Recently, Lauren has started taking more of a liking to playing with Legos. I love playing with Legos … with my children. We realized though that our Legos are kind of a mess right now – just a big jumbled mess. Not at all what Maile’s experience was like. So we’ve started the processing of organizing things a bit better – we’re thinking at a minimum doing some sorting by color to make things easier to find.
Maile has a been a big help and we spent an hour this morning tackling the project a bit. I loved this picture I took of her…
Sorting through the sea of Legos...
Last weekend we had a quick, but fun visit from Grandma and Papa Hawaii. They arrived on Friday afternoon and left on Sunday, but we certainly packed in some fun in between.
Right from the airport they headed to school and spoke to Maile’s class about visiting all 50 states. The first grade is doing a unit on maps and the world and Grandma and Papa had fun sharing their adventures and answering lots and lots of questions.
On Saturday morning, Grandma and Papa had a treat watching both Maile and Lauren’s dance classes. Mommy and Daddy slipped out in the afternoon to take advantage of the visit and have a mini afternoon date. And in the evening, we took Maile to her swim class and Grandma and Papa were blown away by how far she progressed with her swimming.
First thing Sunday morning, Papa, Maile and I went to volunteer at the Food Bank while Grandma, Mommy and Lauren had some quality time. Sooner than we knew it the visit was over, but we had lots of fun!
Maile and Papa getting ready to dig in sorting oranges at the Food Bank...
Papa, Grandma, Maile (age 6), Lauren (age 2.5)
I'm a lucky man!
Headed to bed tonight on the eve of our anniversary and I found this picture just lying on the ground near the girls’ art supplies. I imagine in due time it will turn into an art project ode to mommy. But for tonight it is simply a reminder of what a lucky man I am.
Happy anniversary, baby, I love you!
This afternoon I was in our bedroom sending a few emails. From the living room I heard some nice music playing and Maile and Lauren excitedly chattering away. I ducked my head out and found this scene…
Hard at work on both hair and makeup for Mommy...
It was amazing. And hilarious. Maile and Lauren had setup their very own salon and were furiously working away on Mommy’s hair and makeup. Watching our girls and Christine play like this melted my heart a bit – it was exactly how I imagined having two daughters would be like.
(Click here for the video.)
Was looking back for a good #tbt post and came across this video from October, 2012 – just a few short months before Lauren joined us. Maile Girl being her chatty self, cracking us up over dinner.
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on September 30, 2015
I had a long, busy day at work today.
Somehow these two goofballs knew that this was exactly what I needed 🙂
The Littlest Goofball
The Slightly Bigger Goofball
Partners in Laughter
by Papa K on September 28, 2015
Saturday was a beautiful day in the city. We decided to head down to swim class a little early and hang out on the grass. We ate some popsicles and then the girls ran around.
We’ve mentioned this a few times, but Lauren copies everything Maile does these days. She’s a little shadow. This video captures it pretty well…
They played like this for 15-20 minutes – Maile running around, realizing Lauren was copying her and just making up games and goofing off seeing if she’d keep up. Sometimes the copying results in tears (when Lauren can’t quite keep up -or- Maile gets tired of having a constant shadow) – but that wasn’t the case this time – so Christine and I sat on the grass in the sun and watched these two have fun. We could have done it all day long 🙂
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on September 27, 2015
Today was the SF Aloha Run – a really nice 5K they organize to support a Japanese community center here in SF. In addition to the 5K, they have a “keiki” run of a mile for kids 6-10 and a 100 yard dash for younger kids. We thought it’d be fun to sign the girls up.
Maile and Christine ran the mile – and they absolutely rocked it. Lauren ran the 100 yard dash and came in first place in the 2 year old heat! (She had some great coaching from her big sister).
Here’s Maile in the homestretch of the mile – check out that speed!
And here’s Lauren doing her 100 yard cash – just absolutely focused on that finish line 🙂
I think we have another thing where the girls are taking after their mommy – and we couldn’t be happier 🙂
(Dad note: technically this wasn’t Maile’s first race – back in 2013, she did a fun run out in Oakland. Remember that?)
Mommy and the girls ready to rock (Lauren was being shy, but gave us a nice view of her racing number)...
Mommy and Maile right before the start.
On the run...
A post-race Maile showing off her medal...
Coach Maile giving Lauren a post-race pep talk!
(Click here for the first video.)
(Click here for the second video.)
by Papa K on September 24, 2015
Maile came home from school today all excited to teach us a new method she is learning for adding up big numbers that you can’t quite do in your head. She grabbed a piece of paper and showed us how it works. It’s pretty cool – I don’t personally recall learning it quite this way before.
After she nailed it a few times, I asked her if we could video how it works…
We had fun after dinner seeing if I could stump her with different problems (I got her once, but she got it the second time through…) School is definitely getting pretty fun this year 🙂
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on September 23, 2015
90% of the time the girls play wonderfully together. The other 10%? Well…
Christine reports that this video captures what the ride home from school is fairly often.
Here we see one of the Lauren’s favorite songs playing on the radio.
Maile is singing along.
Lauren doesn’t want Maile to sing along, because she “can’t hear” the song. Cry, cry, cry.
Maile suggests maybe she can’t hear the song because she is screaming … and continues to sing because, well, she knows its annoying Lauren a bit.
And around and around we go.
(Dad note: in fairness to the girls, its a long day at school – they are definitely tired and hungry by the time we are headed home.)
(Click here for the video.)
