I love trees. Whenever I go walking with Mommy and Daddy I always point at the trees and say “thee” – so imagine how excited I was when I arrived at Grandma Gail and Grandpa Cal’s AND THEY HAVE A TREE INSIDE THEIR HOUSE!
Grandma explained to me that it was only temporary for Christmas. Still pretty cool in my book. In any event, in addition to having a tree in their house, Grandma informed me that we also get to decorate with lights and pretty ornaments. And I got to help!
First, Grandma Gail gave me some instructions...
... then Daddy gave me a few pointers ...
... and then I was on my own!
So many ornaments, so little time...
Fun, what's next!?
Since I was in a decorating mood, I decided to decorate my clothes...
... and Grandpa's too - he's a good sport!
Hello everybody from Hawaii. Now, when Mommy and Daddy told me we were coming back to Hawaii visions of playing the sun and going to beach danced in my head. Unfortunately, it has pretty much been raining ever since we got here. I got a little tired of staying in the house so I decided to take matters into my own hands and headed out to check out what rain in Hawaii was all about. Turns out its a lot of fun!
Rain, rain go away, come again another day (like when I'm back home in San Francisco!)
Daddy, come over here and play in the gutter with me...
See Daddy, you clap your hands in the water and it splashes, fun, right?
I'm a flexible girl, I can have fun in any type of weather...
Rain in Hawaii, not so bad really...
Mommy has a towel for me, right? Cool, just checking...
by Papa K on December 19, 2010
On Saturday we left rainy San Francisco and arrived in … rainy Hawaii! But at least it is warm here (and the rain should go away in a couple days). We’re visiting Grandma Gail and Grandpa Cal for our annual Christmas pilgrimage and couldn’t be happier to spend some time with family and get some much needed R&R (and we mean it – Grandma Gail and Grandpa Cal keep Maile hours, so in theory we should get some extra hours of sleep!)
More to come as our trip develops, but here is how we kicked things off…
Very happy to be here with Grandma Gail and Grandpa Cal!
Apparently Grandma Gail and Grandpa Cal are a little out of practice with the "look at the camera, not the baby" rules - luckily we have a couple weeks to figure it out...
(Click here for the video.)
Since we will be in Hawaii for Christmas, Grandma Gail and Grandpa Cal sent their big present to the house a little bit early. It came in 3 big boxes, so after Maile Girl went to sleep last night, Mommy Elf and Daddy Elf set to work. Our first late night construction project – and it went smoothly!
Daddy Elf building some chairs...
Mommy Elf is quite proud of her work on the table...
Then we set everything up for a morning tea party and went to sleep. Maile Girl actually slept through the night (for a change!) and in the morning we had a big surprise for her…
(Dad note: Sorry so blurry, I think it was due to the lighting…)
Maile played on her new table and chairs all morning – she loves it! Thank you Grandma Gail and Grandpa Cal!
Yes, Mr. Teddy, the tea wil be ready soon, we just need to let it cool down a bit...
(Click here for the video.)
Before Maile was even born, Harold’s parents gave us a present and told us we couldn’t open it until Hanukkah. The present ended up being a pretty funny book called The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming – A Christmas Story by Lemony Snicket. Maile was too young last year to really enjoy the book, but this year we started reading the book with her and pretty quickly she started participating. What do I mean by participating?
If it’s not clear from the video. Basically, ever few pages in the book there is a picture of a latke screaming “AAAHHHHHHHHHHH!” – whenever Maile sees the latke, she screams, and mommy and daddy crack up!
(Click here for the video.)
Maile Girl here. My mommy and daddy rock. I mean they are normally pretty cool, but on Sunday they took it to a whole other level.
First, we get on a bus – and well, you know how much I love buses (and the wheels going round and round, and the people going up and down, the whole thing…)
In any event, we take the bus for a little bit and then Daddy tells me he has a big surprise for me and then we walk into this BIG room and then someone hands us these black glasses (that looked oddly familiar) and then I look up and I see this big screen that looks just like the screen when I watch the Yo Gabba Gabba TV shows … (breath) … and THEN Daddy tells me I am going to get to meet DJ LANCE ROCK and the Yo Gabba Gabba crew! We were at Yo Gabba Gabba Live! (A little confusing because they always seem “live” to me… but I wasn’t complaining.)
