Growing Up Like Big Sister

Lydia is growing up quickly; she turns 11 months old today. One thing we have noticed is how much she looks up to Karina and wants to do everything she sees the big kids doing. She has developed a love of reading and knows which books are hers. Her favorites are Peek a Who, and Moo, Baa, La La La (the same books Karina loved when she was a baby).  She will pull them off the shelf and bring them over to us to read to her over and over again. 

We recently added wall cabinets to our laundry room. Tanja put them together and left it to me to finish them off with the thin board in the back. Karina wanted to help me hammer nails into it, so she got her wooden mallet and pounded on a few nails with me and even managed to get them to go down a little bit. 

Lydia was quite upset that exciting things were going on without her. We had done what we could to keep her away from the room while construction was going on since we didn't want her to put loose nails and screws in her mouth. She kept shrieking and crawling full speed to the living room every time we removed her (for her own safety). When she finally snuck past us, she blew right past the screws and nails, and grabbed the mallet straight away.  She began squealing with excitement as she banged it happily against the cabinet just like she saw Karina do. It was so cute to see her wanting to be just like Karina and me.

Last weekend, we went down to DC for the annual open houses at the embassies. This year, we were there for the European Union portion, and we visited the Netherlands, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia. The Netherlands did the most and was where we spent most of our time. Here's Karina in a pair of huge clogs - she thought they were funny.

They had a photo booth at the Netherlands embassy. Amazingly enough, the family portrait actually didn't turn out too badly.  The girls liked the tulips.

Five European countries in one day and the highlight for Karina was the bus that shuttled us between them. She was so excited to ride a bus - I guess since it was her first time and she had been watching school buses come and pick up the big kids her whole life, it would be pretty exciting to ride a bus.

Lydia liked the bus too.

Here's Karina in the children's area at the Hungarian embassy playing in some pillows.

Earlier this week, a couple kids came over to the house for a few hours. Apparently, they were riding the toy train around the house. When I came home from work hours later, Lydia decided it should be her turn and she had climbed aboard the train and was so excited to be just like the big kids. She is remarkably observant and very cute.

Karina had her 3-year doctor's appointment a few weeks ago and did really well despite being nervous about it. Here are her stats.

Height: 38 inches (72nd percentile)
Weight: 32 pounds (63rd percentile)