say what now?

words that begin with 'f'. well, words that are one syllable and that start with an 'f' always sound like THE 'f' word when coming out the mouth of a toddler. frog and fox are common words that make an appearance a few times a day, thanks to swiper the fox (from dora) and the fact that lily occassioanlly thinks she sees errant frogs here and there. for instance, we were driving home the other day. i was about to get on the highway and lily dropped a 'where the f&^%'. i was shocked by my daughter's inapproriate outburst. lily is admittedly the worst backseat driver (in a carseat to boot!) in the world. she gets mad if you do a u-turn and furious if you turn right on a red light ("red means STOP!!!!"), even though you are usually allowed to do that. anyway, i thought she was really questioning my navigational choice, but she repeated again, much more articulately: "where's the frog?" topher drops f-bombs throughout the day as well.

orca. better known as the killer whale. i know what you're thinking, how can you mess up 'orca'? somehow lily can. and when she says it (not as much now as she did a few weeks ago) it sounds like 'f*&ker'. lily knows what an orca is from 'Go Diego go', and fortunately the episode we were watching did not have a mommy orca, otherwise the phrase 'mother f...er' would have surely come out of her mouth. and i would have lost it, cause i am not mature enough to think that is not funny.(no need to call child protective services folks. if she meant to swear, she woulda gotten a mouth full of dial antibacterial soap. the liquid kind.)

brother. lily is all about calling topher "brother" right now, which is so sweet. i don't know why, but it makes my heart melt to hear the words roll off of her tongue. "i'll go get my brudder." oh yeah, and the fact that the word rhymes with "udder" and automatically makes me think of a cow's underside is all the more precious. 

popcorn. so 'movie morning' has become a regular once-a-week installment at our house. it's the time when i fold all the laundry from the week AND put the clothes away. that used to never happen. at least not in the same day, let alone the same week. the kids really love movie morning because they get a little bowl of popcorn. or two. and that's it! but then throughout the day they (namely topher) will ask for more popcorn. only it sounds more like 'cock corn', which sounds more like a sexually transmitted disease than a wonderfully light snack.

i love every stage that the kids are in, cause each stage is new and amazing. but i am really really really loving this 'talking stage' (as opposed to the "i'm making a whiny-noise cause i can't talk so you need to guess what i need. stat!" stage that the kids grew out of). i love how the kids talk to each other in a language that is not decipherable to anyone else but them. i love their sweet little voices, i love the sentences that they come up with (sometimes very grammatically correct, and sometimes not-so-much), and just having them communicating and butchering the english language on a daily basis is part of what makes my job as a stay-at-home mom incredibur.

workin it: cindy branton

a bunch of months ago i did 3 (or 4?) spotlights on small businesses/entrepeneurs i know and love. i've been meaning to write this one up for awhile but i keep losing my mind and forgetting, so before i forget again, here is my beautiful friend Cindy Branton, and her incredible flower accessory store on Etsy. (if you don't know what Etsy is, it's a website for disgustingly talented and carfty folk, like cindy, to sell their art. it's pure danger. you will sit in front of your computer for hours, drooling, and wanting. hide your credit cards. except to buy cindy's stuff :)

so this is cindy:

actually, it's cindy and her beautiful tiny baby brielle. (cindy, next time i'm wearing cargo pants, i will probably put her in one of the pockets and just steal her!) look at this picture. once you get over the beauty of my friend (good arm-muscle tone!), and then her daughter, your eye rests on the hair piece that cindy is wearing. amazing, i know. and she made that one, and a buttload of others like it, all by hand. i know she has made over a hundred of them and sells them at different events around the valley. i think she is waiting for lily and topher to be agile enough to work for her, because they are asian, and should already have jobs, and were made for sweatshop-life. Haha. just kidding. kind of...

anyway, check out cindy's shop at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/crbranton
(omg people!!!! i got a link to finally work!!!!!)

here are two of the pieces you will find there:

they are $7, and come in a variety of colors, materials, and centers. amazing, right? and they look incredible in your hair, but you can also pin them on to a hat, scarf, headband thingy (brielle is almost always sproting one :), pretty much anything. happy shopping!

ps. if you are an entrepeneur of sorts and would like to be featured on my blog, please drop me an email or make a comment in the comment section!

