Last week Maile started an after school class learning the Kongfu Fan dance. Kongfu Fan is a traditional Chinese dance that is over 2,000 years old. There are 52 movements in the dance. Here is a good video:
And here is one of the 52 moves that Maile learned today:
Strike a pose, now let's get to it...
This year, the teacher gave all the kids a fan to bring home to practice with – Maile was pretty excited to show us her fan dance moves. Here’s a taste of what’s to come…
For the past couple of years, she’s patiently watched as her big sister danced and performed. She took in all the moves. She attempted to copy everything she could as they pranced around the house. She wore the ballet shoes and hand-me-down tutu just to get the feel for them.
And then on Saturday morning, it was finally her turn. Lauren’s first ballet class. She was beyond excited.
First, she learned how to spin…
Then, she tried to learn how to point her toes in an effort to get into first position…
(I have a feeling we’ll come back to that one and get a good laugh one day.)
And then finally, she danced…
(Click here for the first video.)
(Click here for the second video.)
(Click here for the third video.)
95% of the time the girls play together amazingly. Lauren absolutely worships Maile.
5%, okay maybe 10%, of the time things go down hill a bit. Typically this involves Lauren playing with some toy or stuffed animal that Maile hasn’t even glanced at in 3 years and all of a sudden, Maile decides to lay claim to it and insisting on playing with it again.
But most of the time, we still get a lot of this (from 2 years ago – 2013)…
Maile’s school started a new program this year called, Jiating (Family in Chinese). Maile has her own family consisting of children in the various grades – there is a 3rd grader, a couple second grader, a couple 1st graders and a few kindergarteners. They’ll play and work together over the course of the year with the cross grade groups. Maile’s family is called the Pandas.
For their first activity, they made a rock garden – they painted rocks – right up Maile’s alley!
We hope all of our Jewish family and friends are having a wonderful Rosh Hashanah! We celebrated last night with some apples and honey and a delicious roast chicken meal that Christine put together. Maile led us in a recap of all we should be thankful for and Lauren, of course, followed her lead (Mommy is high on the list as she should be 🙂
Rosh Hashanah family picture (Maile 6 and Lauren 2.5)
I had to go by work this weekend to take care of something. Christine and the girls ended up meeting me there and we ate lunch in our conference room. At one point Christine and Maile went to the bathroom and I went to my desk to look at something. Lauren was left in the conference room to eat her lunch.
When I turned around, this is what she was doing…
In fairness, twice that morning she walked straight into the glass because she didn’t see it. So perhaps this was a self-preservation thing and she was just marking it up a bit.
I had a long end of the week at work, so last Friday night, I was pretty exhausted and falling asleep on the couch. Whenever this happens, Lauren reenacts one of her favorite scenes from Frozen and tries to open one of my eyes while saying “Do you want to build a snowman?”
Remember awhile back when I posted how Maile started making videos about her various arts and crafts projects? Well, she is still at it. And, she has a protege in Lauren now too.
Warning – these videos are super long. You’ll get the gist of them in just a few minutes. However, you might find yourself sucked in.
Maile is quite chatty in her videos. You’ll find that Lauren takes a bit of a different technique. Quieter, more focused on, well, she likes looking at herself in the camera. You’ll see…
(Click here for Maile’s video.)
(Click here for Lauren’s video.)
This afternoon while Lauren was napping, Maile and Christine embarked on an origami adventure. No longer satisfied with your standard butterfly or crane, the scoured the internet and found some pretty cool shapeshifting/transforming/more-than-meets-the-eye origami coolness.
And, of course, they would not rest until they learned how to form these creations for themselves.
Having an artistic mommy is basically the coolest thing ever for a little girl like Maile.
My favorite origami goofball!
When Lauren woke up they had moved on to make 3D creations and they all studied the tape to learn how it was done...
