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!
This week it was back to work and school and trying to get settled in back home.
But still plenty of fun memories from our time in Hawaii…
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on December 26, 2013
Per tradition, we spent Christmas Eve with Grandma Gail’s side of the family on Oahu. We had a great time with all the uncles, aunties and, especially, cousins – but the best part was definitely the visit from Santa Claus. Yep, the big guy took some time out of his rounds to visit with Maile, Lauren and the rest of the kids.
For Maile, it was a big year – our fear of Santa has finally gone away and we were just plain excited – Maile even made a card for him. Christine was sitting with her when Santa arrived and she said Maile’s heart was beating a mile a minute.
I didn’t capture it in the video, but Maile Girl was absolutely floored when she opened her present and it was the Barbie she had asked for in her letter. “He got my letter! He got my letter!” she was screaming and giggling all over. Big time win for Santa.
As for Lauren, unfortunately, Santa got a little tied up so he didn’t make it until after little Lauren had already crashed out. For posterity’s sake we made sure she got a photo op with him and she later stirred to play with her new toy that he brought her. We’re giving her a “no tears on her first visit with Santa” nod anyways.
Maile Girl and Santa - not a tear or fear in site!
Did you get my letter?
Lauren meets Santa (sort of)
Maile Girl showing Lauren how her new toy works...
Thank you Santa! I'll try to stay awake to meet you next year!
(Click here for the first video.)
(Click here for the second video.)
by Papa K on December 23, 2013
We arrived on Oahu on Saturday afternoon and wasted no time hitting the pool. Maile Girl was in her bathing suit as soon as our bags landed in our room and imploring Daddy to blow up her floatie. Lauren got in on the action too – she had no idea what to expect, but once she got in to the water, she loved every minute.
Maile Girl. Ready. To. Rock.
Lauren went more gracefully, but was a fish in her own right...
Not sure who enjoyed this more, Daddy or Lauren...
Daddy definitely had his hands full with both girls! Good luck once Lauren gets a little older...
Maile Girl is so comfortable in the water now - really a joy to see...
Building on the last point – it’s really great watching Maile take to the water now. As you can see, she started with the inner tube floatie, but quickly ditched that in exchange for the arm floaties. We done a lot of swimming over the past couple of days and every time she pushes her self. Our “short swims” where I stand a bit away from the edge and she swims to me without help have become “medium” swims and she has no problem putting her head in the water. We’re still working on the “small” water slide vs. the “big” one – but we’ll get there. Huge kudos to La Petite Baleen – while I’m some of it is just her age, I’ve been really impressed with the classes and Maile’s whole attitude towards swimming since we started classes there this summer.
Can’t wait for the rest of the trip!
Lauren Girl here! On Sunday afternoon, Mommy, Daddy, Maile, Grandma and Papa took me to get my first Christmas tree! I was pretty overwhelmed by all the trees, so Maile took the lead on picking out the tree – I think she picked a really nice one.
My very first Christmas tree picked out my big sister Maile
Guess what? I wasn’t the only one getting a Christmas tree for the first time. It was Papa’s first time too!
Papa was excited too!
This is pretty cool – Papa had a fun idea to get a picture of me getting a bird’s eye view of the trees.
Lauren's bird eye view (11 months)
And it’s almost the same picture that Maile and Daddy took the first time she went to get a tree!
Maile's bird-eye view (5 months)
Lots of firsts this year for our Thanksgiving celebration.
Lauren enjoying her first Thanksgiving.
Mommy cooking her first Thanksgiving turkey.
Daddy spending his first Thanksgiving away from Boston ever!
Since we were just in Boston for Auntie Elyssa and Uncle Stephen’s wedding, we decided to stay in California and Grandma and Papa Boston came out to celebrate with us. We rented a wonderful house in Santa Rosa and set about making it a Thanksgiving to remember.
While Mommy cooked the food, Maile Girl focused on the table decorations.
