.  There were 13 of us and we had a blast in Riviera Maya, Mexico for 5 days.  Lots of fun and lots of great memories!  J and V even designed family vacay t-shirts for our group!  This was called the "Yao-cation" since that's my family's last name.  All the shirts were color-coordinated by families.  So dorky, but so great!

Besides hanging out at the pool and beach, we also had an all-day excursion our second day.  There are definitely too many pics and videos to post here (check out all our pics on our smugmug page 1 and page 2), so here's a rundown of what we did--

*POOL TIME: There were lots of pools at the resort, but the kiddie pool was definitely the place to find our kids.  Lots of fun slides!  What a blast!  (Although to B's dismay, adults were NOT allowed on the slides!)

*BEACH TIME: The beach was beautiful.

It was rocky, but that's what made it so different.  The kids found lots of critters in the tide pools...sea urchins, a sea slug, a sea worm-looking thing, tons of hermit crabs, and tons of fish.

B and V also took Eli out snorkeling to a reef right by our beach.  The guys had a great time out there!  I love that Eli can be "one of the guys" now...and he loves it too.

We also rented a jet ski and everyone took turns on it.  This definitely isn't Eli's thing.  After a few minutes, he wanted to go back to shore.  He's not a thrill ride kinda guy.  Elina, on the other hand, was in heaven!  She wanted the ride to be faster.  She's my roller coaster girl now!

*TULUM: This was the first part of our excursion.  We spent about an hour walking around the ruins.  There were so many iguanas walking around that Elina ended up taking more pictures of the iguanas rather than the ruins!  It was crazy!  I'm not even sure she noticed the ruins...

...but we sure did!  Beautiful, right?

*DOS OJOS CENOTE: This cave was just amazing!  The water was so cold and crystal clear.

We all had to wear wetsuits and Eulee really rocked hers!

The babies floated around us while the rest of us snorkeled.

We even went through this really narrow area that opened up into another cave that had an opening on the ceiling.  It looked like something out of National Geographic.

*YAL-KU LAGOON: It's a lagoon with a mix of freshwater and saltwater and is just filled with beautiful fish.  The water is so calm...and it's so relaxing snorkeling through there.  Lots of damselfish, sergeant majors, parrotfish, blue tangs, and queen triggerfish.  Awesome! It was hard to take good pictures of all the moving fish though.

*AKUMAL BAY: We snorkeled in the bay to check out sea turtles and we were lucky to see a few up-close.  It was breathtaking to see the turtles so close.  They're just eating sea grass and chillin'.  Just beautiful.  It was hard work to swim out to the turtles because of the currents, but it was worth it!

B even let out the air in his life jacket so he could get down closer to the turtle for a picture.

And Eli was such a strong swimmer the entire day.  He fell in love with snorkeling after this day.  He says he wants all the snorkeling gear so that he can swim fast all the time.  Elina, on the other hand, was not a fan of snorkeling.  She just didn't feel comfortable and always got water in her mouth.  So, she likes the thrill rides and Eli enjoys the water sports.  Ha!  But the kid who deserved a real A for effort was Evie.  She just hung on the life preserver ring and fought the current with the guide and kept putting her face in to look at everything we looked at.  She loved every minute of it!

We have video footage of all the underwater stuff on V's GoPro, but we have to wait to get it.  Maybe I'll have to make another post with the videos just so you can see how amazing everything was!

*EULEE'S BIRTHDAY: We did an early celebration with my family while we were away.  Eulee was in heaven!

Besides all the activities, we did some shopping and ate lots of food at the buffet and restaurants.  It was our first time at an all-inclusive resort and it was definitely fun!

The flights were pretty uneventful, which is always a good thing.  This trip was easier than past trips because almost all the kids could carry/pull their own carry-on bags!  It was awesome!  We were thankful we decided to travel through Austin because it helped TREMENDOUSLY to have 2 extra sets of hands (J and V) going through airports and going through customs.  We would have been SOOOOO slow without them...and there probably would have been some yelling and crying.  Thank you two so much!

The kids all miss Mexico and so do we!  When all the kids are old enough, we're going to go back so we can swim with the whale sharks!  But for now, adios, Mexico!