keeping up with... lamar odom

for those of you who personally know me, you know i love me some basketball, and tv. admittedly, since the kids have entered my life, i have watched a lot less of both, but i try to keep up with the phoenix suns, and my favorite shows (so you think you can dance, LOST, the hills, the office, 30 rock) as much as possible.
as a loyal suns fan, i find it important to dislike anyone on the la lakers. they are just one of the most annoying teams out there, with some of the most annoying fans in the world, and we always play against them at some point in the post season, provided that we make it into the post season. one laker in particular has annoyed me over the years, and that player is lamar odom. in my mind he was just another over-hyped, over-paid basketball player on the lakers.
until i watched tv last week.
on my list of 'quality shows' to watch, 'keeping up with the kardashians' is not anywhere near the top. or even the bottom. that show is on the top of my 'shows to never watch' right alongside anything that paris hilton decides to be on.
BUT, i happened to stumble upon the episode of 'keeping up with the kardashians' where lamar odom starts 1.dating khloe kardashian 2. gets engaged to her 3. marries her. yes. all in the same episode. it's almost in real time. (they met, a few weeks later got engaged, 10 days later they got married.) clearly i HAD to watch this episode the way people HAVE to watch a train wreck.
so as i am watching the ridiculousness of two famous people's paths colliding, i realize that lamar odom is a man looking for the simplest thing- love. there was no one from his side of the family present at any point of the wedding preparation. i thought it was pretty one sided of them to just focus the show on the kardashians, even if the series is named for them. but then it comes out that lamar doesn't have any family. his mom died when he was 12, and so he was raised by his grandmother. at this point i am riveted, and i have to google more of lamar odom's story. he just turned thirty. his dad was a heroin addict. he has had three kids with his previous girlfriend. the youngest one died of SIDS at the age of 6 months, a few years ago. oh lamar odom! i just want to give you a huge hug!!!!!
when i had heard about the insanity of this marriage, i thought to myself "now those are two people who have too much money and not enough brains between the two of em." i know they were/are the butts of a lot of people's jokes, people have pools going to see how quickly this marriage will dissolve. but you know what? i hope this crazy thing works out for the both of them. mostly because marriage is a sacred union that is supposed to be FOR LIFE. but also because everyone should have a family that loves them and accepts them and supports them- even if they are on a basketball team that i don't like. i raise my coffee cup to thee lamar odom and khloe kardashian! cheers! may you guys have a long and prosperous marriage.

Thanksgiving in Heber

i think i mentioned before that chris' dad and step-mom bought a cabin up in heber, 2 hours away from the east valley. this place is straight-up pimpin! they have not even had it for all htat long, but it is furnished like they have lived there for years. so beautiful, so cozy, so awesome.
we drove up on thursday morning, with the malloys behind us. we got there in about 2 hours and 10 minutes which was awesome. the kids didn't even seem to mind the drive, they were staring out the window looking at the incredibly scenery whizzing past them. (i remember as a kid thinking everything was going by so quickly. now that i am SO BIG, it's seems like it's all going by at about 55 mph. if you want to get technical about it...)
when we got to 'The Abbey' (the cabin's name. i believe the name is supposed to mean place of refuge, or something like that. also, wes is a huge beatles fan.) there were tons of people already there. they had all spent the night up there already. robert, lindsay and the boys were there. wes and kim obviously. kim's parents. the leonards- family friends, consisting of gary, beth, leanne and brad. the malloys. and us. 14 adults and 5 crazy kids. a few people had last minute things come up so othe party was actually much smaller than originally anticipated.
we had an awesome thanksgiving feast, followed by much hanging out in the beautiful heber air. it was supposed to be cold. it was the warmest 55 degrees i had ever been in. the night was a bit rough for sleeping- topher had just caught a cold while we were up there. so he was really congested, but we got through the night! we would have actually stayed up one more night, but alas the boy needed to sleep with his humidifier.
we spent our two days up north eating, napping, playing football, watching people play football, having a gingerbread house contest, making smores, watching Mary Poppins, and taking tons of pictures. there is a slight possibility that Topher ate/licked an elk turd. to his credit, those things do look like caramels wrapped in chocolate. to the human body's credit, he projectile vomitted on me as soon as he consumed/licked it. gotta love the great outdoors!
an awesome time was had by all, and it was all thanks to 1. those wonderful pilgrims who started this holiday so many years ago. 2. wes and kim for buying this awesomely gigantic cabin that was meant for festivities such as this. 3. Jesus. cause we would have nothing without Jesus.
hope you all enjoyed great eats, and great times relaxing and enjoying friends and family. happy belated thanksgiving to you.