chris in fondant

this weekend we had an intimate little shindig to commemorate my hubby's graduation. chris has worked hard for MANY years on getting his bachelor's degree. he graduated from high school in 1998, joined the marine corps, started doing online classes around 2001, moved to africa, then korea, then had a brief stint back in the states, then got bored with that, then moved to iraq for a year, and then got married, then became a police officer, had two kids, and managed to keep on doing online classes all the while! if that's not incredible, i don't know what is. we, your family (yes you chris watson) are so very very proud of you.

at the shindig, we had tons of fun, ate lots of food, and the best part was just having chris be able to relax with family and friends who he never gets to see, cause chris is a busy busy man. should be special once he starts his master's program in the fall. (ok, he hasn't applied, and therefore hasn't been accepted either, but when he does, he will.)

and i finally got to make special cupcakes for my special cupcake.. (did you just throw up from the cheesiness? i have never, nor will i ever actually call chris 'cupcake'.)

the theme of the treats was "chris watson's to do list:" which included all the things he has achieved to this point, and the one thing he is still trying to achieve- nba player! go suns!!!!!!

my picture taking skills still have so far to go. as does my icingmanship (aka penmanship with icing)

be an awesome marine. check!

arrest bad guys. check!

graduate with a b.s. degree. check!

play in the nba. not checked yet. waiting for steve kerr's call...

the shoes that never let true love grow

here is a flip flop with buetterflies on it. i got it (and it's matching pair) last year in toronto with my beautiful friend michelle. i think we got matching ones. i'm not a big match-exactly-what-my-friends-are-wearing kind of girl. but, michelle lives in canada, i live here, even if we wore these flip flops at the same time, no one would be able to tell. not even us.

so, i busted these bad boys out of the closet the other day, and lily fell in love with them. "mom! are these your shoes? butterflies? wow. cool." she tried them on, walked around with them on, and the look on her face said one thing, and one thing only- envy. i don't like to spoil my kids, but i certainly like to give them things that they like. so, i busted out a sharpie, and i drew some ghetto butterflies on a pair of lily's plain flip flops. she couldn't have been happier. even though the result left much to be desired.

so then topher, who is carefully observing all the crazy goings-ons, grabs a pair of his shoes and also asks for butterflies. "no topher, your dad would not approve of butterfly shoes for you. how about something else?" he thinks for a split second and shouts out: "Dragon!" good one my son. except i don't think i can draw a dragon. especially not on your shoe, and not with a sharpie (the permanence of it all!) "sorry topher, mommy can't draw a dragon. how about a puppy?" (not as fierce as a dragon, but not as gay as a butterfly.) my son is so easy to appease. i love him.

so we wore those puppy shoes to our friend's house. and we left them there by accident. dang it! "puppy shoes???" topher kept asking, especially as he eyes his sister and her 'custom-designed' shoes.

"uh... we'll make you another pair at home toph."

we got home, and chris had the laborious task of designing new shoes for his son. chris grabbed topher's beloved yellow croc and a sharpie, and was ready to wow his boy with his artistic prowess (which for the record, chris is an incredible artist. he drew the picture that was the focal point of our wedding invitations.) topher excitedly ran over to his dad and yelled out: "DRAGON!" chris was mentally prepared for the challenge, as i told him about the butterfly-draong-puppy episode earlier. so chris starts drawing, and then presents topher with his cool 'new' shoes. "bunny!" topher excitedly exclaims. "no topher. they are dragons! roar!" chris says, defending his art. "dragon! roar! thanks dad!" topher says. again. so easy to appease.

you can be the judge of chris' skill. rabid bunny rabbit with wings? or dragon?

anyhoo, here's where the tragic love story comes in. chris took the kids to mc donald's the other day when i went to work. he ordered some breakfast, and found a seat near the toddler's play area (more of these are popping up here in the east valley, and it's awesome!) a little girl who was already playing there found herself to be a smitten kitten by topher's stunning good looks. she kept coming over to him and just standing close. topher was fixated on his food, and would occassionally look at her, trying to figure out what she meant by standing so close to him.

finally he figured it out. surely she wanted to see his too-cool-for-school shoes. so the next time she came over to him, topher immediately whipped off his shoe, stuck it in her face, and screamed out:

"DRAGON! ROAR!!!!!!!!!"  

the poor little girl ran away, not from fright, but mostly disgust at 1. having a shoe shoved into her face, and 2. seeing the love of her life yell at her with a mouth full of sausage burrito, with some of said sausage burrito falling out of his mouth whilst letting out such a ferocious yell.

and that's how topher relates to pretty young things who take an interest in him. and we are not planning on correcting him of his disgusting ways any time soon.