The show was awesome – they dropped like a million balloons from the ceiling and they had bubbles (I almost caught two) and these long colored ribbons that mommy said were “streamers”. And all my favorite Yo Gabba Gabba characters were there and they sang and danced and THEN Biz Markie came out and did his beat of the day (Daddy really liked that part).
So fun! Thank you Mommy and Daddy!
Me and Mommy before the show starts - I was so excited I could hardly sit still!
Check it out we're a family of DJ Lance Rocks!
The show was A-Mazing - I don't think I blinked the entire time...
Oh, I almost forgot. At intermission I met this really nice boy sitting right next to us. I chatted him up a bit. He's a bit older. Then Daddy came and got me. That's all.
by Papa K on November 18, 2010
Last Sunday a Curious George exhibit opened at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. The actually opened the gallery an hour early and invited kids to come meet Curious George, make some art projects and basically have the run of the place. It sounded fun and figured it would be a good excuse to put Maile back in her super adorable Curious Maile outfit to meet a new friend.
Maile had a great time at the museum, but I think it’s fair to say she wasn’t quite as excited as we were about meeting Curious George himself…
Hmm... I'm not so sure how I feel about this Curious George guy. What type of money doesn't have a tail?
Okay, Curious Maile let's go meet Curious George...
You know what, Daddy, I think I'm good right here.
Scratch that. GET ME OUT OF HERE!
Maile, there is nothing to be scared of. Scared? I'm not scared. Well, maybe a little. Look, let's have mommy come with me, cool?
Is this close enough? Can we just take the picture and get out of here? Sure thing, Maile Girl, sure thing.
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!
They didn't have balloons for the Class of 2031, so we just stood next to daddy's 2000 ones.
This weekend we headed down the 101 to Stanford for Homecoming and my 10th Reunion. We decided to stay in a hotel to avoid driving back-and-forth all weekend – so it turned into a mini-vacation for all of us. Megan helped out on Friday and Saturday nights so Chris and I could enjoy the festivities with the Stanford crew.
Despite the fact that all these pictures are of Maile Girl, we actually did see lots of friends (including baby reunions with Maile’s friends Tanner and Brennan). It had been several months since we had seen the boys, so it was fun to see how grown up everyone was. Unfortunately, we just didn’t take too many pictures – too much fun and chasing around the little ones I guess…
As soon as we got down to campus, Maile's blackberry started blowing up. She's very popular.
I'm all ready, I have my name tag, I have my red pants - let's get this reunion started!
Hi. Maile K. I'm a stay at home baby. Nice to meet you.
There was glass all over campus and Maile made sure she left her mark on all of it...
Maile meets the Tree. She was actually a little frightened by him - good practice for Santa though.
The grass here IS THE BEST!
Good bye Stanford for now - we had a great weekend!
Ever since I first went there, I’ve been excited to take Maile to the California Academy of Sciences. The Academy has an aquarium, planetarium and natural history museum all under one roof. (Oh, and Christine wants me to mention that they have penguins too!)
On Sunday we were originally going to head to Half Moon Bay for the Pumpkin Festival, but bad weather had us calling an audible and we decided to see if Maile was old enough for the California Academy of Sciences. The answer was a resounding “yes”! We only really took in about 1/3 of the academy, spending most of our time in the aquarium. The aquarium is great – they let you get right up to the glass and they have rooms where it feels like you are in a fish bowl with the fishes zooming all over the place. Hard to get good pictures due to the lighting, but we did our best…
Maile Girl taking it all in...
Mommy, do these bars mean I can't go play with the fishies?
Not sure who is more fascinated here, Maile or me...
Daddy, there are so many fishies in here I can't even point to them all, but I'm going to do my best...
Maile wasn't even scared of the snake!
Maile really seemed to enjoy herself. She’s at this age now where she is a total sponge taking in everything – and the aquarium certainly had a lot to take in. We bought an annual pass on the way out and we’ll definitely be back sometime soon to check out the rest of the Academy (we didn’t even go to the indoor rainforest which many people say is the best part).