hanging out at the lake. so beautiful!


the kids in their accidentally matching pjs. i didn't plan to bring matchin mickey and minnie mouse pjs for lily and topher. i had no idea lindsay was going to put gabe in mickey pjs. a serendipitous disney moment.


being out in 'the woods' brought out the manly man in chris, and topher.


the abbey.

ridiculousness of marriage

tuesday night i had to pick up and drop off my favorite babysitter, who is unfortunately still about 6 months away from getting her driver's license. but the nice thing about picking her up is getting to chat with her in the car. she is such a sweet girl, and at the tender age of 15 she has dealt with a lot of drama. her parents have been divorced for over 10 years. both parents have already been re-married again, and are single again. crazy. she spends monday and tuesday at her dad's, wednesday and thursday at her mom's, and friday afternoon till sunday with whichever parent is supposed to have her and her sister and brother. wow. supercrazy.

so after she explains all this to me, she asks me if this is my first marriage, or if chris is my second husband. i actually laughed out loud, which hopefully didn't offend the poor girl, cause she was being sincere. it is VERY unfortunately a legitimate question to ask a 28 year old in this day and age. i have a handful of friends who are on their second marriage, and they are Christian, and they can name the cast of Saved By The Bell. Ridiculousness i say!

but on the flipside of that ridiculous 'fact' about marriage, my beautiful grandparents celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary yesterday! that puts us at 1950. right? (my math sucks! i'm asian and i hate math. there! i said it.) they celebrated the day by grilling up pork chops (grandpa's favorite), watching the movie 'UP', and eating pumpkin pie in their wonderfully modest home.

everything about grandma and grandps is wonderfully modest, except for their love for Jesus, and in turn everyone in their lives. that is lavish and excessive in the best way possible. they are so diligent in studying the Word- together, and individually. their relationship with Christ is so real, so alive, and so fresh and new everyday. it keeps them young and vibrant! and boy do they love to share what they know! they did chris' and my pre-marrital counseling (yup. we talked about sex with chris' grandparents. a little weird.but great Christian perspective on everything!) they are ready to dish out any kind of advice that may be needed, and Godly counsel at the drop of a dime. they are not focused on the things of this world- a bigger house, a better car, fleeting fashion, etc. etc. they are concerned with people knowing and loving God. they want their kids, and grandkids, and great-grandkids to have Jesus in their hearts, healthy bodies, and happy homes.

i am so thankful for the example that grandma and grandpa have been to me, and the awesome example they set as a married couple who love Jesus, and each other. i am praying that in my kids' generation- being remarried at 28 is ridiculous, and celebrating your 59th wedding anniversary is common place.

happy anniversary grandma and grandpa. we love you tons!

(this is a picture of topher with his awesome GG and GGpa.)

the things of life

i am presently sitting at a paradise bakery, enjoying christmas carols, free wi-fi, and a banana chocolate chip muffin BY MYSELF. sweet solace!

everything is pretty perfect. except i have a zit under my right eye that is slowly, but surely growing by the hour, impinging on my vision and concentration. of course we are going to take a huge family picture tomorrow- with chris' mom, step-dad, and all of chris' brothers and sister, and their families. 10 adults, 2 teens, 3 toddlers, 2 infants, and 1 giant zit. The promise of a great picture to be sure! :)

the other day chris was on his way to lead his high school boys' small group. he stopped to get a coffee since he was tired and early. the girl taking his order must have been new. chris asked for cream and sugar in his coffee, and the girl asked him if he wanted half and half. as in half and half cream, right? chris said yes. and when he drove up to the window he saw the girl take his coffee, bring it over to the sink, pour out half of his precious java, dump in half a cup of half and half cream, add sugar, and hand it to him. yikes. my wonderfully polite husband just felt sorry for the poor girl and drove away without saying anything. it helps that the coffee was free. sometimes stupidity is so shocking it just leaves you speechless.