Oh My Glee

chris has officially graduated from the northern arizona university with his bachelor's of science! congratulations chris! and he did it with a 3.9 gpa. or something ludacris like that. i am beyond proud of my nerdy, yet studly, husband. and my graduation gift to him was a trip to dodge theater to check out the GLEE concert. and it was A.W.E.S.O.M.E!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

chris and i occassionally get some flack for LOVING this show. here's the thing- we aren't trying to model our lives after the characters on this show. we don't encourage people to watch it because we think it will make some huge impact on their lives. we watch it cause it is entertaining. that's it. it fulfills us comedically and musically. (that may not have been a proper sentence. feel free to correct lainey!)

anyway, we got our tickets on StubHub, which is ebay's place to buy concert tickets. that was great. they have much cheaper processing fees than ticketmaster. or at least the tickets i bought did. i bought them two weeks ago, which is a good thing, cause the show looked completely sold out. and we went to the sunday matinee. i can only imagine the saturday night show, which was actually the FIRST night of their tour, was extra bumpin.

the opening act was a group of dancers called LXD:the league of extraordinary dancers. they were pretty awesome. chris and i are very fond of the art of dance, so we were fully entertained. one of the guys from Glee, 'other asian', or mike (i think that's his name), is actually part of that group, so it was interesting to watch him in that as well. the intermission between the opening act and the main show took 30 minutes. that was beyond annoying, as well as the sweaty woman beside me who smelled of sweat and cats, or maybe sweaty cats, but other than that, our time at 400 w. washington was so great.

so the show started and i cannot for the life of me remember what song they started with. you would think it would be 'don't stop believin', but i really can't remember if it was. they performed quite a few numbers from last season as well as this season. they even threw in a little taste of the future- a song from an episode that hasn't even aired yet! all i will say is that it featured our favorite character- kurt, and all the ladies.

i am really really really hoping that none of the performances were lip-synched. it all looked pretty legit. and the korean-born actress, jenna ushkowitz, who plays tina, was a little off pitch when she sang her song, and i couldn't have been happier cause it made it real. lea michelle, who is the star of the show, is the cutest, most talented little singer i have ever seen on stage. she was incredible. as was amber riley, who plays mercedes. apparently amber tried out for american idol a bunch of seasons ago, and didn't make it on to the show. that's craziness. this girl can SING. if she had tried out this season, she would have won the whole thing in vegas week i think. and one could only have hoped that they would have crowned her and not even bothered with the rest of this horrid season. but alas, none of those things happened, this season is still happening, and i could not be less amused by the whole thing.

all of the main singers got a solo, including puck, who sang 'sweet caroline', and asked the whole theater to join him karaoke style, whenceforth a huge screen dropped down with the lyrics. pretty great. the best part was when chris leaned over to whisper to me: "i miss karah", which is awesome cause i was just thinking the same thing! karah is a wonderful friend of ours, who celebrated her 30th birthday at a karaoke bar, and serenaded us with a very energetic version of this song. she now lives in north carolina with her family, who we also miss dearly. but every time we hear this song, we think of our friend. we miss you karah.

anyway, the show was an hour long (kinda short in the grand scheme of things) but it was an hour that was JAM PACKED with great music and serious entertainment. every single member of the cast delivered incredible performances, which just made us fall in love with them, and this crazy show, all the more. corey montieth (finn) was as adorable as ever, and even played the drums for one of the songs. i continue to love his voice, even though before this show, he never considered himself a singer. brittany (i don't know her real name) was hilarious, and proved to be an awesome dancer as well. and chris colfer, kurt, was so sparkly and spectacular. we love him.

if you get a chance to see them on tour- take the opportunity and do it! it was probably the most entertaining hour of our lives! (that we had to pay for... that sounds wrong...) the show ended with some serious pyrotechnics and paper bits being blown into the air from two paper-bits-blowing machines on the sides of the stage. chris (watson, not colfer) made the comment that he felt that there was nothing wrong with blazing fire and blowing paper in a room full of hundreds of people. we left immediately. great time had by all. thank you glee, for everything. even if we had died there in that theater, we would have died with some great music and love in our hearts.

