thanksgiving, 2010.

this year's thanksgiving ended up being a pretty simple affair for us.  we originally thought maybe we'd head up north to visit phil's mom as we haven't seen her in over a year.  but as is usually the case, phil ended up not getting the entire weekend off and so we stayed home and gave thanks with just the five of us.  i think we've stayed home nearly every thanksgiving and so it was nice in a way to continue that tradition.

that's not to say there wasn't a lot of eating involved, though.

it started the week before thanksgiving, with both allie and mikey's school celebrations.

lauren and i made it just in time to sit with allie and her class as they feasted.  the teachers were so nice to have a plate of food and a seat all ready for little sister lauren at the table.  which made life for me so much easier.  lauren just wanted to get back to her food.

it was a nice, mellow kind of celebration with tons and tons of food.

quick picture of me and my girls just before we headed out.

the next day (which also happened to be my big ultrasound day), we made it just in time for mikey's class feast.  unfortunately, we had to miss the kids' performance for the parents which made me sad.  but i prepared mikey for it a few days in advance and let him know we wouldn't be there for the singing part, but would be there for the eating part.  at least daddy got to come this time, though.  and i got to tell him that he's getting a baby brother!  mikey was all smiles after that.

before the feasting began, mikey's teacher took a moment to share what she was thankful for this year and then had each of the students share what they were thankful for.

when it came to mikey's turn he said he was thankful for his mommy.  he was the first one to say that which resulted in a round of "awws" from the surrounding parents.

later, he whispered to me that he said he was thankful for me because i was giving him the little brother he always wanted.

we stayed and played a little while after the feasting was done.  and where there's phil...

there are kids gathered around.  happens every time.  same is true of mosquitoes.

probably because he's the biggest kid of them all.  :)

fast forward to thanksgiving day.  a simple celebration for the five of us.  i don't have many pictures though, because as simple as it was, it still took me the better part of the day to get it all ready!  this year, i did make a turkey instead of a chicken or prime rib because now, thanks to what my kids have learned in school, they actually know you're supposed to have turkey at thanksgiving.  if they actually liked the taste of turkey however, is an entirely different matter.

ps- that's allie's thanksgiving turkey centerpiece.

"hey everyone, look at daddy!"  just kidding, they were all supposed to be looking at me.  but it totally looks like i said that, doesn't it?

ps- that's mikey's pilgrim and indian picture on the wall.  and that was all for our meager thanksgiving decorations.  inside our cave-like, faux-wood-paneled dining room.  it's totally my favorite room in the house.  (ok, it's not.  but it IS where we spend a good amount of time each day.  but only for seven more months.  woo hoo!)

and our annual really bad thanksgiving family photo around the dining table just before diving in to the food.  also something of a family tradition for us.  and it totally wouldn't be tradition if it was a good picture, after all.  so thankful for these guys.  even when one of 'em wasn't looking where she's supposed to.  and even when another one of 'em complained of a headache.  and even when the last of 'em complained her tummy hurt.  yup, even then.

thank you Lord, for my family. thank you for the highs and lows, for the joy and the tears.  thank you Lord, for this beautiful life that i don't deserve.

turns out this one really does like turkey, after all.

hope you had a great thanksgiving weekend as well, my friends.  :)

rainy day.

last saturday, we had a rainy day.  not to be confused with a snowy day.  rain days just can't quite compare to snow days.  but if i never experience a snow day again as long as i live, i think i would seriously be okay with that.  more than okay.  just don't tell my kids that since mikey's still been asking when it's gonna snow here.  never, i think to myself with an inward smile.  outwardly, i try to let him down gently saying it just doesn't snow in southern california.

so while we have no snow days to look forward to, we do have rainy days.  which are still considered a big deal in our house.  why?  because of mean mommy's rule that states "children shall not use or play with umbrellas unless there is water falling from the sky."  so whenever there IS water falling from the sky, the kids get all excited because it means the umbrellas and rain boots finally get to come out and play!

hey, i'm all about keepin' it real with low-key fun.  :)

especially when low-key fun involves a kitty, a doggy, and a bee umbrella!  a BEE, people!

dressed head-to-toe in pink.  and especially happy about the pink rainboots mommy got for her.

look!  it's my baby bee!

but of course, it stopped raining as soon as the kids got all their gear on.  not to worry though, cuz that's the perfect time to hunt for puddles to jump in.

the troops went to the backyard in the hunt for puddles.  baby puddles aren't quite so fun.

but a poorly placed rain gutter spout leads to the discovery of a perfect puddle for jumping in.

there's something very satisfying about being a small person who gets to stomp around splashing water everywhere.  until of course, the water gets into your small rainboots and makes your small feet all cold and clammy.

