Things I love about this video:

(1) We have no idea where the Spanish came from. Our best guess is “Dora the Explorer”…

(2) The part at the end when she is counting on her fingers and can’t get “7″ to work absolutely kills me.

(3) Building on #1, her go to counting language appears to be Spanish despite having english-speaking parents and attending a Mandarin immersion preschool. Thanks Dora.

(Click here for the video.)

This one was a lesson for daddy.

On Saturday, Maile and I started to do an experiment that came in the latest Kiwi Crate. It involved seeing how different things floated in both regular water and salt water. We had fun, but the experiment quickly progressed to Maile dumping her half eaten pears into the bowl of water and creating pear soup.

I’ll admit, my initial gut reaction was “oh no, she’s making a mess” and “wait, that’s not how this experiment goes” – but then I realized, that sometimes, kids need to make a mess and, well, experiment. So I let her go with it.

Definitely, a good lesson for daddy!

(Click here for the video.)

Guess what? Today is the Chinese New Year – we learned in school that it is different from the new year we celebrated in Hawaii because it’s based on the moon. I guess the moon was still sleeping or something. In any event, in Chinese you say xing nian kuai le (that means Happy New Year!)

On Friday my school had a big party to celebrate the new year. It was A LOT of fun. I got to run around with all my friends, eat lots of good food, listen to stories, sing and dance, AND, coolest of all, watch a lion dance.

As you can see from the video, I was really into the lion dance. Daddy kept trying to ask me questions and I’m like “can’t you see I’m trying to watch a lion dance here?” Sometimes that Daddy of mine…

Daddy did win a prize playing trivia though – he knew that 2012 is the year of the dragon (long nian). Check out the cool vest he won for me!

Mommy says I ate so much food that it was hard to snag a picture of me without something headed towards my mouth!

I hope everyone has a healthy and happy new year!

(Dad note: If you are interested you can see a bit more about the Chinese New Year celebration here.)

(Click here for the video.)

I’m actually not 100% sure what the topic of conversation here, but regardless, Maile makes her point pretty clearly, that only “grownups” like Maile and Mommy go to school. Daddy is NOT involved.

(Click here for the video.)

Have you ever had a chocolate-covered strawberry? Grandma Jill and Papa Mike sent some to us as a treat. They’re pretty good … once you remove all the chocolate!

(Click here for the video.)

Mommy taught Maile a new song about being a candle. Maile liked it so much that we (yes, the whole family got involved) sang it 10 times in a row. Don’t worry, we only captured 3 of the times on video…

(Click here for the video.)

The other day Maile came home from school and told Mommy she wanted to read her a book. She picked up the “Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar” and proceeded to tell Mommy all about “máo máo chóng” on every page until the end when it became a “hú dié”. Some quick googling made Mommy realize that Maile was indeed saying the words for caterpillar and butterfly!

Pretty cool! So then Daddy, of course, had to grab the camera and try his hand at it

(Click here for the video.)

This made my day.

Backstory: Neither Chris nor I taught Maile this song. Apparently, she learned it at school! School of Rock? Yes, please.

(Click here for the video.)

Awhile back Grandma Jill and Papa Mike started sending Maile High Five magazine (it’s the younger version of Highlights magazine for those of you that remember that). A couple nights ago Maile discovered that the back of the magazine had a game you could cut out and play. She asked if we could play it. The game is made for 3 players – perfect!

The rules are simple. Each player has a suitcase with pictures of 6 items inside. One at a time you pick a card from the pile. If it matches something in your suitcase, you add it in and then go again. If it doesn’t match it goes to the bottom of the deck and it’s the next player’s turn. Once you fill your suitcase, you get to close it up!

Maile loves this game! And she follows the rules (mostly) and takes turns. We’ve played it every night at least twice for the past 3 nights!

(Click here for the video.)

Grandma Gail had a whole bunch of projects lined up for the girls. One of the favorites was gingerbread house decorating (although it’s unclear if the girls liked the decorating or eating part better).

Decorating the gingerbread house is serious business!

Each girl also decorated their own Gingerbread man - they were also cousins and all lived in the house together.

So we're done decorating, right? I can eat the extra candy now?

(Click here for the video.)