Ellie's piano recital 1-24-16

A week ago, on January 24, 2016, Ellie had her second piano recital. Despite changing her recital piece two weeks before the recital, she was ready for the performance. She not only had a solo piece, but also a duet with a little boy from her Saturday morning theory class.









Grandma and Grandpa Van came down for the performance.













Ellie did really well. A couple small flubs during the duet, but she nailed her solo. She also had a lot of fun with friends before and after the recital. She is starting to make some good friends and enjoy spending time with other kids from the piano studio.







I really am so happy with how fast and how much she is learning. As is her teacher, Ms. Samantha. She has accomplished so much in the past year.

Holiday Break

A little late, but since its not quite February...its not too late. December and holiday break was insanely busy for us. There were scores of recitals, performances, get-togethers with friends and family, Susu came to town, Legoland...and more.

Christmas Eve was spent at our house with Grandma and Grandpa Van and Susie. Then we did Christmas morning with Santa presents. Unfortunately both Cal and I were under the weather, Calvin a little more me and of course it was a head cold that then became an upper respiratory issue. We did make it up to Santa Barbara for Christmas dinner (we came back and I ended up taking Calvin to the doctor on December 26).



Calvin pretty much got all balls (baseballs, tennis balls, bouncy balls, etc) for the holidays...and he was so happy. Ellie got what was on her list as well, a real scooter and a swing from Santa. Both kids were over the moon with their gifts.


All the gifts were fun, but spending a day at Legoland with Susie was probably Ellie's highlight (and probably all of us). We went to Legoland as guests of Legoland (Nick got 4 passes from them as a holiday gift...so our admission was free). It wasn't too crowded, and there was lots of churro eating.

While the big kids enjoyed some of the larger roller coasters, Calvin and I took advantage of everything they had for the toddlers. There were little rides as well as Duplo land which was a fun playground that he had a blast on. There were also a couple rides we could all do together, including a couple boat rides and the carousel.





And before we knew it, it was New Year's Eve...which was not too exciting in our house. Nick, Ellie, and I stayed up till 9pm and saw the ball drop in NYC. But none of us made it to midnight. But we were up early on New Year's day to watch the Rose Parade. Per our usual tradition, we watched the parade on TV and then we walked down to the end of the parade route and saw the parade live. And then after that (after lunch) we went to see the floats up close. And then a couple days after that, we saw the floats roll down our street as they left where they were parked to be dismantled. It was a full couple days of Rose Parade floats, but that is the joy of living in Pasadena!






Then everyone went back to school and all was back to normal...

Calvin is 22-months-old!

Calvin is now 22-months-old! We are a day late in the tiger pictures, but we had a great weekend...too much fun to take tiger photos.






He is getting his molars so he has spent some quality time chomping on his fingers. He's still quite a clown. He also is a helper, always wanting to clean up, recycle stuff, and use a broom...but he has a hard time putting his vast collection of bouncy balls away.







He is still cuddly, but his temper is much shorter while he is teething. He is still obsessed with his dad; he only wants to be around him when he's around and when he's not, he's not quite happy about him not being there. He is also protective of his friends at school. His teacher told me his watched a little boy hit his friend (a little girl) so Calvin dropped what he was doing and walked across the room to hit the little boy back (he did get told that hitting, however gallant, is still not okay).






His vocabulary is still growing really fast. We added "house" and "door" to his list of words this week. Although his favorite words still remain: dada, no, ball, and bar (referring to his favorite cereal bar).

Gotta love the little dude.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone