by Papa K on December 28, 2015
We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas holiday. We have been having a lot of fun here on Hawaii.
On Christmas Eve we had a visit from the big guy himself!
Lauren is definitely in full on “scared of Santa” mode, but with her big sister’s help, she did okay. She absolutely LOVED what Santa gave her though. Awhile back she said she wanted a Totoro doll from Santa. Uncle Steve came through big time with three Totoro dolls straight from Japan and Lauren absolutely loves them. The look on her face when she opened the present I’ll never forget. Sorry no picture, but this is from right after…
Santa brought Lauren Totoro dolls - she was so excited!
Incredibly, the girls actually slept until 6 AM on Christmas morning and they patiently waited until 7 AM for their cousins to wake up before seeing what was up under the Christmas tree.
Emily, Katie, Lauren and Maile on Christmas morning
Maile graciously pauses before diving in to her presents 🙂
We had a wonderful Christmas celebration. Speaking of wonderful, this is by far my favorite video from Christmas:
We got Maile this really cool step tracker from Unicef called Unicef Kid Power (see here: http://unicefkidpower.org/about). Basically, every step you take helps you complete missions that ultimately end up sending food to help end global malnutrition. As you can see, Maile is very serious about completely her missions 🙂
(Click here for the first video.)
(Click here for the second video.)
by Papa K on December 15, 2015
I wasn’t kidding, the holidays are in full effect out here in San Francisco! Tonight’s activity? Ice skating! Every year parents from the Maile and Lauren’s school rent out the ice rink down by Embarcadero Center for a few hours and a bunch of the families head down and do a little skating. Maile loves it and Lauren got into it as well this year. She was very proud that she and Mommy went around the rink “three” times. (And then they took their skates off, ate some pizza, and decided they wanted to go again, so we put skates back on and Mommy and Lauren went around another two times. And by “we” I mean “Lauren” 🙂
Hard to just stay standing so we'll forgive Lauren for not looking at the camera...
... this one on the other hand was all about the posing...
... no really, lots of posing 🙂
Here’s a good video that captures what Lauren and Mommy were up to as they made their way around the rink…
And here’s Maile Girl doing her thing…
(Click here for the first video.)
(Click here for the second video.)
by Papa K on December 10, 2015
After the debut of Lauren, it was Maile’s turn to take the stage and rock some of the moves she’s been working on with her crew all fall…
As the routine was starting we realized that Maile Girl forgot to take off the watch. Didn't exactly compliment the outfit, but didn't get in the way either 🙂
Maile strikes her pose!
The Hip Hop Jazz dance crew at Nagata dance...
Here’s the full routine (warning like yesterday, long video ahead)…
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on December 10, 2015
(Dad note: Apologies for the delay with today’s post – had some video upload issues!)
Both Maile and Lauren had their dance recital this weekend, but it was Lauren’s very first, so she gets her own post 🙂
Patiently waiting her turn...
Strike a pose!
Lauren and her ballet-mates - quite the performers!
Here’s the full performance – unfortunately the lighting isn’t great, but you can see the full routine (warning: a bit longer than normal)…
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on November 19, 2015
The cooking continues…
This week Mommy made homemade pasta with Chef Maile and Chef Lauren. Excuse me, Big Girl Lauren (watch to the end of the second video.)
We’re definitely enjoying this new phase. Delicious too 🙂
(Click here for the first video.)
(Click here for the second video.)
Hey everyone, it’s Lauren.
I know its been a long time since I wrote directly, but something horrible happened this weekend and I needed to share.
Daddy and Maile were out and it was just me and Mommy. Mommy took me out to dinner. It was wonderful. Noodles! And she taught me how to use chopsticks. So I thought we were cool.
I asked for ice cream for dessert and Mommy said since I was such a good girl we could get some. I was happy.
Doesn’t sound so horrible, right? Yeah. Well, then, the horrible thing happened. Mommy gave me too much ice cream. Yep, you read that correctly. And then she wouldn’t take it out. She just left it there and said I didn’t have to eat all of it. Can you believe that?
Too much ice cream. Awful. It’s basically the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on November 16, 2015
Well, we have a new favorite app – Triller. One of Christine’s friends from work gave her the tip – and we are in love.
The app makes it dead simple to make fun little 15-30 second music videos with different clips edited in to one another. Not sure the result is “professional” – but it certainly is fun.
We made a bunch after dinner tonight and I imagine we’ll be doing it again really soon…
Go get the app!
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on November 15, 2015
It was only a matter of time – the tooth had been hanging by a thread (literally) for about two weeks. Every morning Maile would show it to me and we’d wiggle it and I’d ask her if she wanted me to pull it out. Of course, she’d always say no. We had a few consultations with Papa Boston as well – he was keeping an eye on things from afar.
And then on Friday, out it came! Let’s hear about it from the source…
And now we have a new smile…
Maile's new smile
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on November 11, 2015
Meanwhile…
While Maile has been off running and cooking, Lauren is hitting the birthday circuit hard. The parties have begun and Lauren is loving it – particularly when bubbles are involved and for three year old shindigs, the bubbles are never too far away…
Lauren is ready to party!
Lauren and her friends become the bubble! Hold on tight...
(Click here for the video.)
Maile watches a show before bed and then we read a few books. She often asks Christine or I to watch with her. A little while ago I started get tired of the same old cartoons she’d watch over and over so I started looking for something else we could enjoy watching together. We started with American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance? last year. This fall we added The Amazing Race and then the other day I asked if she wanted to try watching one of the cooking shows that Christine had saved. She absolutely loved it and has been on a cooking show binge ever since.
In parallel, the girls have been complaining about dinners. It can be really frustating (particularly for Christine) – get home from a long day of work, cook something nice for dinner and then get two little pouty faces. No fun. A couple weeks ago we had the idea to involve the girls more in the dinner planning process in an effort to make them feel a part of it (vs. us just dictating what they were eating). It’s actually worked out pretty well so far – each week, each of us gets to pick a meal for a night and then the last night is a wild card.
On Sunday, we decided to combine both! Maile chose to make some recipes that she picked up from a Giada de Laurentis episode where she did some cooking with kids. And then she did all the cooking herself (with me as her sous chef 🙂
We made Baked Macaroni and Cheese Cupcakes and Rasberry Ice Cream Sodas. We had a lot of fun – and boy was everything delicious!
First, Maile carefully chopped all the veggies...
... then she sautéed some ground chicken...
... then Maile filled the cupcake tray with some macaroni, some cheese, some veggies and some bread crumbs.
And then we posed for some chef pictures 🙂
The cooking team - chef and sous chef!
And, of course, after all that cooking, we had to try it out – two thumbs up from the whole family…
(Click here for the video.)