then it's time to move on to other forms of entertainment.

tricycle riding is the perfect diversion when the rain stops.

and then it's time to come back inside to dry off those cold, clammy feet and warm up with...  apple slices and sesame street.  i DID consider making hot chocolate, but then decided that hot chocolate must be earned.  freezing playing in the snow will definitely earn it for ya.  stomping around on a semi-rainy day doesn't quite get you there though.  maybe next time, kids.  :)

it's a...

so this morning i had my 20-week ultrasound.  and no, i cannot believe i'm already halfway through this pregnancy.  yikes!

without further ado, i'll just go ahead and spill the beans so as not to keep you in suspense any longer.

but... not without a few pictures first!  :)  ok, ok, if you MUST KNOW NOW, go ahead and scroll down to see then come back.  i'll wait.

ready?

i scheduled this ultrasound a month in advance to be on phil's post-call day to make sure he'd be able to come too.  only, it also happened to fall on a day when both girls would be at home (allie goes to school only three days a week).  we weren't sure if they'd be able to come in with us, so phil stayed in the waiting room with them for the first part of the ultrasound.

apparently, they stayed plenty entertained while waiting.  then the nice lab tech went out to bring them in to see the baby and to find out the gender together.

and here i am after the appointment with a few pictures to take home!  :)

oh wait, did i skip something?  ;)

ok, so at first, baby wasn't quite cooperating and kept the legs tightly closed so we couldn't see either way.  but after a little while, we saw...

do you see anything?  don't worry, i couldn't tell at first either.  but apparently, this is the money shot.

and so my friends, tsai baby #4 is...  A BOY!!!

and we couldn't be happier about it.  especially mikey.  :)

pajama-rama.

because the kids woke up much earlier than i wanted them to.

because phil had to work that day.

because i just wasn't quite ready to face the day and all the tasks involved therein.


just because.


this past saturday the kids and i ended up having a backwards kind of day.

give it an official name, like "backwards saturday" or "topsy turvy day" or "pajama-rama. a go-go" and it sounds like i have a method to my madness, doesn't it?

in any case and under whatever title, i let the kids stay in their pjs, teeth not brushed, girls' hair not pulled back (which normally drives me crazy), and most other general needs completely untended to.  they played to their hearts' content in the playroom.  then mikey asked if they could go out to the backyard.  being that it was still mid-morning and the sun was only just beginning to warm up in earnest, i decided that was a great idea.

so out they went, each with a muffin for breakfast in hand, along with various other toys and paraphernalia pulled out from the garage for another session of good old fashioned play time.  cuz kids need free, unstructured time to just play, right?  thankfully, my kids are pretty good at playing with each other and finding plenty of things to keep themselves amused.  so they had a grand ole time.

after a while, i figured it was the perfect time to let them paint out there, too.  since the inevitable mess could stay outside, and hey, they weren't dressed for the day anyway.  so i scrounged up some old watercolor paint sets and let 'em have at it.

"dad's rock star" in the midst of painting red mars in his outer space picture.

i don't need to tell you how happy this one was about painting, now do i?

i made the little one wear a big bib over her pjs which she didn't object to as long as she had her own paint set and brush and water cup and paper just like her big bro and sis.  then all was well in her world.

while the kids were engrossed in painting, i decided it was the perfect time to pick some lemons to make some lemonade.  having a single function gadget like a citrus juicer comes in quite handy when you just feel like making lemonade.  not so handy the rest of the time.

but what's the point of having one of these in the backyard if you can't make lemonade in the middle of a summery november day?

there is no point, i tell ya.

aside from making your kids think they had the best day ever since they got to paint AND drink lemonade in the backyard in their pjs.  like you planned it that way all along.

then it's not such a bad point after all, i say.  :)

art gallery.

betcha didn't know i live in an art gallery, didya?  strange, but true.  the thing about the art gallery i live in is that all the art hangs at under five feet on the walls.  so you kinda have to bend down to really appreciate each piece.  this is because five feet is about as high as any of the three pint-sized artists i reside with can reach while standing on a stool to tape up their masterpieces.  and while all three artists regularly contribute to the growing collection that can be found on every single wall and door and window in my house, one of them has a particular passion for all things to do with drawing.

as soon as i pick her up from school, she'll have a drawing in hand and announce that she wants to draw some more.  sometimes she can't even wait til we get home, so i have to give her a pen and a post-it to draw what she's thinking of while we drive home.  last time it was a picture of her grandma.

if she's the first one to wake up in the morning, she can usually be found in the playroom, sitting at the little table on a little white chair, marker in hand, quietly doing her thing.

i have to keep a supply of crayons and pens and paper in my diaper bag because she'll want to draw anytime we're anywhere- in a restaurant, waiting in the doctor's office, getting groceries at the market.