and in our continued efforts to have a very casual home where pottying is cool, but not forced, i put topher on the toilet the other day ago, right as he was finishing up his bath. he looked like he was going to drop a deuce in the tub again. and that is not cool. ever. so i put the boy on the can, and he peed in the toilet! but first he peed all over me. soaked shirt and pants. thanks tophy. for everything.

finally, chris and i got a giant check in the mail from our insurance company. something about having had double coverage on the house or something like that. who cares? we got paid folks! $900! and then we brought the van in for a simple oil change. wouldn't you know there was a leak here, brake pads needed there, something loose somewhere else, and all of it came out to $900. oh Jesus. thank you for your provisions! you have a great sense of humour by the way.

Thursday's Thing- Garanimal Pants

buying kids clothes is something that i love and loathe all at once. there are just so many cute and beautiful things out there to buy. but there's never enough money. and the thought of spending more than $10 on any item of clothing is killer for me because i know they are going to grow out of whatever i am buying them. and FAST. too fast.

an awesomely great 'investment' is in Garanimal pants, that they sell at Walmart. they come in boys and girls sizes 12 months to 5 years. i am generally not the biggest fan of Walmart clothes. but if my kids need pants, i go to Walmart. the picture above is of three of Lily's pants. i bought the jeans and khakis a year ago. they are size '24 months' and she still wears them, even though she is 32 months (oh time flies! no weeping. must post about pants without weeping...) the black stretchy pants are also Garanimals, and they were actually a hand-me-down, which means some other kid wore them for about 6 months to a year, and they are in perfect condition! no holes, no rips.

the pants are all pretty 'thin', which is just fine for living in Arizona. they are nott too hot in spring, and just warm enough for our winters too. the thinness of the material makes it more comfortable for the kids to play in, and sit in (compared to some other pants my kids have). they also all have elastic waistbands, that are shockingly not too loose (my general complaint against the clothes at Walmart) and not too tight (cause no one likes a muffin-top. not even on a 12 month old. just joking. topher's got a sweet muffin-top and we are all proud of it!)

the best thing about Garanimals is the price. the jeans and khakis are regularly about $5, and the leggings are about $3.50. and they always go on sale at the end of a season. so awesome. considering the fact that you can drop $25 for a pair of pretty stiff jeans, that have embroidery, or characters on them, which doesn't even make them 'matchable' with every outfit, at Gymboree or the Gap, this is a smokin hot deal.

Great Pics- Part II

i said i was going to post more pics after my awesome Topher pic last week, but like most of this year- i don't know how time has flown by so quickly.
so here are a couple more of my fave pics that barb took. i am saving a great one or two for our Christmas card... which i guess we need to start working on before Christmas gets here tomorrow...

Confessions of a Pathetic Shopaholic

how much would you pay for the above dress? $25? $10? $6.50 plus your integrity?...

august 29th i wrote a post about our moving from a lifestyle that could have been tagged 'seriously excessive' to a lifestyle that would be tagged 'only what's necessary'. i mentioned going on a shopping freeze that would include buying any kind of clothes or accessories for either myself or the kids, cause we all had more than enough stuff to cover our bodies for the next couple of months, if not years (more for myself, since i am no longer growing, and i still wear shirts that i bought 8 years ago.)

this post may have meant nothing to any of you. lots of you probably didn't even read that post. but i have to admit it has helped to keep me 'clean' for the last few months, for fear of having to share that i failed and bought something that i didn't necessarily need. there was a period of time when lily had a lot of mismatched pjs, due to our many moves (we have since recovered all the right tops and bottoms!), and almost everytime i went to either target or walmart, there would be a pair of pjs for lily in my shopping cart until i would get to the checkout and realize that though i loved lily in matching pjs, she did not NEED to have matching tops and bottoms to go to bed. this honestly happened about five or six times. and i refrained from giving in to my obsessive need to have new stuff cause i knew i would have to 1.write about it. and 2. tell chris.

now don't get me wrong. chris is no tyrant. he did not put me on this shopping freeze. i did it to myself. he is just severely supportive cause 1.it's saving us money and 2. he is a man of his word, and he expects others to be as well.

so i was really great for two months. and then i broke down last week. it started with our family picture. chris and james have matching gray polo t-shirts, so we decided they would wear those, the kids would wear colorful polos, and the girls would wear something complementary to all that. well, i couldn't really find anything 'special' for lily to wear. so i went shopping. yes. i was already prepared to break my word for the sake of an awesome family picture! but then the unexpected happened- i found two cute gray polo shirts for topher and sungu to wear that would match their dads! so i bought those instead of a dress for lily. cause truth be told- she had a dress she could have worn all along in the picture. i did however also buy her some ribbon for her hair though. i am a shopping monster!!!!!!!!!!