how we're rolling

thanks for all the love from my last post! you, my friends, are too funny and too nice. i have to re-iterate that my feelings were not in the least bit hurt by my mom's perception of my appearance. if she had said something like: "your brother's girlfriend is not funny. no sense of humour. kinda like you" that would have been a bullet to the gut! or if she made a remark about my being a bad mom, or wife, that too would have been hurtful. but my appearance? no biggie. i don't pride myself on my looks. never have. never will.

lily on the other hand, probably will. and i don't know exactly how i feel about this. i mean, it's partially my fault since i tell her how stinkin cute and beautiful she looks everyday. cause she looks so stinkin cute and beautiful everyday! but the other day ago, when i asked her if she knew she was beautiful, she gave me a look that said: "of course i do. duh." and she sersiously rolled her eyes at me! yowsers. so i am trying to temper giving my daughter all the self-confidence in the world that she needs to go out there and be a strong, successful, confident woman, but at the same time having humility and modesty as adjectives that describe her as well.

thursday we went to the library, and lily was playing with this table that had twirly wire-things with beads on them. you know what i'm talking about? you try to push the beads from one side to the other, all the while going through different twists and turns, ups and downs. i would call this 'beads of life' if i could, but i'm sure someone else has given it a far more clever name. anyhoo, she's playing with these beads, and then she starts to shake her booty. she is straight up dancing in the library to no music, so i start laughing because she is so cute, and both my kids really have music playing in their souls 24/7. she looks over her shoulder to look me in the eye and she says: "oh yeah!" YOWSERS. humilty, modesty, humility, modesty, and purity! must work on these things...

with topher, we are still working on practical little things like obeying and paying attention. sometime this week, we had a movie morning. i turned on the veggie tale movie about Jonah, which the kids love. they love movies, they enjoy the veggie tales, and they really love having popcorn. i enjoy movie mornings because i can usually get all the laundry folded (usually 3 loads at a time) and mostly put away, all while the kids are not focused on me and the piles of clothes i am making. i had finished with the laundry, and the kids had finished their popcorn, but they were still watching the movie. i look over at my adorable, precious son, who is watching the movie commando-style, and i notice he is sitting on his popcorn bowl (one of the little ikea bowls that show up in many baby einstein dvds) and he starts to pee! there is a straight line of urine on the carpet in front of him. ugh. i looked at him with horror in my eyes. "topher! where is the potty????" he looked around. it was right beside him. (which i put it there on purpose! and i told him it was there a million times!) "right there!" he replied, delighted he was able to answer my difficult question with such ease and confidence. practical things- paying attention, obeying, paying attention, and obeying...

anyhoo, that's how we are rolling these days in the watson household. oh. one last story about my mom. i told jeehon what my mom said about me in regards to my brother's girlfriend. my sister obviously busted a gut, but said her comparison was worse. apparently my mom asked my brother if his girlfriend was snooty, the way smart people can be snooty and pompous, just because they're smart, kinda like jeehon. HILARIOUS. my sister is VERY smart, but i don't find her pompous about it. but i guess my mom does!
and for the record, my brother says his girlfriend is not pompous about her giant ph.d-getting brain.

oh, to tame the (OLD! yeah mom, i called you old! ha!) korean woman's tongue... impossible!

come on people, that's hilarious. no one is safe from a korean mother's judgment. jeehon's not sad about the remark. not even the least bit phased. but if you would like to post up-lifting comments for her, i will be sure to pass them along :)

one last thing, my mom does not read my blog. but she knows she's old. she's 63. that ain't young. (but she looks amazing for 62, and i tell her that!)  i don't feel bad about calling my beautiful mother an old korean woman, cause that's what she is. all this name calling and labeling, it's a vicious cycle, i know. and it is one that i will try to keep my beautiful daughter and creative son out of.

that's just how we koreans roll

i just had the most incredible conversation with my mom. i LOVE that woman. she drives me crazy but i LOVE her. and she LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVES me. do not ever doubt that. especially considering the things she says to me. she says crazy things cause she's korean, and korean people say crazy things. for instance, she was talking to my aunt after emma was born, and my aunt informed my mom: "well, the baby's not that cute according to the pictures i saw of her. she doesn't even have 'sang-ka-pul' (eye lid folds, which mind you- NO KOREANS have. at least not naturally. it's a trait that only non-asians seem to possess. yes, my children included.)" anyway, harsh judgment for a child that joined the human race less than 24 hours before. but you are alive, you are subject to korean judgment. and if you are dead, well, same thing.

