Mommy is always teaching Maile fun, new art techniques. Maile must have picked up the concept of tracing somewhere recently. This weekend Mommy saw what Maile was trying to do and showed her how she could use the windows in our apartment as a light box to make tracing easier.
Maile hard at work on her lightbox tracing...
Well, that was all Maile needed – once she learned the concept, she really ran with it. Christine claims that she didn’t tell Maile to add to the picture at all – she just started tracing and then realized she didn’t have to do it all in order, she could mix it up and add the characters however many times she wanted and her own flourishes as well. Pretty cool!
The original
The finished product - Maile's lightbox Halloween masterpiece!
Back in the summer Maile told Grandma Gail that she wanted to be a bee for Halloween. Like she always does, Grandma Gail set to work and delivered another incredible costume for the girls!
Our littlest bee getting ready to go out...
Maile and Auntie Bee all decked out!
Bzzzzzzzz
On top of the great costumer, we were also lucky to have Auntie Elyssa in town. She decided to dress up to as the “Auntie Bee” – Maile was so excited when she found out that Auntie was dressing up too.
Auntie joined Maile at school for the PKS Halloween party and then we met up with some friends to hit up Avila Street for some serious trick or treating. (And I mean serious – there were hundreds of people out and every house was stocked with candy.) Auntie chased after Maile going house to house and Mommy and I had the pleasure of escorting Lauren. It was so much fun – she insisted on walking (just like her big sister) the entire time. She would go up to each house, wait for them to lower the bowl of candy to her height, pick out her piece and then say, “Tank you”, before moving on to the next house. I died of cuteness every time she said “tank you.”
Daddy with all his bees
Mommy and her two bees!
A wonderful Halloween – thank you Grandma Gail (as always) for the costumes and Auntie Elyssa for buzzing around with our girls!
Awhile back I came across a Kickstarter for a new educational game called Osmo that combined real world objects with the iPad. I thought it looked pretty cool, so I pre-ordered it.
Fun with Osmo!
It finally arrived today and Maile and I had messed around with it tonight. It is indeed pretty awesome. We’ve played two of the three games it comes with (but it is setup so I could imagine many more in the future). One game (which is in the video) you use different shapes to match what is on the screen and Osmo can see if you get it right.
The second is pretty cool – objects fall on the iPad and you draw on a piece of a paper different contraptions to guide the objects to targets. (Basically the screen duplicates what you draw in real life.)
The third is a word game we haven’t played yet.
Hard at work solving one of the puzzles...
Definitely recommended!
(Click here for the video.)
Nothing like ending the weekend with a little after dinner ice cream 🙂
So yummy isn't it?
And cold too!
Many of our good friends have had success watching Star Wars with their little ones. I’ve been dying to watch it with Maile, but given that Doc McStuffins still scares her sometimes, I had my doubts.
The past couple of weeks I’ve started telling her about Princess Leia (with a stress on PRINCESS) and a bit about the different characters. On Saturday, it was time to give it a real shot. I decided to start with Episode IV (the original Star Wars).
Maile and I settle in for her first Star Wars viewing - complete with popsicle bribe.
Things did not start well – Maile basically said she was all set with Star Wars about 5 minutes in when Darth Vadar uses the Force to choke one of the pilots.
… but then a funny thing happened. I let Maile go color and I continued watching. And I noticed slowly but surely, she itched her way back over to watch. And then she started asking questions about R2D2 and C3PO. And who was Obi-Wan? And where were they going in the car? I had her! We watched the first 45 minutes, ending as Luke, Obi-Wan and the droids arrive in Mos Eisley.
“Daddy, is Luke going to help Princess Leia?”
Another fan is born!
(Click here for the video.)
Lauren went with Mommy to pick up Maile at school today. Lauren was VERY excited to be there 🙂
Lauren in her big girl backpack all ready for school!
Most of the time when I look at the girls, I see Christine with shades of me tossed in. I’m completely fine with this. Christine took a picture of the girls this weekend though where Maile was all me – and I love it.
My new favorite picture of the girls - Maile Girl bringing the woo!
Grandma Jill took two awesome pictures of Lauren when she took her to the park yesterday afternoon. I love both of these pictures – they capture little, mischievous Lauren perfectly!
Peek-a-boo!
Hang on tight!
Maile really got wiped out good this time. You might remember a week ago we said Maile had recovered after being sick the weekend before. Boy, were we wrong. She was fine for a couple days and then last Thursday night she got rocked again – high fever and a really bad cough.
It persisted throughout the weekend and it was so sad to see how exhausted and unwell she was. We took her to the doctor on Friday and they thought it was just a virus. On Monday we took her back again and they diagnosed her with strep throat – she started with the antibiotics and now she is much, much better. Fever has been gone since Monday night and we’re headed back to school in the morning.
Not good times – a lot of this going on the past week…
I don't feel well.
Sleeping it off.
Go away sickies.
When she was home sick from school on Monday, Mommy and Maile decided to make their own word find game (inspired by the back of a Cheerio box I believe).
First Mommy made Maile a word find..
Mommy's word find - Maile said it was too easy!
Then Maile made her own!
Maile's word find - lots of action at the top!