AND THEN... i went back to target the next night with my sister so we could stroll about with no kids. so wonderful. jeehon was actually looking for some shirts. i was just 'helping her out'. until i came across the above pictured dress. i am all about long dresses. i had wanted one all summer, and was so happy that they were such a huge fashion trend this last year. but i just could not bring myself to buy one for full price. this dress was $24.99. then it went down to $17.48. then it went down to $12.48. then it went down to $6.24. and then... i bought it.

c'mon reader! does your heart not skip a beat when you see a price tag with not only one, but THREE sale stickers piled haphazardly on top of one another? judge me if you will. but all i can say is i tried. i failed. and i am moving on. with my awesome new dress in tow.

Thursday's Thing- COFFEE!

here is a post about another mom-essential: coffee. well, it's a momming-essential for me. a lot of my beautiful friends here in arizona actually don't drink coffee. it's the strangest thing. when we go to starbucks i am the only one who ever gets an actual drink that isn't water. but for those of you in the east valley who appreciate a good (and cheap!) cup o' joe, read on.

the hidden gem in the cheap coffee world is Krispy Kreme. there aren't a ton of locations in arizona, but one of the three that i know of is a 3 minute drive, or a twenty minute walk (i know cause i have done it)from our apartment. their regular, everyday price for a 10 oz cup of coffee is $0.25. yes. i said it. twenty-five cents. hello? is this 1978, or some other crazy time before i was born???
this coffee is always a touch bolder than i would like, so i actually ask for 1 cream and 3 sugars. (i generally like to just drink my coffee with 3 sugars, no cream.)

another great deal is- believe it or not- a regular coffee at Starbucks. a tall (12oz) is $1.50. this is pretty great considering Dunkin Donuts sells their coffee for about the same price. but the best thing about Starbucks right now is that if you buy a bag of Starbucks coffee at the grocery store (usually for about $6 -$9), and you bring the empty bag into a Starbucks, they will take the bag and give you a free hot cup of coffee. so basically you paid about $4.50 to have a butt-load of home-made Starbucks coffee, only to be rewarded with someone who will take your garbage and give you a free coffee at Starbucks. the bag says you can redeem the bag for a tall coffee, but chris has brought in a bag before and gotten a venti. you might need to show a little leg, something chris is always willing to do for something free.

Great Pic- Part I

I just got a disc of amazing pictures that Barb, my wonderful jack-of-all-trades mother-in-law took. This one is hilarious and I am posting it first because it is from Halloween. Apparently he stayed in character the whole time he was out trick or treating with his Nana, not saying a word. One person giving out candy even correctly identified who he was trying to be. That means his costume was a success!
Tomorrow, or some other time in the not too distant future, I shall post more pics.
Enjoy!


Here is a picture of my sweet little Topher


Here is a crazy picture of my disgruntled, crazy-eyebrowed, charlie chaplin look-a-like Topher.

Wonderful Ignorance

This is going to be a quick post, cause it's late and I still have lots of random things I need to do. But it is too funny not to share.

Two nights ago I was giving the kids a bath by myself, cause Chris was working till 9pm. We all sit on the potty right before we go into the bath (I sit on the potty, but I don't go into the bath) but no one is ever able to produce any pee, except for me, cause I am not only a big girl, but I am also a good girl. And I know this cause Lily tells me so every time I make a pee. (This is our superslow, supercasual stroll into potty training for Lils and Topher.)

Then the kids get in the bath, and Topher almost always takes a stance like he is going to pee. I have caught his pee in a cup twice, which he doesn't like, so then he stops peeing, then sits in the bath and ruins everything. Sometimes I drain the water and start all over again, sometimes I don't. Let's be serious, it's gross, but that's life.