anyhoo, the hot topic of my conversation with my mom today was concerning my brother's girlfriend. my brother is 30 and lives at home. cause he's not married yet. and that's how us korean s roll. he has a real job, has his own car, and even owns a condo in toronto. only he rents it out and makes money on it whilst living at home with someone who still cooks for him and occassionally does his laundry (anyone see 'wedding crashers'? that's how my brothers live.) anyway, this girlfriend in question is perfect. 1, she's korean. whicih means she has korean parents who my parents can communicate with in their native tongue. 2. she's getting her ph.d. i don't know in what. it can be in cheese processing. doesn't matter. she's getting a ph d in it.
3. she's getting a ph d. she speaks korean. and she likes my brother.

anyway, i have never seen a picture of said perfect girl. i even looked her up on facebook. her profile picture is a picture of a flower. BOOO mystery girl! but my mom finally met her and this is how our conversation went:
mom: "i came home one day and i saw a pair of women's shoes and was wondering who your dad brought home." (she's crazy. she's korean. enough said.)
me: "you're crazy."
mom: "so i called out to see who was home, and i heard a little voice say "anyoung ha seyo" (proper hello in korean) and there she was. she was really shy."
me: "so... what did she look like?!?! is she pretty???"
mom: "uh. not 'pretty'. same level as you."
me: "oh! so she's drop dead gorgeous!!!!!..."
mom: "yeah. that's what i meant..."

anyway, the conversation continued. she mentioned something about the girl's shoes being tattered, but since she was such a scholar she didn't seem to care. my mom, who usually cares about appearances, was very impressed by the girl's priorities and humility.
i just want you to know, dear reader, (especially if you are not made up of the same crazy korean stuff i am) that my feelings aren't even remotely hurt, cause my mom speaks the truth. i am no great beauty. i am aware of this. BUT i don't need to be reminded of it! sheesh. so, that's my mom and i communicate. lots of truth. lots of jokes. no hurt feelings. it's perfect. wouldn't trade it for anything. cause that's just how we koreans roll.

loving some men!

i would like to start this post off with some great news: i just called jeehon in korea (10:30 pm here, 2pm there) and was delightfully surprised to have james pick up the phone! apparently because emma was born so late, james' boss told him to take an additional ten days off! how stinkin awesome is that?!?!?!? i usually have some choice words for the military, but today- all those choice words are good ones! thanks army! and thanks especially to you mr.james' bossman.

and some other men that i am seriously loving (yes i am a married woman, but my husband is ok thati love other men, especially these ones, cause he loves them too!) are obviously the phoenix suns. so happy they swept the san antonio spurs, and on mother's day to boot. i am all about symmetry, so 17 years ago the phoenix suns made it to the nba finals to face, and eventually lose to the chicago bulls in 1993. (what? they had jordan.) and then 17 years before that, in 1976, the phoenix suns made it to the nba finals for the first time in franchise history to face, and eventually lose to the boston celtics. so basically what i am saying is- we are going to the nba finals this year folks! (i am not even almost smart enough to have spotted that 17 year pattern on my own. chris' smart cousin, ben, figured it out, cause he is an engineer, and therefore a geek :) gotta love the geeks too though people.)

and obviously, the man i love the most in the whole wide world is my husband. and we have had a great long weekend together! but i think more than anything, the kids really really enjoyed hanging out with their 'old man'. whenever i go to the zoo with the kids, i have to preface that we will not be riding the carousel, because there is no way that i can go on the carousel and man the two kids by myself. they are always very understanding about it. well, today we went to the zoo with chris, and we happened to have two free 'wild passes', which i got for renewing my membership with the zoo. the 'wild passes' are awesome cause you can ride the train, carousel, and CAMELS for free all day long!

so of course we went on the carousel. twice. and we (chris and the kids. i was wearing a skirt. not proper camel-riding garb.) went on the camels too. what a great great day!

lily on her crocodile, and topher on his panda bear. if you ask him what he did today, he will tell you he rode a panda bear. he did not care so much for the real, live camel as you can see in the next picture.

lily was all about riding this crazy animal. but mostly about riding it with her favorite guy in the whole wide world.

