This afternoon, Maile’s school had a Halloween party. Grandma and Papa went over early and helped set up and get all the kids in their costumes. Chris and I were able to head over as well and we’re really glad we did – it was ridiculously adorable!
It was definitely organized chaos, but the teachers did a good job walking the kids around in small groups where they "trick or treated" at each of the different classrooms...
One little boy came running up to Maile and gave her a big hug - turns out he thought she was the real Elmo!
For the second day in a row, Maile threw a fit when we tried to get a family shot...
... but we finally got that Maile smile we all love back at my office!
All in all, Halloween this year was a big success!
At this rate we're just going to get rid of Maile's toys and pick up a bunch of empty boxes...
Even though Grandma Gail makes her Halloween costume every year, Maile still likes to explore different options. Tonight, Mommy was breaking down some boxes and Maile grabbed one and made a costume out of it. We’re calling it naked girl in a box. I think Grandma Gail has her work cut out for her to top this one!
We ended Maile’s second Halloween with a little get together at Allison’s house. Maile was joined by her closest friends all in their very cute costumes:
Maile was, of course, Curious Maile with a little Hawaiian flair added in...
Allison, our host, was a bee...
... as was Sophie ...
Hannah was Tinker Bell
And Jake, the lucky man among all these ladies, was Shrek!
We did our best to get everyone together for a group picture. As with last year, this proved a bit challenging.
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Here’s the best of what we ended up capturing…
Sopie, Jake, Maile, Allison and Hannah - Halloween 2010
And since there were tears, we decided to call in the reinforcements…
Everyone was happy when the mommies got involved!
All in all it was a great 2nd Halloween with Maile Girl – hope you enjoyed hearing all about it this week!
Before I donned my Curious George costume for Halloween I did my research by having Mommy read me the Curious George books about 1,000 times. (I’ve been asking to read about 12 books before bed each night, so it really didn’t take us that long). I realized that to be a proper Curious Maile, I would need a man to bail me out of any trouble I might get in. Preferably a man in a yellow hat.
Luckily, I knew just the guy for the job. Yep, my daddy! He didn’t have the luxury of a beautiful costume from Grandma Gail or really any yellow in his existing wardrobe, but a few clicks on the ol’ Internet and the man in brown showed up with a costume just for Daddy (and some more diapers for yours truly). I think we make quite a team!
Curious Maile and the Man in the Yellow Hat
Now I can go get in some trouble - watch my back man in the yellow hat!
Awhile back we joined a local kids club called Peekadoodle. Its about 3 blocks from our apartment and its a great open space with lots of cool stuff for Maile and Hannah to explore. They absolutely love going there. They have the place figured out too – the Halloween party on Friday was the first time I’d been in a couple weeks and Maile showed me all around to her favorite things: the cable car, the play kitchen, the slide. She loves it – man, is she going to be disappointed by her own room when she gets a bit older!
The Halloween Party was great fun. In addition to the normal games and activities, they had a room where you could decorate your own pumpkins (which were actually orange paper pots), a photographer (who took the great picture of Maile we posted yesterday) and even a live band, Basho & Friends!
Curious Maile and Tinkerbelle Hannah - ready to party!
Maile Girl decorating her pumpkin...
We took a time out for a tea party. Hey Hannah, where are you going with that milk!
Dad, you couldn't get better seats for my first concert? I can't see a thing.
Madness. Absolute madness.
Daddy: What are you doing Maile? Maile: I'm waiting for the lead singer, I want his autograph. He's dreamy. Daddy: Yikes.
We took so many pictures this weekend that we couldn’t fit them all in one post. So we’re officially declaring this week “Halloween Week” at the Hapa Haole blog.
Some of you might remember that last year, Grandma Gail made Maile a Totoro costume. This year Maile decided that she wanted to be Curious George. So Grandma Gail set to work crafting another amazing costume…
Hi! I'm Curious Maile!
Here's the full view (sorry about the lighting of the picture)...
And don't forget the tail!
Maile got a lot of use out of her costume this year. On Friday we attended the Peekadoodle Halloween Party, we went trick or treating around the neighborhood and then Daddy dressed up and we went to a Halloween party at Allison’s house. It was definitely a jam-packed weekend – we can’t wait to show you what transpired over the next few days…
No fun getting all dressed up for Halloween without a party to go to. Luckily, Maile’s friend Allison convinced her parents to let her throw a little get together.
Here’s the lineup:
From left to right: Wills, Maile, Hannah and Allison
Wills was a farmer. As we’ve already discussed Maile was Totoro. Hannah was a pink rabbit and Allison was a cow. They were all ridiculously cute. But the expressions on each of their faces was hilarious. Check out the video below (or click here).
Hannah’s expression just completely cracked me up:
Seriously, what's up with this gray rat thing sitting next to me? And, oh dad, yeah, I'm going to remember this pink rabbit thing. Yes, yes I will.
If you still haven’t had enough of the babies and their costumes – here’s a whole bunch more pictures. Definitely a very successful first Halloween!
(Mommy’s side of the family just giggled and said “aww that’s so adorable.” Daddy’s side of the family just nodded their heads and said, “riiiight… Totoro.”)
So to make sure we are all on the same page – Totoro is a character from a 1988 Japanese anime film called My Neighbor Totoro. The film was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki – who is basically the Japanese version of Walt Disney. Most important Totoro is one of Christine’s favorite anime films. Maile is already quite familiar with Totoro – although she hasn’t seen the movie yet, Totoro is in drawings Chrisitne made that hang over her crib.
Here’s a look at Totoro from the film:
Totoro is the big gray rabbit-like creature on the left.
And here’s a good picture of Maile in the Totoro outfit:
The full view of Maile's Totoro costume
You can barely tell the difference, right? Which begs the question: where does one get such an authentic Totoro outfit? That’s the best part – Grandma Gail made it for Maile! How amazingly cool is that!?
So a big Totoro thank you to Grandma Gail for kicking Maile’s first Halloween off in style!
Mommy is always teaching Maile fun, new art techniques. Maile must have picked up the concept of tracing somewhere recently. This weekend Mommy saw what Maile was trying to do and showed her how she could use the windows in our apartment as a light box to make tracing easier.
Maile hard at work on her lightbox tracing...
Well, that was all Maile needed – once she learned the concept, she really ran with it. Christine claims that she didn’t tell Maile to add to the picture at all – she just started tracing and then realized she didn’t have to do it all in order, she could mix it up and add the characters however many times she wanted and her own flourishes as well. Pretty cool!
The original
The finished product - Maile's lightbox Halloween masterpiece!