So this fateful night, two nights ago, Topher looked like he had to pee at the beginning of the bath, but I didn't catch anything. Then we proceeded with bath time, and as we were getting ready to wrap things up, Lily was sitting facing the faucet, catching the water as it pouring out. Unbeknownst to her, there was something pouring on her back, but she didn't notice cause she was already wet, or maybe she thought I had turned on the warm shower without her noticing, but lucky for Topher that she did not notice that he was peeing on her back, and a little in her long hair. Oh the verbal lashing he would have gotten from his big sister! Lily also did not notice that I was soaping her up again, and rinsing her off again.
Ah, ignorance saves the day once again!

El Paso

I usually put my pictures at the end of my post, but it's really anooying and time consuming, and i always mean to upload my pics and then start writing, but alas my memory sucks. so today the pictures are in reverse order, as is the rest of this long post.



Josh, #96, the kicker for UAB


Pregame walking onto the field. Little junior studmuffin

Chris and me bowling with no kids. That's the look of a woman who has only changed two diapers that day!

Chris and I went to El Paso, Tx this last weekend. Well, Friday morning till Saturday night. Chris' step-bro Josh is the kicker for University of Alabama Birmingham and so this was his closest game that we could afford to go to. Barb and Jerry watched the kids while we were gone, and even took them trick or treating on Saturday night. So great to have great family all around!

We left Friday morning around 11am, after we picked up our car rental (yes, we rented a car even tohugh we have FOUR vehicles!) and dropped off the kids. We took the route through Globe (and Miami, AZ. Didn't know that existed, wish I still didn't. Sad, sad, sad town), while the rest of the traveling pack went through Tucson. We beat them by an hour! I really love road trips with my hubby, they are like very private dates for just him and I to focus on each other and God's wonderful creation (excluding Miami, AZ). So we pretty much had the best 6 hour date there, and six hour date coming back! Kinda dated out! (haha. just joking Chris.)

Friday night, the whole Arizona crew was assembled at the Marriott, where Josh's team was staying (read: and we did NOT.) There were about 20 friends and family that came down for this game- it was pretty awesome! Some of those friends, were people that Chris and I had seen and met a bunch of time at Wes and Kim's house for Suns' games (undefeated season so far! woo hoo!), LOST parties, etc. But going on this road trip with them allowed us to actually get to know one another and hang out! That was a super-bonus to our weekend. After we said bye to Josh we went out for a wonderful Mexican dinner that stripped the lining from my intestines. I was very happy that the kids weren't there eating off of my plate for lots of different reasons, butthe main one being that they might have died. Great food! Little spicy. We went bowling till midnight, and Chris shot a 195 one game, and I shot a 123- beating 3 out of the 4 guys that went with us :) It was a pretty fantastic day.

Then Saturday was even more fantastic than the previous day! We woke up at 9am! Then we went outlet mall shopping! And no, I did NOT break my shopping fast- Chris bought lots of little things for the kids! It was too cute. He was going through some shirts at Old Navy for Lily and was like 'this one is cute.' No Chris Watson, YOU are cute. Then later he realized we bougt 3 shirts for Lily, and only one for Toph, so he had to even the score at The Children's Place. What a great dad.

After a quick yet very fulfilling shopping experience, we headed over to University of Texas El Paso's campus. I LOVE UNIVERSITY CAMPUSES! This last year we have driven through NAU's, UA's and now UTEP's campuses, and I just love seeing students hanging out, reading books, and being in such a fun and important time in their lives. It's a good energy to be around. (whoa. That sounded really new agey of me.)

We had seats 5 rows up from the field (which is actually not ideal for watching a football game and all the action) but it was great cause we got to see Josh up close and even touch him when he came by to say hi to his giant fan base :) UAB was supposed to get rocked by UTEP, but that is not even close to what happened. Josh's team played so well, and Josh made all of his kicks except one. It was an amazing game to be at! I a little bit peed in my pants (what? I have had two kids! The muscles down there don't work the way they are supposed to anymore!)

Chris and I took off for home after we said bye to Josh. We are so proud of our brother! What a good, and talented kid. The drive home was full of phone calls to home. We were pretty sad that we were missing Lily's and Topher's first trick or treating experience. But besides the timing thing, a great time was had by all.

