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!
On Saturday afternoon, we headed down the peninsula to Palo Alto to celebrate Sam’s first birthday. It was great to see all of our friends that have moved down to Palo Alto – certainly miss seeing them all the time in the city. Christine took a ton of pictures – some highlights involving Maile Girl…
Fun on the big cement slide - so big that you needed to sit on a piece of cardboard to make it down...
Maile and Allison hadn't seen each other in months, but fell back into playing just like old times!
Daddy and Maile
Bubble time - behind the scenes note, Mommy blew the bubbles AND took the pictures. Such talent!
Maile made Sam a birthday card - she took giving it to him very seriously...
The whole group - our family of friends is definitely growing!
Party time!
Eating cake with Wills
And by eating, I mean shoving as much as possible into her mouth as fast as she can...
Our neighbor, Lizzy, heard that Maile was a soccer player and invited us to one of her games. On Saturday, we went to check things out. Maile and Mommy made a “Go Lizzy!” sign and Lizzy’s team won 1-0!
After the game, Lizzy gave Maile some pointers…
Lizzy taught Maile some great moves and reinforced the "no hands" rule!
… and then she schooled Daddy with a great drive to the goal!
(Click here for the video.)
When I got home from school today there was a green box waiting for me. Daddy said it was a present just for me. When I opened the box there was all this really cool stuff inside – lots of colors and art projects. Mommy showed me that one project was to make colorful tops to spin and another was to create “stained glass” with tissue paper – we didn’t do that one yet, but it looks like it will be a lot of fun!
I said to Daddy, where did this magic box come from? He told me that he found it online at a place called KiwiCrate. He said he got it for Mommy and me to do art projects together after school and that I’d get a new one every month! How cool is that? Thank you, Daddy! I can’t wait to show you all the cool things we make…
Look at all the fun stuff that was inside! And all for me too - I can't wait to work on all these projects with Mommy...
I showed Daddy how you color the paper with all the pretty colors ...
... and then Daddy showed me how all the colors turn into pretty designs when you spin the top! Cool, right!?
Dad note: how do we know that Maile liked her KiwiCrate? This is what happened when we told her it was time to stop playing for the day....
One of the shots from Jenna Park's Mixed Race Project
A couple month’s ago a good friend of Christine’s reached out to ask if we’d be interested in participating in a photo project that a friend of hers was working on. The photographer, Jenna Park, was hoping to take photos of mixed race families at their homes. From Jenna:
The Mixed Race Project is a glimpse inside the homes and lives of some of these multiracial families. I didn’t want to focus on taking traditional portraits – there is certainly enough visual documentation on the beauty of mixed race people out there already – but I felt that portraying families in the context of their homes made a stronger impression of how we live.
We thought it would be fun to participate and a couple months ago during a visit to San Francisco, Jenna came by our apartment for about an hour and took pictures of Christine, Maile and I going about our day. We painted, played bubbles and hide and seek, and ate lunch. A pretty typical Saturday and we all had a lot of fun. Jenna also asked Christine and I a bunch of questions about how we grew up and how we think about raising Maile.
The result is a great photo essay that Jenna put up on her web site: The Mixed Race Project. You can find our family’s entry directly here: Christine & Matt’s Family.
We’re very happy with how things came out and look forward to seeing where Jenna takes the project next!
by Papa K on September 21, 2011
Not quite...
by Papa K on September 19, 2011
This one is for Papa Mike. On Sunday, we went to check out Sunday Streets over in North Beach. It wasn’t very busy when we went, but the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition was setup with balance bikes. Balance bikes are this new concept where they teach little kids to “balance” on bikes without pedals or training wheels. Apparently, it is better for kids to learn how to balance first and then add in the pedaling. (Makes sense to me, more details here.)
Mommy got Maile started by showing her how things worked ...
... then Maile and Daddy raced down the rest of the course!
Eat your heart out, Papa Mike!
by Papa K on September 18, 2011
On Saturday, we headed down to Marina Green for the Family Day Kite Festival. It was a blast, I actually forgot how much fun kites are. They had some incredible kites that you could watch, but the best part was that the YMCA setup a booth where you could make your own kite. I had pretty low expectations that the kite we made would fly, but it really did!
Mommy, Daddy - DUCK! There are huge animals in the sky that are going to fall on us...
This is the kite that Mommy and Maile made...
... and here is Daddy and Maile flying it!
Video of Maile’s first solo kite flight…
Kites. Are. Awesome.
Bye bye kites, we'll see you soon...
(Click here for the video.)
As Daddy mentioned yesterday, this weekend we went to Vermont (my 6th state!) for a wedding. Auntie Elyssa came too and I had so much fun playing with her. Vermont is really, really, really, really far away though. So far that my tummy didn’t like it. Overall, I’d say that Vermont was 5 stars (out of 5, since that’s pretty much how high I can consistently count), but the car ride there was a minus 1,000 stars (that’s as big as numbers get, right?)
Quality time with Mommy and Daddy was definitely a highlight of the trip...
... but I could have passed on the 4 hour car ride!
(Dad note: Poor Maile Girl got carsick both going and coming from Vermont. Both times right around the 3 hour mark of the drive. She was a trooper though and got back in the car both times after we cleaned everything off. That last hour though, I winced on every bump we went over…)
My daddy has moves like Jagger and I plan on learning every single one!
(Dad note: Maile is in the “I’m-going-to-copy-everything-you-do” phase and I plan on taking full advantage – we had a blast dancing around the house this weekend!)
(Click here for the video.)
