so phil had vacation time for the first two weeks of november.  back in august when we were throwing out ideas of what to do with the time, phil suggested taking a mini-vacation somewhere WITHOUT the kids.  i was ALL for that idea, even though it would require extra planning, extra coordinating, extra driving, and extra overall effort.  but if we could pull it off, it would be SO WORTH IT.  a week or two later, while talking to my dad on the phone, i mentioned the possibility of leaving the kids with him and mira– just to see if they were at all interested in having the grandkids at…

i hate that we live in a world where there are people who would seek to harm our little ones.  and that we have to teach our kids to be wary of strangers.  but i came across this list of things to talk about with our kids and wanted to save it for future reference.  1. Adults (or teenagers) don’t NEED help from a kid, so if an adult asks for their help (finding a dog, lifting something into their car, etc.) that it should be a warning sign. 2. If someone did try to grab them, I don’t just want them to scream (because someone could assume that they…

forgot to add these before…  pumpkin carving with the kiddos last month. mikey was fascinated with the pumpkin guts. but he wouldn’t touch it for anything. he declared it be too stinky. phil thought it was pretty stinky too. but i love him for still being willing to do it (on his post-call day) because i wanted the family memories. and this was the closest the girl would get to the whole operation. mikey requested this for his pumpkin. and it became phil’s job to make it happen. this was allie’s choice. and was my job. hard at work making the outline… Add a caption phil<br /> thought it was…

*finally* got picture uploader working again.  argh.   so back to catching up on last month…  after the kids’ pumpkin party, some friends invited us to join them at another church’s harvestfestival that evening. allie insisted on wearing her piggy mask with her costume andinformed me that she wasn’t my little pink fairy (like i’d been hopingfor), but was now a pink pig fairy. little stinker. storm-trooper mikey.  refer to his nametag in case you aren’t sure. on to more carnival games! he won a goldfish. yay, me. she did too.  (update:  hers went belly up yesterday.  she informed her daddy that she was “worried and mad at him for…

good times are here again in the tsai house as phil is in the middle of his two-week vacation.  we’ve definitely been enjoying the time together, and i’m looking forward to posting the pics of our vacation here soon.  but first, i wanted to write about our halloween weekend since that’s what kicked off vacation for all of us.  it all started with the pumpkin party at mikey and allie’s school. first came the mask parade.  they asked the kids not to dress in costumes since they had made masks/mini costumes in class that they would all wear for the parade.  it turned out to be a good week for…