Thanksgiving Festivities, Birthday Party, and Landon's Red Egg/Ginger Party... (Week 229/91)

Happy Post Thanksgiving!  We had quite a busy holiday weekend with lots of family get togethers.  Some side notes though, Katelyn is getting better at telling us when she needs to use the potty.  She is by no means close to being potty trained, but she does seem more aware of when bodily functions are going to happen.  We do need to be quick to respond though, or she'll just go ahead and do her stuff.  I think we had a couple #2s and even a #1 in the potty this week.  She's also stringing more words together.  Just last night she told Will something like "I want drink", motioned to her sippy cup and made a slurping sound.  She wanted Will to take the cap off so she could drink it like a normal cup!  She insists on climbing into her carseat herself now (she's been doing that for quite a while with her high chair).  She likes to take part of her breakfast to go in the car, and will ask "bag please" to put whatever she has left in a snack bag for the car ride.  She also constantly wants to press play on the DVD player in the car, which is not convenient for the rest of us since the DVD player is in front of Tyler!  In the mornings when she comes over to our room and the TV is not on, she'll point at it and say "TV On!"  She's quite demanding.  Tyler is still busy with all his activities and started (a living social deal) private piano lessons this week!  He is maturing so quickly and makes random comments about things. He is also less shy (YAY!) and his drop offs at school this week have been amazingly wonderful.  He gives me a kiss and runs off and plays.  They've actually left me feeling quite dazed and confused, especially since I was bracing for the worst after the holiday break.

Starting off, Thursday after naps we headed up to Will's parents place in San Gabriel for Thanksgiving dinner.  Tyler was quite friendly with Will's uncle.  Come to think of it, he's always been quite friendly with him, which is a bit odd since he doesn't see him very often.

The kids played around for a while with Will's parents and his 3rd Aunt.  It's been a while since we've been up to their San Gabriel house (usually they come down to Irvine) and during dinner Tyler seemed a bit confused about where we were.  This place probably seemed familiar to him, but he was probably having a hard time understanding that there were two homes.  He said things like (murmuring to himself) "this table looks bigger" and things about the furniture.  It was funny seeing his confusion.

Group picture at the end of the night!  We headed home not too late but the kids still fell asleep in the car.  Tyler was awake enough to get him changed to his pajamas (without a bath!) but Katelyn we just put down for the night in her clothes.  She slept through the night fine though, whew!

Friday.  Mo family get together!  My parents came in the early afternoon, followed by Kareen/Andy/Leah and then Lindon/Michelle/Landon.  It was quite a gathering!  The best part was having Katelyn and Leah play together.  They totally don't see each other enough. Darn Katelyn's hair got so messy and in her face. Ugh!

Leah was quite taken with our little play guitar.  The girls fought over it a few times!  We even busted out the real violin for Tyler and they all made their own music together!

Dinner was a delicious (steamed?) turkey w/the fixings, as well as freshly made potstickers.  YUM!

After dinner, more playing.  Michelle even helped Tyler with his Kumon while we cleaned up (Kareen probably did dishes for an hour!)

Group picture!  Katelyn sure made herself comfortable in Andy's lap.  She just crawled over there and plopped herself down!  I have very friendly children!  My mom is holding my iPad with (hard to see) my older sister's Grace's face on it (we were facetiming!).

Our original plan was to decorate the tree that day but we never got around to it.  The kids got to put these little tiny Hello Kitty ones on it though.

Early Christmas present for Leah! - the red Sesame Street pull out couch.  It was the first time Katelyn saw it since I pulled it out of the box in the garage and she decided she wanted to lie in it.  Leah didn't mind hanging out in our Dora one.

The kids also took baths together before Kareen's family left.  They were up until past 11pm - amazing and unheard of!

Saturday.  Hello Kitty birthday party.  I LOVE this picture of Katelyn - she is so grown up!  She liked the balloons of course.  Tyler had a great time on the park playground with his friends.  They both also really liked the swings.

Katelyn was super relaxed in her swing!

Here's Katelyn and the birthday girl Madison.  Madison is turning 3, but there barely seems to be a difference in size between her and my 1 1/2 year old!

Katelyn also insisted in playing the bounce house and wanted to climb up the slide.  Those inflatable stairs inside are hard to get up!  Good thing my friend Jen helped her on top.

These are some great action photos of the boys getting rowdy in the park!

And a shot of our playdate parents.  We've got a group of 5-6 families that always hang out together - it's what I always wanted when Tyler was little and I thought that we would never have any family friendly friends!  I wonder if our days are numbered though, as our kids are getting older and will be going to different schools next Fall for Kindergarden!

We headed home (exhausted!) and the kids took long naps.  Will and I even took a nap on the floor of our room (we don't get into our clean sheets unless we're clean!).  Tyler woke up and cuddled/napped with us!  It was a really sweet moment since he rarely ever naps with us!  After K woke up we headed up to Rowland Heights for my nephew Landon's Red Egg/Ginger celebration!  Woah, my parents went all out!  They rented out the back room of a fancy Chinese restaurant and invited 60 of their closest friends and family for the event.  It was like a trip down memory lane seeing all these family friends that I remember growing up with.  Many of them told me that Katelyn looked just like me when I was a kid.  Yay!  We sat at a table with Kareen's family and Will's parents and Andy's parents.

Katelyn doesn't have a smile in this picture, but Leah is super cute!

Tyler was really engrossed in watching the employees pull out a lobster and weigh them before taking it into the kitchen.

Tyler also got to hang out with Auntie Val and Uncle Warren - they are close friends of Lindon's.  He really likes them and told Warren that he likes his Ferrari.   Tyler was actually quite well behaved all night and ate lots of Chinese food (the most amazing part).  We changed the kids into their pajamas before leaving and they were out for the night.

Thank goodness we still had one more day of the weekend left - Sunday!  This was a relax and recuperate day, aside from Will/I putting up the Christmas lights - new icicle lights we just got from Costco.  I'll be sure to post a photo next time.  The kids love driving around the neighborhood and seeing the Christmas lights up!

On Monday I went to pick up Tyler from school, only to find that they were having their monthly music session.  The kids were so rowdy and excited with the singing by Jules.  I went to get Katelyn from her class and brought her over.  She got really into it too!

Here's a video of Katelyn at Tyler's Pre-4 music time with Jules.  She was turning circles so much that she almost fell!


And lastly - Tyler's first private piano lesson.  Wow, what a difference from the group lessons we tried this Summer.  Here he was focused and excited to play and learn his fingering.  His favorite part was pressing the Staples Easy button whenever he did well.  Hah!  I think it helped that the teacher, Miss Sue, was wearing a Hello Kitty shirt!