Recently, Lauren has been really enjoying this wood marble run set we got her for Christmas. She builds these super elaborate contraptions (which she is always fearful that clumsy Daddy will end up breaking). She’s not done yet, at the end of the video, you can catch her asking Mommy for a Lego set – so I have a feeling a lot more building is coming!
And the best part is that Christine captured probably my favorite picture of Lauren in quite some time:
So cute! So proud!
(Click here for the video.)
On Saturday we headed down to Palo Alto to visit with some friends. We went over to our friend’s house who have two boys. I think its fair to say that the types of toys they had over there were quite a bit different from what we have at home. The girls had a blast trying them on for size…
Spider Lauren - ready to save the day!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Maile!
The outfits were fun, but the swords were even better! (Until Daddy got rapped pretty good on the knuckles by little Lauren…)
(Click here for the video.)
We are at the eve of March Madness starting so Christine and I took some time with the girls tonight to fill out their brackets. We actually weren’t all together so I helped Maile with hers and Christine helped Lauren with hers.
Lauren, aka Beavis, looking for butts throughout the bracket...
Maile Girl - very focused sorting through the seeding...
For Maile, I decided to teach her about seeds and upsets this year. This lead to a much more “chalk” bracket – with the exception that she couldn’t quite pull herself away from going as far as possible with Hawaii. Because, ya know, Grandma and Papa.
In fact, she ran into quite the conundrum in the Final Four trying to decide what to do with a Hawaii vs. Duke matchup. Check it out:
As for Lauren, well, apparently our youngest is a Beavis. As in Beavis and Butthead. Once Christine told her that one of the teams was named “Butler” – she couldn’t get over it, thought it was hilarious and rode them all the way to the Championships. Yes, Lauren picked #9 Butler to win the NCAA Tournament because, you know, butts.
If you haven’t submitted your brackets yet and are looking for some tips, here are the girls complete brackets:
Lauren's 2016 Bracket
Maile's 2016 Bracket
Good luck Maile Girl and Lauren!
(Click here for the first video.)
(Click here for the second video.)
One of the employees at Pocket has become super interested in pizza making and has been working to refine his techniques over the past couple of months. On Friday, for a happy hour, he said he show us all how to make our own pizza dough from scratch. I had the girls come over and we had a great time making some pizza dough!
First you need to weigh your flour - Maile took the lead on this part...
... well, of course, Lauren helped too!
Getting serious about kneading the dough...
The finished product - it was delicious!
Here’s a video of the girls hard at work ripping the dough…
Good times indeed!
(Click here for the video.)
Maile and Lauren went to a birthday party this weekend (for Lauren’s old nanny buddy, Elena). They had this great zipline that the girls loved – according to Christine, Lauren must have done it 40 times (after big sister, Maile, showed her the ropes).
First the big sister goes…
And then, of course, the little sister…
Elena’s dad got some great additional shots of the girls…
Showing how its done...
Hold on tight!
Wheeeeee....
Love this shot of the girls...
(Click here for the first video.)
(Click here for the second video.)
I’m heading away for the weekend tomorrow night, so I thought I’d do a #tbt a night early this week. While looking for a good one, I came across this video from March 2012.
The perfect reminder that the best part of a trip is the return home!
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on February 28, 2016
Big time milestone this weekend for Maile Girl (and sort of Lauren too). Maile had her first friend sleepover! This has been high on the request list for a little while now. At the beginning of the year we decided to use it as a carrot to get Maile to stop waking us up in the middle of the night. It worked like a charm and Maile now stays in her room until at least 6 AM (yes, this is a huge improvement!)
Maile had a good friend from school, Gemma over. I was a little nervous, but they were wonderful. Everyone behaved and got along, Maile and Gemma did a really nice job including Lauren in their playing. They had a little trouble going to sleep, but that’s to be expected and everyone slept through the night. All in all, a success(!) and we’re looking forward to the next sleepover … especially if its at the friend’s house 😉
Lauren, Maile and Gemma having fun at their first sleepover!
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on February 24, 2016
Hello! Lauren here. It’s been awhile. I mostly let my Daddy do the talking around here, but (a) he wasn’t here for this and (b) it was just too awesome not to share myself.
So tonight, Daddy and Maile went out to dinner by themselves. That means Mommy picked me up at school and we came home just the two of us. You know what that means? I got to pick up the mail AND since there was a package I got to open it with Mommy AND since that package had packing material that pops I got to play with it all by myself!
Seriously.
I didn’t have to share. I popped every since piece. Me. No taking turns. All for me.
Look, I get it. Sharing is important. But sometimes its pretty awesome when your big sister isn’t around and you get to pop the whole string of bubble wrap by yourself. And by “pretty awesome” I actually mean “THE BEST”!
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on February 23, 2016
Some friends from Presidio Knolls have started a newspaper aimed at kids called Xyza. We’ve really enjoyed the first few issues – a little while back Maile started asking about the “news” – but nothing really was well targeted for a 6 year old. This is – and we’ve had a lot of fun reading through the stories so far.
For Chinese New Year, they included a recipe for dumplings and Maile asked if we could give it a shot. So Sunday afternoon we finished our Chinese New Year celebration with some good ol’ dumpling making. Here’s the girls telling us how its done…
Mommy showed the girls how it was done and then they were off...
Lauren working hard on her first dumpling...
The lineup - we got a little creative with our shapes.
All cooked and ready to eat!
Yum!
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on February 22, 2016
Okay, technical difficulties have been resolved and we’re ready to share all the details of Saturday’s Chinese New Year Parade!
This was Maile’s second year participating in the parade and once again we had an absolute blast. We headed downtown as a family at 3 PM and helped the kids get ready for the big parade. It was a long afternoon – the parade itself didn’t kick in until ~6:15 PM, but the kids barely noticed – they were having too much fun taking in all the sites and goofing around with each other. Once the parade started they were all business – the practice really paid off and they nailed their dance number to Uptown Funk each of the oh 30+ times they performed it along the route.
Here’s a close-up of Maile performing the complete number during a pre-parade practice…
And here are some fun shots from along the way…
Lots of helping hands getting Maile and friends ready for the parade...
Here she is - ready to rock!
Maile and Gemma
All the Presidio Knolls kids - notice Maile looking at the only camera that matters 🙂
Family selfie right before the start...
Maile and Isobel
Maile Girl - smack in the middle of the action as always!
The picture of jealousy.
Don’t worry, Lauren, next year you’re in!
(Click here for the video.)
