Let's Go, Bruins!

Just doing a little Tsai family style celebrating after UCLA's victory over SC in football last month.  Timelier now given UCLA's victory over SC in basketball this past weekend.  Go Bruins!! Ahem.

As for me and my house, we will root for the Bruins.  ;)

Oh and we started decorating for Christmas that weekend, too.

My silly, goofy, favorite guy.

Love my crazy crew as much as I do not love our crazy cluttered garage. This shot is missing Jonah who was taking a nap at the time.  Thank you Lord, for naps.  And family.  And Bruins.  Amen.

Thanksgiving

This seems like a great time to wrap up the Thanksgiving posts.  You know, now that we're finishing up the first week of January.  Sigh.

Anyway, plowing right ahead...

Each grade of our kids' school puts on a performance at different times of the year.  The third grade got Thanksgiving, so Lauren, Jonah, and I settled in to watch the turkeys going on strike.

I had a pretty good view of Mikey until this turkey, uh, older gentleman marched up and plunked himself smack in the front of the aisle with his trusty iphone whipped out.

Since he's our oldest, I tend to often forget just how young he still is.  That is, until I see pictures of him like this and it makes me sad to think of how I often don't see him as the little kid he really is. 

Love this kid so much.  (BUT THAT ANNOYING GUY WITH THE PHONE IS KILLING ME!!)

Last minute pic before he dashed off to rejoin his classmates.

The next day was Thanksgiving.  Clementines and pine cones in vases is as Martha Stewart as I get.

Turkey's ready!  This was just before I almost tipped the bird right out of the pan.  Sucker was heavy!

Almost ready to eat.

This year, we invited the family of one of Allie's classmates to join us for the meal.

So, so much to be thankful to the Lord for and it was so nice to have time to celebrate and be together.

And now it's finally time to move on to Christmas!

Time with Daddy

The astute observer might have noticed that two notable people were missing from the unawesome pre-Thanksgiving family picture.

That's because it was UCLA's last football game of the season which meant it was his turn to go with daddy.

But not without a nice picture first.

Boys, I said NICE.

Uhhh, hello? [Tap, tap] Is this thing on?

Okay, there we go.

And off they go!

 
Phil sent these from his phone after they got there...

Family Thanksgiving, cont'd

The rest of the pre-Thanksgiving weekend included...

A little digging in the dirt.

A little ornament making.

Likely her favorite part of the weekend.

Hers too.

A little turkey carving.

An informal, not-so-little pre-Thanksgiving feast.

The annual unawesome family photo.

The Great-Uncle, Grandma, and Grandpa.

The requisite nap following the not-so-little feast.

A little round of Go Fish.

Where some played by the rules and others didn't quite get them yet.

A little Action Bible reading.

And the following day, a little pedi time for the two of us.  Such fun times!

All together added up to one weekend with so much to be thankful for. 

An Interlude of Sorts

I must interrupt these family Thanksgiving posts (as well as my current blogging dry spell) to post a most important event in my girl's life.

Here she is before...

And here she is after!

She got braces in between the two weekends my side of the family were here so just wanted to make mention of it because you'll see her colorful teeth in the rest of the pics.  So proud of how well she's done with getting them put on, taking care of them by herself, answering all the questions from her classmates (she's the first one to get them in her class), and how tough she's been while getting used to them along with the occasional canker sores that have popped up.  She's definitely a tough cookie and suddenly seems so much more grown-up now.  Wah.  Happy, sad, happy, sad.

Family Thanksgiving

Wow, it's been a little while since I last posted.  Been trying to savor more of this most wonderful time of the year as we celebrate our Savior's birth and contemplate what that means to me and to my family.  Been trying not to be too busy, although trying is not the same thing as succeeding...  Been enjoying time with family especially now as Phil's ten days off from work has begun.

It's been great being home all together.

But I can't very well skip right over Thanksgiving, so I will have to back up a little bit.  November was a fun month for us as we were able to spend a couple of weekends with my side of the family.

Which meant hanging with this cutie pie.

And also Grandpa.

They love their grandpa.

Brothers.

Sisters.

My lovely sister in law.

More to come...

Time with Daddy

Then it was little sister's turn for a UCLA football date with Daddy.

Dressed up and ready to go!

They were sent off with one simple request: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WERE THEY TO BUY ANY STUFFED ANIMALS OF ANY KIND.

I thought I made myself pretty clear.  One day I will show you what the girls' beds look like.

Phil sent me this pic after they got to the game:

YYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!


Half an hour later came this pic with the following text:

Can we go now?


Then ten minutes after that:

IS IT TIME TO GO YET?!?!?


Ha ha.