Fair warning, this is one of those posts where a daddy brags a bit about his daughter. I try not to do this too often (although some may say that having a whole blog dedicated to one’s daughter renders that attempt moot…) But I digress…
When we were in NYC, Maile really liked Maggie’s Hide-n-seek books – the Where’s Waldo? type books where you need to find different objects. Grandma Jill was kind enough to send along some of the books for us to have at home and finding the objects has become a part of our morning routine. As you’ll see in the video, Maile is pretty good. When she needs help, she asks for it. And then Mommy narrows down the area to look. If she still gets stuck, she holds out her hand and asks Mommy to show her the object. There is nothing Mommy likes better than helping Maile find the “green trumpet” at 6:30 in the morning 😉
And since it’s the end of the week, here’s a bonus of Maile singing her ABC’s (and Itsy Bitsy Spider)…
Talk about some fun new tricks!
(Click here for the first video.)
(Click here for the second video.)
Maile is entering a stage where she is starting to copy whatever we say. I’m taking full advantage of this by getting her started with some important basics. First up, the art of the woo…
Maile Girl here. I’m so excited. On Saturday, Mommy, Daddy and I went to an open house for my new school. I don’t start until August, but I got a chance to meet a bunch of new friends that will be my classmates and see what a “typical” day at school would be like.
The classroom is really, really cool. It’s big and bouncy. It is a little hard to walk around in it, but so much fun to jump all around with my new classmates. Not really clear to me where the desks are going to go and I think coloring will be a little hard. We’ll figure it out I’m sure.
(Dad note: Maile had a blast in the bouncy house and we didn’t have the heart to tell her it was just a special thing for the open house and wasn’t her actual classroom. She’ll figure it out. Speaking of the bouncy house, talk about a parent’s nightmare. The fact that Maile didn’t crack skulls with one of the other kids is a minor miracle.)
On Sunday, we headed up to Union Street for the annual Easter fair. We met up with Sophie and Jake and had a lot of fun walking around in the sun.
Maile, Jake and Sophie all dressed up in their Easter best
(Dad note: It is impossible to look at the picture above without comparing it to the first group shot of Maile, Jake and Sophie from Mother’s Day last year. I think it’s safe to say that Jake and Sophie have caught up!)
This is Maile being scared of the petting zoo - but it is also a great shot of her Easter outfit (from Grandma Gail and Grandpa Cal)
Daddy, the animals can't get out of their cage, right? Right? It doesn't look very sturdy to me...
Once we forgot about the animals we had lots of fun!
On Friday, Megan set up an awesome Easter egg hunt for the girls. They absolutely loved it – pretty sure it’s safe to say Easter is Maile’s new favorite holiday (especially since that scary big red bearded guy wasn’t around 😉
The setup
And she's off ...
Hannah and Maile on the hunt!
A quick video of the madness:
Mission Accomplished - Easter Egg Hunt 2011 in the books!
Maile’s new favorite song is “Happy Birthday” – and despite the fact that we weren’t really singing happy birthday to anyone in particular, we now have a generic “happy birthday” song we can send out to family and friends 😉 Coming soon on your birthday!
In this Maile Minute, Maile reads us a story – which you can’t really understand for the first half of it because she has her pacifier stuck in her mouth. Speaking of the pacifier, astute followers might have noticed that it has made a big return to Maile’s daily life. Originally, the pacifier was basically a trigger for Maile to go to sleep – around 6 months though she completely rejected it since he knew it meant it was time to go to bed. A couple months ago, she found one lying around and latched on to it again. She wants it constantly now. Our theory is that at least part of it is that she is going through some major teething with her molars. Regardless, the end of this second pacifier phase is coming… Maile just doesn’t know it yet.
We arrived back in San Francisco tonight, but we still have some highlights from our NYC adventure to share. Last Thursday, Maile and I spent the day exploring the city. At one point we headed down to Union Square and ran into some break dancers performing in the subway station.
They looked a little scary to be honest (due to the masks), but I decided to see if Maile would be interested in watching. She was definitely a little scared (she would only get so close), but also completely enthralled. We ended up watching for about 15 minutes because every time I tried to leave, she would say “more more”…
We’ll have to wait for the next Maile Gaga video to see if she picked up any new moves!
On Friday, we headed out to New Jersey to visit Maile’s good friends Maggie and Jane and their respective families (including new baby brothers for each that we hadn’t met yet, Sean and Dean, respectively!) Uncle Ryan and Aunt Diana also came up from Washington, DC to see everyone – so we had a full on reunion.
Due to the new babies this was our first time getting everyone together since our trip last year. It was awesome seeing how much the girls have grown up. Maggie and Jane are both a little less than a year older than Maile. Maile wasn’t even walking on our last visit – this time she was able to run all over with the girls – and run they did!
Highlights included: Maile taking her first boat ride (as we joined Uncle Matt for his commute home from work on Friday), baby Sean getting his first kiss from Maile Girl, conspiring with Maggie and Jane, reading stories with Auntie Diana and Uncle Ryan, visiting the New Jersey swamp refuge (Maile swears she saw a bus out there, but I’m dubious) and enjoying some great food and laughs with our favorite New Jersey friends…
We took a ton of pictures, too many to post directly, so enjoy the slide show below of the highlights…