there's never a time she doesn't want to draw.  except maybe when she's asleep.  and even then, i'll often go in to check on the kids after they're asleep and find her clutching a little drawing tightly in her hand.

i have no idea where she gets this as neither of her parents were ever big on drawing all that much.  especially her mother.

but, i love that about her.  and i mean LOVE.

and this is the artist herself!  (please excuse her hair, her mother just didn't get to it yet that morning.  er, late morning.  ok, it was more like afternoon, but who's counting, right?).

so, shall i take you on a tour of her more recent offerings?  (i hope you say yes, cuz here we go!)

this is elmo, zoey, and cookie monster with the sun shining down on them.  you can tell cookie monster by the large cookie in his hand.

this is an older one, but still worthy of mention.  it's a ballerina with a red tutu.  oh yeah, and if she runs out of room writing her name, she'll just move to the other side to finish it up.  complete with a backwards 'e'.  artist's prerogative. 

these are fingerprint people with black dot embellishments.  not sure what the little red dude at the bottom is so sad about though.  (she signs a 'T' after her name just so we don't confuse her with any other allies in this house.  juuust kidding!  there happens to be three allies in her sunday school class so i think that's where she picked it up.)

this is a shout-out to ruby and max after she had just watched an episode.

and this is a village of people.  you can tell they're all girls by the two sprouts coming out of their heads.  those are pigtails.  she draws boys with three lumps on their heads.  which she says is their hair.

here is her tribute to "pinkalicious" just after we had finished reading it.  (i've resorted to having her draw on the backs of papers because we learned the hard way that she can go through an entire ream of paper in less than a week.  so if you happen to have extra plain-backed paper, please send them our way!  allie will thank you.  we ALL will.)

and this one here is ME!  complete with pink eyes, because as she explained, "pink eyes are prettier than dark eyes."

she came to the kitchen to show me this one a couple months ago.  she said it was her mommy and daddy (see daddy's three lumps of hair?).  and in the mommy's tummy is a baby!  this was before we ever said anything to the kids about having another baby.  the thing is that mikey and allie have been praying for months for another baby (cuz whenever they'd ask me, i would answer that they better pray and ask God about that.  sooo word to the wise, don't flippantly answer your kids with this cuz God and his sense of humor will say YES!).  oh and daddy's thought bubble coming out of his head is being happy about the new baby.  so her picture came true- we are having another baby and we ARE happy about it too!

closer up so you can see the happy baby in the happy mommy's tummy.

this is where all the magic happens.

and oftentimes, the little sister will come join her.

shh!  artist at work!

my baby.

this is my baby.  hi, baby!

except...  she doesn't look like this anymore.  this is how she looked back in may.

back when her pink squeaker shoes were all the rage.  with her.

except...  they don't fit her anymore.  it was a sad, sad day.  i don't know if it was sadder for her or for me though.

this is my baby fast asleep.

except...  this was how she looked fast asleep back in june.  that shirt, which used to be allie's, doesn't fit her anymore either.

this is my baby "waked up".

except...  you guessed it, those jammies don't fit her anymore either.  they did back in august.  which is when i took this picture.

but the good news is that this pillow with this pillowcase is still her very favorite thing in the world.  she never took to a lovey like her big brother and sister did.  no, but she laid claim to this particular pillow that i had originally bought for phil.  it's memory foam and squishy yet supportive.  just what a two-year-old needs.  when i tried to do the switcheroo on her and replace it with a regular pillow, she'd do the push-down-hand test and know right away what i'd done.  and immediately switch it back.  phil (who had declared it to be the best pillow he's ever had) willingly gave it to her and she's had it to sleep with ever since.  the pillow even comes with her when we travel.  and when she's feeling a little low, she'll bring it out of her crib to lay her weary head down.  wherever the mood happens to strike- be it on the bedroom floor, the hallway, or in the middle of the kitchen floor while i'm cooking.

and the pillowcase?  that's one of two that phil made for me (hand-sewn even though he doesn't know how to sew) back when we were dating in college and he had given me two down-pillows for christmas (cuz i said i'd never had one before).  the other pillowcase was a print of little doggies all over it.  he went to joann fabrics, found prints of two of my favorite things, and made pillowcases out of them.  eleven years later, that thought still makes me smile.

this is my baby showing off her new shirt.

except...  though the shirt still fits, it won't apply for very long as she'll soon be both a lil sis AND a big sis.  she doesn't know this yet.

this is my baby who makes me smile and laugh and brings me so much joy every single day.

except...  maybe when she's crying and whining and pouting.

but this is how she looked last month.

this is how my baby looks today.

and it would be perfectly fine with me if she stayed exactly this way forever.

forever my baby.