From the monthly archives:

January 2016

Maile’s Kongfu Fan Dance At CNY 2016

by Papa K on January 31, 2016

Presidio Knolls (Maile and Lauren’s school) celebrated Chinese New Year this past weekend. Maile and Lauren both did performances and we’re excited to share them with you.

In addition to her class performance (which we’ll share later in the week), Maile performed a Kongfu fan dance. I thought we’d start the week with that performance because it was pretty awesome. Maile started learning the Kongfu fan dance in September – it was really cool to see how much she’s learned!

(Dad note: Apologies for the shakiness and cut off head at points – my arm got tired 🙂

(Click here for the video.)

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#tbt Counting

by Papa K on January 28, 2016

Going back to 2012 for this one. The part towards the end where she can’t get the “7” finger to work still cracks me up…

Have a great weekend!

(Click here for the video.)

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After Dinner Bike Rides

by Papa K on January 26, 2016

Mark it down, 2016 is going to be the year that Maile really learns how to ride her bike. And its all because she decided she wants to learn herself – so now she is motivated. A couple weeks ago, without any provocation on our part, she asked if we could go bike riding before dinner. And then a few days later, we decided to go get some frozen yogurt after dinner and she asked if she could ride her bike. She even asked if we could try riding without training wheels over the weekend!

Tonight we went on another bike ride with the girls after dinner. Good times and good to get out a bit as a family even in the midst of our busy weekly routine.

Good times on our after dinner bike rides to get that fro yo!

Its a good lesson for Christine and I – sometimes, things just come when they are ready. There’s no timeline for these things. I have always felt a little bad that city living made it a little harder to provide easy opportunities for the girls to pick up things like bike riding – but I think the reality is that they’ll come around, but perhaps on a different schedule than I remember from my childhood. Nothing wrong with that – lord knows her Chinese is better than mine was at her age 😉

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A Fun Weekend with Auntie Elyssa

by Papa K on January 25, 2016

We had a fun visit with Auntie Elyssa this past weekend. She was in town for work during the week and they she popped on over to stay with us for the weekend. Maile and Lauren loved having her around and they made the most of their few days with her keeping her busy with all types of activities.

One of the highlights was that Auntie got to see the girls at their dance class – they were very proud to show her everything they were learning (including a first pass at their new dance routines). I think its fair to say it brought back memories for Auntie 🙂

On Saturday afternoon, Maile and Auntie made an awesome scrapbook – it was a project that Maile had been looking forward to doing for a few weeks now ever since she got the scrapbook kit for Christmas. She’s very proud of her book and enjoyed the quality time with Auntie.

The girls did a nice job of letting Auntie sleep in a little bit (with the help of the iPad 😉 and all in all, I think Auntie got a good taste of what weekends are like around here. We can’t wait for her to come back and visit us again soon!

All smiles spending time with Auntie Elyssa!

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#tbt Maile and Mommy, NOT Daddy

by Papa K on January 21, 2016

This one is from 4 years ago – January 22, 2012. It’s one of our favorites…

It’s actually somewhat timely – Lauren has been on a big “Lauren and Mommy, Sometimes Maile, But Definitely NOT Daddy” phase too. In fact, this AM when we got to school she got mad at me because I wanted her to get on the sidewalk instead of the street and then insisted that I walk at least 20 feet ahead of her while walking into school. Not Daddy, indeed.

(Click here for the video.)

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Enjoying Old Stories

by Papa K on January 19, 2016

Enjoying some old videos...

At dinner last night we were telling the girls a funny story about how Maile used to say “Vah-milla” when she asked for ice cream. We were laughing about it and then I asked Maile if she remembered how I used to pretend that I was going to order all these funny/crazy ice cream flavors. She, of course, didn’t remember this.

But, of course, nowadays that isn’t a problem because we have videos of everything! A quick search and we found the one in question:

(Bonus points because it turns out Maile is just around Lauren’s age in that video.)

Dad note: I its mostly good that we are able to do this, but I’m sure there are some downsides. It does remove some of the “story” part of the “storytelling” I think – harder for these tales to run away from you and take on a life of their own when you have the hard video evidence. Still noodling on what all that means – immensely interesting to me – to consider another time…

(Click here for the video.)

