Then it was time for the kids’ second piano recital. He played “Joy to the World”. His look of sheer relief. She played “Holly Jolly Christmas”.  She worked really, really hard to learn this song and pulled through in the eleventh hour. This is how we make it through long periods of having to sit quietly. Group shot. So, so proud of her.  Of them both. Daddy slipped out and bought her flowers.  Because that’s what her daddy does. And because Mikey wasn’t really into getting flowers, this little sister got flowers too. Thanks, Uncle Tim for teaching piano to these two.  And more importantly, for teaching these two about…

And then it was time to decorate the tree.  Not as early as we usually do it, but still well before Christmas, so I considered us golden.   This “four kids sitting on our tree” picture appears to be turning into a thing for us.         He tried to be more helpful this year with actually hanging the ornaments on the tree instead of just chucking them into the tree.  He did however, resort back to chucking method if it kept falling off.  Which is why I only gave him non-glass ones to hang up.                        …

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.

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…

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…