With guidance from a Kiwi Crate she made place cards for everyone in our family...
... and was quite proud of the results.
Mommy cooked it and Daddy carved it - and it came out great!
Lauren wasn't feeling 100%, but she still was excited to get involved with Thanksgiving (and Mommy made sure she had turkey too...)
I'm stuffed!
Love.
(Dad note: I apologize for missing a couple days of posting last week. We headed up to Santa Rosa for Thanksgiving and the internet wasn’t fantastic in the house we were staying at. Everything else about the house and our time away was amazing though … as you’ll see over the next few days!)
Grandma and Papa Boston arrived on Wednesday morning just in time to help the girls celebrate Hanukkah. It was Lauren’s first Hanukkah and the first time we used a Menurkey (thank you to Uncle Stephen’s mom, Liz, for sending one our way!)
Lighting the first night lights with Papa Mike...
We always read the card first...
Maile loved the Lego house that Grandma and Papa gave her...
.
... no, really, she loved it. We played with it all weekend and spent ~2 hours over the first night and the next morning creating one of three houses in the kit
Haha! While they are distracted, I will open my gift!
ARRGGGHH! Wrapping paper is soooo hard to get off!
by Papa K on November 17, 2013
Last week we had a bout with a mean little 24 hour bug that took our family down one-by-one.
Lauren was the first casualty.
Lauren was patient zero in our house on this one... poor little girl.
Then she got all better and handed off to Mommy.
We were thrilled when Lauren got better so quickly ... until Mommy got knocked out.
Then Maile Girl got it. Poor Maile Girl – first time throwing up and she was NOT a fan. In the morning after getting sick she told Mommy “It was a bad night of my life.”
And then at the end after watching my girls go down, I got it. What a way to go – just absolute foreboding knowing it was going to hit me and nothing I could do about it.
At least it was only 24 hours – in the grand scheme, not too bad at all – but a “bad week of our lives” for sure 🙂
(Click here for the video.)
As we know, every year Grandma Gail makes Maile (and now Lauren) their Halloween costumes. (See 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009 – no really, go look, you won’t be disappointed!) A couple months ago, we asked Maile what she wanted to be for Halloween and without hesitation she said “A unicorn. A rainbow unicorn.”
I think it’s safe to say that, once again, Grandma Gail delivered!
Meet the two cutest unicorns this side of San Francisco...
One more time because it's that good. Grandma Gail you outdid yourself this year!
What. Is. This.
Whew. That's better...
Maile Girl got to wear her costume to school - shockingly, she made it through the whole day with the costume in tact!
This year was also a first as we voyaged out beyond the gates of our courtyard to take in the San Francisco trick or treating scene. It was pretty crazy out there, but we had a blast and Maile has a full bag of candy for our troubles (perhaps a bit less by when she wakes up tomorrow morning 😉
After school we met up with Jake and Sophie for some dinner and trick or treating...
Mommy and Lauren took it all in from afar...
... while Maile and Daddy headed out with the hordes to go get some candy!
Maile was very particular about the candy she chose - she learned quickly which ones looked like ones she'd like (colorful) and which were chocolate (brown, yellow, etc.)
This is exhausting...
Unicorn Lauren taking it all in...
THANK YOU GRANDMA GAIL once again for amazing Halloween costumes for the girls!
(Click here for the video.)
Sunday was pumpkin carving day and we had a blast!
Maile Girl sketched out her design ahead of time and then copied it on to the pumpkin
Maile made separate designs for herself and Lauren
Alright, let's get this going - Daddy kicked off the scooping of the gunk part of the pumpkin carving.
Ewwww, slimy...
And by slimy, I mean AWESOME!
Mommy got involved to add an M for Maile and L for Lauren to the back of the pumpkins
Lauren wasn't quite as thrilled with the activity...
The finished product...
Maile and Lauren representing Halloween 2013!
