On Monday, Maile and I headed to the Giants/Cubs game. It wasn’t her first trip to the ballpark, but it was the first in a couple years and she’s a bit older now to enjoy things. It was an absolutely beautiful day and we had great seats (courtesy of our old neighbors) behind home plate with a view of the whole park, the water, everything.
We lasted about 5 innings – I the metric for baseball is 1 inning per age, so 5 was about right. Having recently gone to a basketball game, baseball is a much slower game. With that said, there is a lot to see at the ballpark and Maile was full of questions. She made friends (shocking, I know) with the other people in our row and they were really sweet to her (they gave her a Giants pin and chatted her up).
Definitely a fun way to spend the afternoon – looking forward to doing it again soon!
Before the game Mommy hit the carousel near Daddy's office with the girls...
Picking up Daddy and taking a quick family shot
Daddy and Maile ready to rock AT&T Park!
Check out our view!
We had a lot of fun with the Memorial Day flags they passed out.
Maile's first ballcap - yes, it's pink. BUT it's not the princess one they were selling, so I consider that a victory. A small one, but a victory all the same.
Mommy has been working with Lauren on smiling when we say “cheese” – and Maile is definitely the “ham”…
Cheese
Ham
At some point early in our relationship, Christine introduced me to Chicken Katsu and I have been in love ever since. It is most definitely my favorite meal.
Maile and Lauren get many things from their mother – their beauty, their smarts, their creativity.
But I’ve given them a love of katsu…
(Click here for the first video.)
(Click here for the second video.)
On Sunday we headed down to San Mateo to visit the Maker Faire. As the web site says, “Maker Faire is the Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth — a family-friendly festival of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement.” It started in 2006 here in the Bay Area and its kind of like a huge science fair/country fair covering everything from knitting to robots and everything in between.
We had an absolute blast – can’t recommend it highly enough, especially if you have kids.
At the entrance was this huge fire breathing dragon/octopus robot contraption thing. It was cool...
... and a little befuddling for little Lauren!
Maile jumped right in and took control of a robot some students made...
This was a fun one - using paper tubes Maile built a structure that had to protect a marshmallow from a book dropped from about 5 feet high...
Do you think Maile’s structure was successful? Well, check it out…
Speaking of marshmallows, Mommy and Maile had fun making this marshmallow shooter from PVC piping...
... and then Lauren had fun running all over with it (pizza slice in hand, of course!)
Maile girl hard at work building a structure out of spaghetti and (once again) mini marshmallows...
Great success!
The last thing Mommy and Maile did was make a purse out of old jeans - I don't think she's taken it off since she made it!
A truly awesome day and we’ll definitely be back next year!
(Click here for the video.)
Christine caught this great video of Maile the other day explaining her treasure map. Listen close and you’ll notice that her story about the map kind of rhymes. Not 100% positive, but we she made this up. Sounds like a fun adventure nonetheless!
(Click here for the video.)
This Saturday we finished Maile’s second season of soccer with the PKS Pandas in the San Francisco Vikings league. Once again I helped out with coaching and had a lot of fun. Happy to report that Maile (and the rest of the team) definitely saw big improvements since last fall (and also since the start of the season). Less “picking daisies” and much more focused overall on the game – more coordination around dribbling and kicking. All in all, a good season.
Coach Matt, Maile and the rest of the PKS Pandas!
Have a great weekend, everybody!
(Click here for the video.)
Maile has been swimming at La Petite Baleen since this summer. A toddler class opened up at the exact same time, so we decided to sign Daddy and Lauren up for some swimming while big sister is across the pool practicing her strokes.
Daddy was solo with the girls for the first class – we’ll need to have Mommy join us to get some better pictures and video, but Lauren did great in the water. A little apprehensive at first, but she enjoyed high-fiving the teacher, the humpty dumpty jump off the wall and clingy very tightly to Daddy. (Being handed over to the teacher for a few seconds is decidedly in the “did not enjoy” category.)
The girls ready for some swimming - as you can see Lauren is a little curious about what is about to happen...
Daddy and Lauren selfie at the pool!
Watch out Maile Girl, Lauren is coming for you!
Lauren at 16 months (491 days to be exact):
Maile at 16 months (486 days to be exact):
(Click here for the first video.)
(Click here for the second video.)
Maile is big on doing things herself these days. She doesn’t need our help. (Unless it involves going to the bathroom in the middle of the night – apparently between the hours of 1 AM and 5 AM she forgets that she’s an independent little girl.)
In any event, at times this can be maddening. At other times, pure comedy. Which is how we arrive at Maile blowing up a balloon by herself.
(Click here for the video.)
