This morning Christine and I went to Maile’s school to participate in a tea ceremony. Maile and her classmates have been practicing all week. It was a great little ceremony.
Mommy, Daddy and Maile - Chinese New Year's 2014
New Year Tea Ceremony is a traditional custom in the Chinese Lunar Year celebration. Traditionally, on the day of Chinese New Year, children present a cup of tea to their parents, grandparents and elders in the family to wish them a prosperous new year. This ritual is called 拜年（Bàinián) wishing people happy new year. In return, the elders give the children a red envelope for good luck and good wish.
To start the ceremony, Christine and I sat down in chairs and then Maile served us each tea while wishing us happy new year in Chinese: 新年快乐 （Xīnnián kuàilè）Happy New Year!
Maile serving Mommy and Daddy tea...
After we gave Maile a red envelope we had prepared – Christine made a butterfly by folding a dollar bill 🙂 I gave it to Maile using two hands and we wished her Happy New Year too and 恭喜恭喜（Gōngxǐ gōngxǐ) Congratulations!
Daddy giving Maile her New Year's envelope...
Tonight we put the envelope underneath Maile’s pillow where it will stay for 15 days. After that she will open it to find our good wish on February 14th 🙂
On Saturday, Mommy and Lauren went to take a nap. I had some work I needed to do, so Maile headed into the living room … and then things got really quiet.
I came in about 20 minutes later and Maile had moved all the furniture she could handle herself into a massive fort/castle. To her credit she was super quiet while doing all of this – I had no idea! And she even helped put it all back after she played with it for awhile 🙂
(Click here for the video.)
It wasn’t the matchup we wanted to see, but we still invited some friends over for the Super Bowl and had some fun. We kept the cameras off for most of the party, but did catch a few quick shots for this series…
Lauren was all decked out in her Stanford gear (it's the sportiest thing she owns really), but she got a little messy during pre-party lunch, so we had to change.
Maile Girl filling out her squares...
What's in this big bowl, Daddy? Come on you can tell me...
I feel pretzels!
Today is Chinese New Year – Year of the Horse! 新年快乐 (Xīnnián kuàilè）Happy New Year! It’s the start of what should be a fun week at Presidio Knolls culminating in the school-wide party next Friday.
In preparations, Maile has been helping Christine and I with our Chinese character writing. Maile came up with a new year’s wish for our family that we “grow up big and strong” – her teacher translated it to Chinese characters and we’ve been writing it on red paper.
Mommy and Maile writing their new year's wish
Daddy needed a little more help!
The teachers have a bunch of fun activities lined up for next week – so stayed tuned for more and have a great new year!
When I got home from work today, Christine told me to go in the bedroom with Lauren and check out her new trick.
In we went and I witnessed the following…
That was cute – seeing her try to climb the ladder into Maile’s bed. And then it became less cute as she actually managed to climb ALL THE WAY UP! (No video for that one as I was spotting her 🙂
Up she went, no fear at all.
Planning her route...
On the second step ... no way she'll go any higher. Right? Right?!?
Great success! Let's party!
(Click here for the video.)
Lauren is getting a bit bolder with her big sister. Anything Maile is doing she wants to be a part of – and I think it’s fair to say that Maile doesn’t always want to share her activities. The boldness extends physically too – she’ll grab Maile, pinch or scratch her a bit.
The following transpired this morning:
Scene: Maile and Lauren are playing on the ground in our bedroom. Lauren scratches Maile on the face and it hurts Maile. Maile kicks her – hard enough that I notice and Lauren starts to cry a bit.
Dad: Maile, don’t kick your sister!
Maile: But she hurt me first!
Dad: Maile, you’re bigger than her. You need to say you’re sorry.
Maile: I didn’t mean to though!
(At this point, Mommy intervenes and tries to explain to Maile that even though she didn’t mean to hurt Lauren, she still did and she should apologize.)
Maile: But Lauren started it! She hurt me first! Why doesn’t Lauren need to apologize to me?
Mommy: Well Lauren is a baby, she doesn’t know any better, plus she doesn’t talk.
Maile: But she didn’t even apologize to me in baby language!
(Cue Mommy and Daddy stifling laughter as once again, Maile Girl makes a very good point.)
When we were in Hawaii Maile went to see Frozen … twice. (Yes, after seeing it with Daddy, she invited Mommy to go see it with her the next day.)
Since then we’ve been listening to the soundtrack at home pretty much every day … if not twice a day. Luckily, the songs are pretty good. For her part, Maile is memorizing all the words – she actually has taken us by surprise a few times with how much of the songs she actually knows.
And even when we aren’t listening, Maile starting in with an “Elsa? Do you want to build a snowman?” is never too far away… I love in this video how you can see the gears working in her head as she tries to remember how to pick up the song.
(Click here for the video.)
I realized tonight that in all the craziness of the holidays and new year, I never posted the family pictures we had done while we were on Hawaii! Christine found a great photographer to take some photos of us at the Manoa Valley Park on Oahu – we love how they came out.
(The photographer was Dave Miyamoto & Company Photography. If you find yourself on Oahu looking to take some family photos, highly recommended.)
Below are some of our favorites, you can find the full set here.
The full family, Maile at 4.5, Lauren at 1
Maile Girl - my favorite smile of hers in the batch...
Lauren on the move!
I love this picture of Christine and Maile...
Of course, we took a jumping one 🙂
And a running one too...
This is Christine and my favorite picture in the batch - love these two!
A long time ago, Christine and I decided that she would be the one to teach our children how to tie their shoes. I believe this came after me complaining that my sneakers always came untied, Christine witnessing my shoe tying technique, and then sadly shaking her head while also laughing that I had somehow made it this far in life while still having the bunny rabbits chase each other around the hill (or whatever was the basis for my approach).
Maile has one pair of tied shoes – she’s had them for awhile, but they only recently started to fit. This morning Christine showed Maile how to tie the shoes herself. She must have practiced a few times at school, because tonight she very proudly told us she had it figured out.
And sure enough she did…
(Click here for the video.)
Maile is becoming quite the expert photo bomber. I imagine it is going to get increasingly difficult to get a picture of Lauren solo…
Profile shot of Lauren + Maile Photo Bomb
First Birthday Bomb
First taste of ice cream bomb
Now you've done it, bombing the birthday cupcake
Birthday present from Auntie photo bomb (+ sunglasses stolen - not getting those back!)
