Happy Thanksgiving! (Week 125)

Whew, what a week of friends, family and fun we had!  This Thanksgiving break was quite wonderful - spent time with people that we care about.  It was also VERY productive - we cleaned/organized the garage and finished the nursery.  Yippee!

Wednesday night we kicked off the break with dinner with my girls - hot pot!  I am so thankful to have M and T in my life - they are awesome friends - and hey, even a mom deserves some girl time - I think I'd go a little crazy without seeing them once a week!

Thursday was a nice and warm day - and Tyler was excited to get to play outside in the yard.  Reminds me, I really need to de-weed our yard - but I have to be sure to make sure I don't do it too close to my due date.  Last time I did this ~2 weeks prior to Tyler's due date and Tyler came the next day!

Thursday afternoon we headed over to San Gabriel to Will's parents' place.  Tyler made a new friend that night - a little girl named Angie.  Angie was actually the flower girl in our wedding 5 years ago, and is now 10 years old.  Wow - time flies.  Tyler LOVED playing with her - he would hold her hand and chase her around.  I loved that she kept him occupied happily and it gave me time to just sit and chat with Will's mom.

My Tyler!  We got his bi-yearly assessment back from his school and one of the areas that they had marked as "occasional" but not "consistent" demonstration was his ability to catch a bounced ball.  They said that it seemed that he was afraid that the ball would hit him and he'd run away. Haha! We'll have to work on that. :) He didn't seem to have any problems that night playing with this little foam baseball though...

Oh and did I mention that Tyler is STILL crazy about his Thomas trains?  It's getting a little out of hand.  He'll wake up in the morning and when I go to his room he'll ask: "I play train now?".  He insists on taking his trains wherever he goes and even on the table when we're eating.  Total no-no I know!  We've compromised with him to have him put them in his Thomas backpack and then hang the backpack on his chair.  It doesn't always work though...

My in-laws have this workout bench specifically designed for doing stomach crunches - Tyler thought it was the most entertaining thing!  He watched Angie do it and then decided he had to do it too!

Group picture from that night.  Just so I don't forget - we actually had Armenian food that night.  Think large pieces of naan (?) with hummus, grape leaves, tabouleh, cucumbers, carrots, different dried meats, etc.  It was actually quite tasty and even better - non oily!  Tyler went to town with the roasted turkey meat.  Good boy Tyler!

We attempted to take a family picture - but it's hard to get a good one with Tyler - he's always so animated!  I thought it was hilarious all his different poses below (clockwise from top right):  normal, then excited, then shocked, and then unhappy).  Hopefully we'll get a decent Christmas photo this year!

Friday after Tyler's nap we headed up to Hacienda Heights to my parents' place.  They have a ton of different fruit trees in their backyard (and I'm totally not exaggerating) but my favorite one by far is their Thai Guava tree.  It is ridiculously delicious, and it's close to harvesting time! We got to pick a few that day that were ready, but I can't wait to head back up there soon and really get a bag full!  Anyway, we attempted another family picture in front of my favorite tree.  I think it came out nice but it's not really festive enough for a Christmas card.

My dad's new pet is a turtle he named Tennessee.  Tyler was really excited to see it!  My dad actually brought this turtle back from a business trip that he was on recently in Tennessee.  He did research on what type it was and everything, and he was really excited!  On a side note - their cat Berkeley - bit Tyler!  AHHHHH!  Tyler's interaction with cats is pretty limited - think Mojo who lets him sit on him! - so he wasn't prepared for this less-than-kid-friendly cat.  We all agree that Berkeley has some mental issues and the only one that is not afraid of his wrath is my dad.  I'm not sure what happened (it was so quick) but Tyler went up to a sitting Berkeley who seemed calm and then got bit.  Will was NOT pleased.  Needless to say, we will be keeping Tyler away from that cat.  Thank goodness the bite didn't break any skin.

Dinner that night was at a local Chinese restaurant.  It was quite the get together!  It was Will/myself/Tyler, Will's parents, my sister Kareen/Andy (her husband), Andy's parents, my brother Lindon/Michelle (his wife) and my parents.

After dinner, Kareen/Andy headed back down to Irvine with us.  It's always great when they visit Southern Ca, but even better when they stay with us!  Tyler loves having them over and will wake up and go see them in their room.  Saturday morning he was so excited to have Kareen read stories to him in the morning!

What a nice and warm day it was again - Tyler got to show off his putting skills in the backyard.  Weird thing - he is totally picky about which putter he wants to use.  Will he use his Snoopy plastic ones?  Nope.  How about the back-up putter that Will leaves out just for Tyler? Nope!  Instead, Tyler will ask specifically: "where's my red one?" - and by red we mean Will's fancy Scotty Cameron putter with the red cover.  Sigh.  He knows quality putters I guess!

Here he is putting with Uncle Andy.

What day would be complete without Tyler showing off his dancing skills?  Even I was impressed when I saw these pictures, there's actually one where both of his feet are off the ground!  Tyler has got moves! (totally must be from Will..)

Saturday was a pretty lazy morning - we headed out to one of our new favorite breakfast places (Marmalade Cafe at the District - very non-oily, but kind of slow service) and then made a quick stop at Costco for some last minute dinner items.  Later that afternoon we put up our Christmas tree!  This is the first year that we went with an artificial tree - I was getting tired of the messy constant cleanup - and decided a pre-lit one was the way to go!  Here's Tyler putting on some ornaments.

Just a random photo of Tyler - his hair is getting long!

That afternoon my parents, my brother/his wife and my grandmother came over.  Love the family get togethers at our home - I think mostly because there's stuff to keep Tyler occupied.  I'm amazed we fit 12 people around the table!

Dinner was ridiculous.  My brother steamed a 20 pound turkey which came out amazing.  Seriously.  I do not like turkey usually - it is dry and unpleasant.  This turkey was SOOO moist - even the white meat - it was crazy!  There was cranberry sauce and gravy - and I put the gravy on everything!  There was Michelle's delicious lemon pasta dish with scallops/shrimp/capers, as well as scalloped potatoes.  And the other main dish - this huge sheephead fish that my dad caught the previous weekend on a deep sea fishing trip!  We were SO stuffed.

Here's Lindon and Andy carving the turkey.  I will never go back to dry turkey again!

Tyler still liked the turkey. :)

Picture with my parents, grandmother and Kareen.

Group picture of the night!

All in all, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving break. I'm having a hard time getting back into the swing of things - with Christmas break just a few weeks off, and then my maternity leave starting Feb 1st!  If I can only just get through these next couple months... hope you guys all had a great break as well!