i finished this post, then cleaned the kitchen, and remembered that i forgot to mention something to this blogpost about amazing men, so i'm back! i just wanted to mention that the last couple of weeks, chris has been a great help in the kitchen- especially on the days when i work. did i say days? i meant 'day'. as in monday. anyhoo, i keep finding different items in the 'wrong' spots (we live in an apartment with very little storage space. the golf clubs happen to have a special spot beside our dining table. i don't know why. but they just do.) today i found a measuring cup with the kids cups the other day. that was cute, since the measuring cup is plastic and all the kids' cups are plastic too. but finding things in the wrong spot is a nice reminder that chris emptied the dishwasher and filled it back up with dirty dishes. i am not one to ask for help, especially around the house. instead i like for chris to see what needs to be done and to just do it. and like any normal woman, i occassionally get upset that chris can't read my mind. but lately chris has been getting better at reading my mind, and i juat wanted to say 'THANK YOU HONEY!' did i mention i love this man?!?!?

Emma Sunah Malloy

here is my newest little niece, emma sun ah malloy. she was born on Thursday May 6, weighing a very modest 7 lbs and 7 oz, and was 20 inches long (babies grow so fast- it's been 4 days, she may have already grown another 1/4 inch!) at birth.

the birthing process was pretty much a walkin the park for my sister. she went to the hospital to get induced at 6:30am, and at about 2pm, emma came along. my lovely niece is alreaedy showing her strong-headedness (just like her mama! and her cousin lily, and her halabuhji, and... i guess it runs in our family...) because she was 3 days late in coming out, even though my sister was walking around for over a week being 3-4 cm dilated. but as i kept telling my sister as she grew impatient day after day- they are more manageable when they are in the womb than when they are out. and i spoke truth cause my sister did not get one 2-hour stint of sleep the other night ago. i do not miss that folks...

so everything is going pretty well. james' 'paternity leave' is already up so he is back to his job, which means he is only home on the weekends. this pretty much makes my sister the most incredible mom in the world. fortunately we have cousins and aunts in seoul who are all skilled cooks, and sungu-entertainers.

sungu seems to be doing pretty well with the new addition. he has even been able to hold lilttle emma a few times, but he has a bit of a cough so my sister has had to limit their interactions, which jeehon feels bad about, cause obviously she wants them to be able to bond as well. my sister told me the saddest/sweetest story about my crazy nephew sungu yesterday when i spoke with her for mother's day. she said james went into sungu's room to check on him, and he had pulled up one of his little chairs to his dresser and was standing on said chair, with his arms folded underneath his chubby little face, and he was just staring at a picture of himself with his dad. just the two of them. the good ol' days... isn't that funny/sad???? oh kids. gotta love em. and i love me some emma already, even though i have not been able to meet her yet, but i am already longing for the day when our paths should happen to cross.

maman. mom. umma. mother.

i know i said in my previous post that my next post would be about my new niece. but i haven't spoken to my sister again since 30 minutes after she gave birth, and i just don't have enough details (or picures!) to share. so be looking out for a post about my emma in the near future.

this post is dedicated to mamas everywhere. i am ALL ABOUT mother's day. mostly because chris makes every great effort to make mother's day as special a day as humanly possible for me. i love him. tomorrow we have a day of big family fun planned. breakfast with his mom in the morning, church in the later morning (to see a bunch of superspecial babies get dedicated!), and then dinner and a suns game game at chris' dad's house. i don't know what chris has planned for me, present-wise, but i know that there is a card involved that chris tried to get lily to 'secretly' sign after teethbrushing time tonight. he had the card hidden in his shorts when he walked into the room with lily, and she kept wanting to show it to me. 'i draw a heart mom! dad, give it to mom! i draw heart! dad!' she was not happy that chris was hiding her art work. there are no secrets with 3 year olds. it's awesome.

anyhoo, if you are reading this and you are a mom, i just want to say- YOU ARE AMAZING. whether you adopted a baby, or birthed a baby through your girly bits, or via c-section, or via surogate mother, whatever the circumstance of your motherhood may be- you are a mother, and that makes you incredible. motherhood is crazy, and is a million times harder than i ever imagined it could ever be. all that giving and giving and giving- it's kind of exhausting! you give of all of your time, your personal space, your food, your sleep. your comfort, and more! like i said before, you are amazing.