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Okay girls, let’s start calming down and getting ready for bed…

by Papa K on January 17, 2016

I’m sure we are not alone here, but it always seems like our girls are at their zaniest right as we’re trying to get them to ease into bedtime.

Case in point, the video below – which is some sort of bootie dance the girls are quite proud of. Christine and I say “Okay girls, let’s start calming down and getting ready for bed…” and this is what we get…

Back to the drawing board.

(Click here for the video.)

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#tbt Lauren Not Too Long Ago

by Papa K on January 14, 2016

We’ve had a long week with the girls. Had a really rough time sleeping the whole week and now it appears to be culminating in at least Maile getting sick (feels like I’m not too far behind – we’ll see how Mommy and Lauren fare).

The girls were having trouble in the early mornings not waking each other up (we’re talking 4/5 AM – ugh!) – most of the time sharing a room isn’t a problem, but they’re in a bit of a rut currently.

We’ll sort it out – but in the meantime, I was looking through old videos tonight and came across this one from just 10 days after Lauren was born. At the time I wrote the following:

“This video makes me laugh – I get the feeling that Lauren is just testing out how her face works … or pooping her diaper. One or the other ;)”

I can say that the video still put a smile on my face. And interestingly, I see little looks she does in this video that so much remind me of who she is today as a three year old.

Man, they drive you bonkers sometimes, but then this…

(Click here for the video.)

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Annual Questions for Lauren (2016 – Age 3)

by Papa K on January 12, 2016

(We got this idea from friends of ours, Angie and Gabe. They came up with a list of questions that they started asking their son when he turned 3 years old. They ask him the same questions every year and see how the answers change. We’ve doing this with Maile for the past couple of years and now its Lauren’s turn!)

Lauren on her 3rd Birthday

Here’s a video of the session (with full transcript below):

(Dad note: hat tip to Christine, the best Lauren translator in the business!)

1) Where do you live?
Grandma

[Where is your home?]
Here!

2) Where do you go to school?
Next to my house

3) How do you get to school?
Have to go in the car

4) Name the members of your family.
Daddy and Mommy and Maile and Lauren

5) What is your favorite color?
Pink

6) What is your favorite toy?
Baby

7) What is your favorite food?
Noodles with sausage and milk and water and grapes [e.g., what we had for dinner tonight :)]

8) What is your favorite fruit?
Watermelon

9) What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?
Rice Krispies

10) What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?
Pancakes

11) What do you want for your birthday dinner?
Cake and cookies.

12) What is your favorite snack?
Umm… chocolate

13) What is your favorite drink?
Milk

14) What is your favorite outfit?
My pretty with sparkles

15) What is your favorite animal?
‘Raffe [e.g., Giraffe]

16) What is your favorite tv show?
Paw Patrol and Totoro

17) What is your favorite book?
Odd Squad Book [a little Maile influence on this one]

18) What is your favorite story?
Reading books

19) What is your favorite song?
Rararararararah!

20) What is your favorite game?
Minions game

21) What is your favorite thing to do with Mommy?
Have fun

22) What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy?
Jump and play

23) What is your favorite thing to do with Maile?
Play together.

24) What is your favorite thing to do outside?
Run and play

25) What is your favorite thing to do inside?
Play toys. [What type?] Legos.

26) What is your favorite holiday?
Holiday is I like presents.

27) What do you take to bed with you at night?
Baby and bear bear.

28) Who is your best friend?
Lena [e.g., Elena]

29) What do you want to be when you grow up?
A cow.

30) Anything else you want to say?
Kelly and pig. [What’s that?] It’s just Kelly and pig. [Anything else?] Run! I want to run a marathon.

(Click here for the video.)

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Lauren’s 3rd Birthday: Bubble Joy

by Papa K on January 11, 2016

On Sunday, we celebrated Lauren’s 3rd birthday with a joint party with her good friend Sabrina. Lauren and Sabrina first met at swim class when they were two and now they are classmates at PKS. Born just two days apart, I have a feeling they will be sharing birthday festivities for some time to come…

For this edition, it was all about the bubbles. Mommy nailed it by inviting “The Bubble Man” to come put on a show for Lauren, Sabrina and their friends. The joy was palpable. Seriously, I haven’t witnessed pure joy like this in a long, long time. See a taste for yourself…