Thursday's Thing- Potties

This is NOT a post about how to potty train your kids. Why? Cause I have no clue how to do that. Today is a post about the potties that I do have though. (I am looking at this picture I just took, and it kinda stinks. At least this isn't a photography website!)

The one on the right is the ever popular Fisher-Price Cheer For Me potty. You can get it for about $30. It was Lily's cousin's, and after much disinfecting, it is Lily's. Cause I do not spend $30 on anything, least of all a potty that can't even train my kid to pee ;) Anyhoo, it's a cute little thing that requires batteries (of course. Do toy companies and battery companies own a lot of stock in each other?) It says fun little things like 'it's potty time!' and it sings and says 'up' and 'down' for when you move the lid up and down. Cute, but all so unnecessary.

The potty on the left is from IKEA. it is $3.99. I very gladly bought this for Topher myself. This cute little potty comes in black, red, baby blue, pink, and this awesome shade of green that I love. Topher picked it out himself, and later when we got home, we decorated it (and Lily's as well) with stickers. According to the books, it's good for the kids to have 'ownership' of their potty, and to look upon it as something that is fun and wonderful, not something that wants to steal their life essence (aka, their pees and poops.)

The best thing that this potty offers, that the $30 potty does not, is a pee-pee shield. There are lots of potties on the market, and lots of them have pee-pee shields, but none of them are $4. And another great thing about this potty is that since it is just one piece, it is very eay to clean. The other potty has a little piece that the kids do their business in, and you can take it off to empty it into the toilet. But there are lots of crevices and other pieces for kids to pee all over. Less to clean is always better. Always.

So run on over to IKEA. Then maybe to Michaels to get some stickers from their $1 bin, then blow the rest of your $10 bill at Starbucks on one drink, and have a great time potty training!... :)


here is Topher's potty up close.


And a side view so you can see the pee-pee shield to the left, and the back rest on the right. So many amazing features for just $4!!!!!

I Love You TOO!

I have been telling my kids I love them for longer than they have been alive. For the most part I feel like I am doing a better job at showing them I love them- with patience and kindness, which is my new motherhood mantra.

My kids have been able to communicate that they love me in their own special ways. Topher's a big hugger, which is so great. He is also a great lover of food, so if he shares even a morsel of what is on his plate- that's amore! Lily is a big flirt so she just looks over her shoulder, flutters her eyelashes, shines those giant dimples, and smiles.

We taught the babies to blow kisses at a young age, which we meant as a sign for 'bye' and 'i love you', but who cares? Those are things that we put on them. Just because they did it didn't mean that they were necessarily trying to say 'bye' or 'i love you'. They always got lots of extra kisses and 'oohs' and 'aahs' when people would get these adorable blown kisses, so maybe they were doing it for the acclaim. Who knows?

And with both of the babes talking, they have both been able to say 'I love you' after we say 'I love you', and repeat 'Sarang heh' which is 'I love you' in Korean. But again- does this mean anything to them? Should this mean anything to me?

Then recently Lily started saying something that made me feel like maybe she understood how I truly felt. Like the love that I have for her is something way deeper than the love I have for chocolate ice cream, which I often say that 'I love!' (I happen to have a great respect for chocolate ice cream, which comes out as 'love', but is in fact just a strong affinity.) She wasn't saying 'Mom, I love you like I love Pablo on the Backyardigans', she was saying 'Mom, I have watched you and studied you for the last two and a half years of my life and I can see that you truly love me and would do anything for me. I am moved by this love, and I LOVE YOU TOO.'

We have moved to the next level here people! The addition of that one simple word has so much meaning to it! Or at least I have now pinned on so much meaning to it! I know that there are things that we make the kids say, like 'thank you', that they don't always mean. Especially when we have to force them to say 'thank you' for something like an extra helping of rice. But when Lily was trick or treating this weekend, every piece of candy that hit her little bag was met with a heartfelt, sincere outburst of thanks.

We taught Lily and Topher how to say 'thank you' and 'I love you', but we can't necessarily teach them to mean it. But one thing I didn't teach Lily, which these days I am thankful for every time I hear it, is how to say 'I love you too', cause I think that just happened as a sincere outburst from her heart to mine.