if you are reading this and you have a mama, you need to be thankful. give the woman who raised you a call, a hug, $5 to buy a stiff drink to celebrate the day. i am really more and more in awe of my own mom with every new phase i enter into with my own kids. meals usually involve at least one small battle, and sleep... well, you know my tales of woe with sleep. but my mom is incredible. how did she raise 5 crazy kids who were born within 5 years of each other???? (twins! please Lord, not me too...) when we were in vegas on our big family trip a few months ago, us adults were sitting around, tired, after the kids had fallen asleep. there were only 3 kids between the 6 adults represented there, and they were running us ragged! and we realized that in two years, with jeehon's new baby, and with my future-not-conceived (read: I AM NOT PREGNANT!), we would have 5 kids in the same time frame as my mom, but between two seperate families. i don't know how my mom did it. but somehow she did. she is amazing.

if you are a man, and you are reading this, and you have a wife who is a mother, say thank you. every day. don't just think it. i know a lot of you are thankful. but you need to say it! gifts, flowers, bling are just cherries on top. the words are the thing. they are priceless. (it costs you nothing! but it will get you so much!)

and if you are reading this, and you are not a mom, but you are trying and trying, and want so badly to be a mom- drop me an e-mail. i would love to pray for you!

thanks to all the moms out there that i know. whether you are mothering me (i have my mom and two mother-in-laws, and a grandmother who dotes on me like no other! how blessed am i?!?!?), or are mothering with me (you women know who you are and i LOVE YOU all so much!!!!!), you make me a better mother. and i hope you have a happy happy day.

life, lately

this week the kids were both sick. just a fever. topher was first, starting on saturday. or friday. he didn't have much of an appetite (automatic heart break for me. i think it's a korean thing.) but he was sleeping better. so that was awesome. then tuesday he was feeling great, and then at night, lily got a fever. and she was pissed. awesome. wednesday she was ok with the fever, and even took two naps, and ate ALL of her dinner. so great! and this morning we all woke up at 7:15am! with NO INTERRUPTIONS in the middle of the night!! thank you SO MUCH Jesus! we all really really really needed that.

a few nights ago, when we were getting the kids ready for bed, chris was making faces in the mirror while holding topher. then i told topher to say: "mommy's pretty". it's what i have to do to get a compliment around here! ;) so topher repeated after me. good boy. then i told him to say: "daddy's handsome." and topher said: "daddy's fat." it was hilarious. especially since we don't use the word 'fat' very much around here. chubby, yes. ginormous, of course. but not so much fat. chris, who has been lightly training for a marathon, took it like a woman and started to cry. just joking. but he wasn't happy about the verbal punch in the gut.

 other than that, we've been doing the same old stuff- folding laundry (or playing with it. the kids like covering all their extremities with chris' socks), reading books, playing with playdoh (the picture of topher and i was taken by lily), and cheering on the phoenix suns (or los suns... whatever). oh yeah, and i became an aunt to a new human being yesterday! my next post will be about my new niece Emma Malloy! 

desserts and scrapbook paper

this weekend was a sugar-filled, yet ovenless, and really quite busy one for me. i had the pleasure of making 'cupcakes' for two different birthdays, but did not hear one single 'happy birthday' song sung!

the first birthday was for jerry, one of my two awesome father-in-laws. we celebrated his birthday at the riparian reserve, after taking family pictures. needless to say, after spending over an hour taking pictures of chris' mom and step-dad, sister and her family, older brother and his family, our family, and robert's family, there were quite a few antsy, and hungry mouths to feed. and it's not even the toddlers who were the antsy ones. so we enjoyed some wonderful kfc, and the cheesecake bites that i made from a box. (cheesecake with strawberries on the side was the request made for desserts.)

if you are short on time, or just don't feel like baking, this little box is a lifesaver! it is sheer easy, yummy wonderment.

so i made these cheesecake bites, but when i put them in the cupcake paper things, they were deformed and crazy looking. so i got some ribbon that i happened to have (cupcake on the left) and taped it on. perfect! then i ran out of ribbon. so i got some scrapbook paper that kinda matched the ribbon, and taped that on to the remaining cupcake things. the motif on the cupcake/cheesecake bites matched the ribbon as well, i rolled fondant and had different rectangles all up on them. i even tried to put caramel sauce to match the golden hue of the ribbon. it did not turn out great. and the reason oi am not posting a better picture of my dessert is that they kinda got melty in the car when we were taking our pics and i didn't take any pictures before we left the house cause i was just finishing them up and we were late. story of my life.    

