Penelope's 8 Year Video

The last video of the kids yearly compilations was Penelope's eight-year-old video.  It probably would have been much easier if I did each video right after their birthday instead of waiting until the end of the year to get the majority of the work done.  I'll try to do better this year.  Enjoy.

Penelope's Birthday Photography

Penelope's birthday pictures this year were super easy.  I always kind of put off taking these pictures because they just seem like such a hassle, and I never seem to have time.  Looking back I am so glad that I just take about an extra hour to take some nice pictures of the kids each year for their birthday.  This time, we curled her hair and took these on our neighborhood path.

After looking at the pictures Penelope and Bob both commented separately about how old she looks.  I'd have to agree, she does seem to be growing up pretty quick.

Happy Birthday Penelope!

Kokeshi Doll Birthday Party

For Penelope's friends party this year we decided to do a Kokeshi theme.  Our basic idea was we would decorate it Japanese style and paint our own kokeshi dolls.  It worked out great!

 Penelope set up this next sign herself.

We used benches and pillows for a little floor seating eating area and hung lanterns and fans around the house.

At first I didn't have balloons because I didn't think it went with the theme, but Penelope said she wanted balloons, so we added some in. 

 Penelope and Scarlett dressed up and were happy to pose for pictures.

She was excited for friends to come.

I wanted something for the girls to do while others arrived and came up with this coloring sheet.  It was perfect.  They quietly and nicely colored for almost 30 minutes!  It worked out really well because one of the moms was stuck at the dentist and some girls were pretty late.  All they missed was coloring, no big deal.  The sheet also had one blank doll and I encouraged the girls to practice their design on that dress.

Once coloring was finished we painted the dolls.  I prepainted the eyes and hair and thought they faces could be left blank.  That way the girls could do the dresses however they liked and no one would get upset.  Sometimes Penelope gets frustrated if her drawings don't come out how she envisioned them so I thought me doing a little prepainting would help with that.

 I also had beads to paint and hot glue to their heads to make buns.

They turned out so cute!  I love how different they all are.

Next we played a couple of chop stick games while waiting.

The first was a relay.  We split up into groups and the girls had to use the chopsticks to get marshmallows from one bowl to the other.  The girls were all really into it.  Penelope even said this game was her favorite part of the party.

I also had the girls get in a circle and use the chopsticks to pass a large marshmallow around the circle.  I had music playing and when the music stopped, if you were holding the marshmallow you had to either say your name or a Japanese word.

I totally forgot to get pictures of this, but before the cake the girls all sat down and ate some sushi.  It was dessert sushi, made out of rice crispies, fruit roll ups, and Swedish fish.

I struggled a bit to figure out the cake, but it turned out cute in the end.

Lastly we had presents.  I keep debating if we should just ask for no presents at the parties or not, but of course the kids love this part.

For their goody bags I opted to pass out homemade fortune cookies.  The fortunes all said "Thanks for coming to my party. -Penelope"  The reviews online said that these would be easy to make, let me just set the record straight on here that they were not easy to make!  We spent hours and I feel like my fingers were burning off because you have to quickly fold them after they bake but before they harden.  I could only bake two cookies at at time.  The kids sure had fun helping make them though and adding in their own fortunes.  They turned out pretty tasty.

The party was a success!  Now I feel like I can rest until the next one.  These parties always become stressful, but I love it!

Penelope and Scarlett Model for Milk

After Scarlett's first modeling job went so poorly I thought she might never get to do it again.  But a job came up for Penelope and Scarlett to do together.  I was assured it would be inside and she wouldn't have to pose with any boys so I let her give it another try.  It actually went really well.  They both did a great job.

Tucker and Leon were happy to sit on the couch and watch movies for hours on end.

I'm not going to lie this shoot was weird!  Everything they wore seemed to be purposely buttoned wrong or extremely large. 

I also saw this laying around, and thought it was funny.  They cut out the girls faces and put them above the close so they knew which outfits for them to wear.

It was hard for the girls not to laugh.  They kept making them to rediculous things and then kept telling them "no smiling."  I heard over and over again, "no smiling." 

You try standing in extra large shirts and wood shoes with a pole balanced over your head, then look straight at your sister and don't crack a smile.

The room was so hot though they eventually got tired and that made it easier for them to not smile.

This one was funny because they wanted them to put their palms together and then push on each other.  Well, Scarlett can get upset when people touch her and she didn't particularly like this idea.  So she started getting mad.  Then they were saying, "ohhh Scarlett angry, kawaii kawaii (which means cute.)  They loved that she was mad.

We all had a good time and then headed back through Tokyo to the train station.

After a couple months the catalog game out and the company even put pictures on their instagram.  It is so weird to see other people post pictures of your own children.

Scarlett did a separate shoot for this same catalog, so she has a few more pictures in it than Penelope.  They really loved this one of her with her face smashed against the window.

I took pictures of the actual catalog because they weren't all posted online.

This was the first physical copy of any pictures they have done that we got.  It was really exciting for them to see themselves in the magazine.