then the second set of desserts that i made, actually pretty much as soon as we got back from our family funtimes, was for a sweet little friend of topher and lily's. i was pretty excited to make these since i was looking forwarad to making girly cupcakes. i had already decided on no fondant. i made the flowers out of royal icing (pretty much milk and icing sugar) and i made a ton of them, which is great, cause the extras are sitting in a container in my freezer for another day. these cupcakes are actually mini-muffins (again, was really not in a baking mood this weekend!)  with a strawberry cream cheese frosting. the whole thing was supposed to be a 'healthy' alternative to straightup cupcakes, but man were these things sweet! i ate one as a test-run, which i pretty much never do. but they were really really sweet. like really sweet. i need to find a better cream cheese frosting.... when i dropped the cupcakes off to my girlfriend, i told her i would not be offended if she scraped most of the frosting off when serving them. i wonder if she did...        

                                              

thanks to my no fondant rule on these cupcakes, i still wanted to have happy birthday on there somewhere, so i made these little paper flags with cardstock, and decorated them with little flowers from some other scrapbooking paper i had. i was pretty happy with how they turned out.

anyhoo, happy belated birthdays to jerry and cambry!  i am so blessed to have you both in my life! and thanks for letting me make your 'birthday cakes' (and eat them too!)

ps. i am really hating the way blogger has pictures and text working together right now. if you have mastered the art of uploading pics AND being able to write stuff, without wanting to throw your computer out the window, please let me know your secrets. thanks 

Kindergarten!!!!!

now that lily is 3 we are on the prowl for a preschool to send her to, but even more pressing- getting her on lists for good elementary schools! (cause the good ones apparently have waiting lists!)

so today i went to a tour at EduPrize, a charter school, that is at stapley and baseline. we don't really know where we are going to live next year, but this is a pretty 'central' location in the midst of houses we have offers on. what is a charter school? i'm still not 100% sure (even after being at a 2 hour presentation!) but basically the state says that if you can 'do' education 'better' than public schools, then go ahead and give it a try. so EduPrize is a public school, but it's a little different than 'regular' public schools. the 2 awesome things about this school  are that 1. it's free (cause it's a public school) and 2. they have a 1:20 ratio for their classrooms. tht's probably the biggest thing for me. cause whether your kid is a naturally loud, energetic leader, or a naturally quiet introvert, all kids WILL GET LOST in a classroom of 30 kids. how can one teacher really know 30 little kids all at once? i know it's not impossible- cause LOTS of teachers have to know 30 little kids all at once right now. but they don't at this school. which is why i like it.

anyhoo, the tour was very thorough. we went into a kindergarten classroom where all the students were at different little stations working on math, or art, or writing, or whatever. it choked me up some that lily is going to be in kindergarten pretty soon! and then topher will be hot on her heels! oh how time flies! fortunately weepy pms was last week, so i was able to hold it together.

the tour took a break in the hallway right outside of the kidergarten classroom. there were shooting stars that each kid had decorated, put their picture on, and written on. each star started out with: "i am a star because..." and the kids filled in why they were a star. each answer i read was beyond amazing!:

"i am a star because:
  -i em gud at sckool"
  - i am a big sister. i have a baby."
  - i em a gud boy."
  - i like anmols."
 
but the most incredible one had a big sparkly cross foam sticker on it and said: "i am a star because... i am good at gnostics and skool." no joke. it was incredible. a kindergartner! i can only hope that one day lily and topher are so pious and devout!

Not A Stick

i received this book as a gift from one of my wonderful friends, donna, in toronto. she is a great giver of great books, and i really appreciate that about her. thanks for this particular treasure my friend!

this is one of our favorite books right now. it is amazing for any age. there are about 5 words per page, so it's not a long read. but the pictures are INCREDIBLE. very minimalist. very smart. i love it.

my kids really enjoy this book too. mostly cause it's easy to memorize so they like to 'follow along' as i read. but because it's so short, we have to read it twice. sometimes three times.

there is another book called 'not a box'. i can only imagine it is more or less the exact same 'story line', but i am still excited to get my hands on it! i was just at the library today and they did not have it there, so the search continues. if i don't find it soon, i will probably end up buying it.

if you get a chance to read 'not a stick', i hope you enjoy it as much as i do!