new hobby!

i have found a new way to spend my time and waste, i mean, spend our money wisely- making cookies!!!!!!

our new renters just moved in on saturday, and i wanted to welcome them with some cookies and flowers. and coincidentally, most of my cookies ended up being flower-shaped. i wish i had a house-shaped cookie cutter, but alas, i didn't.

so, here's the awesome thing about cookies decorating! it's fun and "easy". but time consuming. maybe it would go by way faster if i didn't have two hungry-for-sugar-24-7toddlers constantly lurking over my shoulder as i am decorating. and it would be nicer if my kitchen was bigger than most people's guest bathrooms. but whatev. you do what you can with what you got.

so i got an awesome sugar cookie recipe from foodnetwork.com, from alton brown. if i were fancy, i would add a link RIGHT HERE. but i don't know how to do fancy things like that. just google 'alton brown sugar cookies' and the recipe will pop up. so that was easy enough, and i iced with royal icing (to make the borders and write and draw stuff) and regular ol' powdered sugar and water icing for the 'flooding' (all cookie decorating terms i learned on line. oh internet, how i love thee!!!) the best thing about using royal icing is that you can put it in icing bags, or ziploc bags, and write and decorate, without using icing tips. i mean, you can, especially if you are going to be fancy and do things like make leaves and flowers, but if you're just drawing, a little hole at the end of the bag is all you need.

fun times!

lily plays favorites

the above is a picture of a bunch of crap that i had shoved into lily's toy pack and play. cause i am a 'shover' and a 'piler' and not a good housecleanerupper. whatever.

yesterday i was hollerd into lily's room, by the queen herself, and i was really surprised to see what i saw. i had put the kids down about 30 minutes before, but i was not surprised to hear that lily was still up. but when i walked in, all i saw was the pile of crap that had been in the pack and play, on topher's bed. so i automatically assumed that topher was in bed with lily. wrong. lily was sitting all clean and pretty in her bed. so where was topher???? under the crap. i looked a little harder at topher's bed, and lo and behold, there he was, burried under a blanket, an assortment of lily's stuffed animals, dolls, tea set pieces, play food, lily's tiara, play clothes, etc, etc.

i started digging my poor son out from under the rubble. i don't know how he didn't wake up when lily dumped the junk on him, or when i was taking it off of him, cause i was just laughing so hard that i was kind of shaking. i put some of the stuff back into the pack and play, much to lily's chagrin. "NO MOM!" she said. i took the stuff out that i had haphazardly redumped in there, and this is what i saw:



ah, jun-lee. what poor topher had to suffer for lily's baby's comfort.

what they're saying

here's another post dedicated to my crazy kids. they've lately been saying the funniest things, and saying them in the funniest ways. there's some not-nice things that come out of their mouths, and some that come out in a not-nice way. and we are trying to correct those things. but when the nice things come out- oh man. so nice!

so the other day lily was in the living room with her dad while i was in the kitchen. regular stuff. then all of a sudden i heard her scream out in her sassiest voice: "i don't want to talk to you right now!" lily is a 16 year old trapped in a 3 year old's body. she has been all about her privacy lately, saying things like "stop following me!" "go away!" topher does not care for lily's rantings and ravings. he just keeps following, keeps lurking, keeps on annoying. such a great little brother!

prayer time is a favorite time of day for so many reasons. 1. it marks the end of the day. 2. i love seeing the kids talking to their heavenly Father 3. they really speak what is on their hearts and it is AMAZING! right now the kids are all about giving thanks, which is great cause i want the kids to have hearts full of thanksgiving and gratitude. lately topher has been thankful for a wide variety of things. and the cutest thing is to hear his intonation, cause he always starts: "thanks for OUR..." and he waits for us to repeat. so here we go:
"thanks for OUR foods, thanks for OUR shirts, thanks for OUR hair, thanks for OUR white (his little pull-toy dog that he named), thanks for OUR dad, thanks for OUR lindsay, thanks for OUR robert, thanks for OUR gabe, thanks for OUR corban (he loves that family!), thanks for OUR Jesus..." so precious!

lily also prays and says "thanks" without adding "for", so her list recently was: "thanks dad, thanks brothers, thanks sisters (which she does not have, but is still thankful for)...etc... thanks bathing suits, thanks papa's bathing suit, etc etc... thanks mom's cookies, thanks mom..." WOW. i made it after papa's bathing suit, and my cookies... oh lily. you were a giant baby and i can't believe i birthed you. one day i will very explicitly explain to you why i should appear much earlier on your list of things you are thankful for!

then today, coming home from our morning outing, topher was asleep in his car seat, so lily and i were having some serious bonding time. we sang some songs in english and korean. then lily said: "songs all done. no more talking." yowsers! sassy little bossy lady. so i obliged my daughter, quite happily, cause i prefer to be quiet in the car anyway. then lily remembered that she loves to hear that she makes me laugh, so she said: "mom, i make you laugh." so she made her dinosaur noise, that she has been making since she was a wee little baby. and it really does make me laugh. always has, probably always will. i said: "lily, you make me laugh!" and that made her happy. then it was my turn to make her laugh. so i made my snake noise. and that made her laugh. more a pity laugh than anything else, but a laugh nonetheless. this game continued for some time, and then lily said: "mom, i had a great day with you. you make my heart SO happy." now, if you watch 'Ni Hao Kai Lan' on nickelodeon, then you know that is a straight-up plagiarized line, down to the stress on 'So". but guess what? i don't care! it was the best compliment of the day. possibly top 5 of my life.

lions, and daniel, and Jesus... oh my

this week at church, the kids learned about daniel in the lion's den. this month's theme was 'do the right thing!', and daniel did the right thing by praying to God, even when he wasn't allowed to.

anyhow, i usually ask the kids, when we are in the car going home from church, what they learned in their classes. lily and topher are in different classes, but all the preschool and special needs classes have the same story (as each other, not the same actual story repeated) every week. and since i hang out with the special needs kids at the 11:59 service, i have the inside scoop of what my kids are hearing. chris and i go to the 10:30 service, and then serve at 11:59, so our kids are in church all morning, and hear the story twice. therefore i have great expectations for them to give me some really biblically accurate answers.

so, on sunday, i asked the kids what the story was about. silence.

"was it about a guy named daniel?" i asked them.
"yeah!" they replied in unison.
"was daniel in a den with some chicken?"
"no!"
"giraffes?"
"no!"
"lions?"
"Yeah!!!" they were pretty excited to have gotten every question i threw at them correctly. so was i.
"so what happened to daniel? did the lions eat him?" this was a harder question, but i was positive they would get it right. i could practically hear them recite the story word for word from the Bible: "My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight..." (daniel 6:21) but these thoughts were interrupted by a very loud and excited topher...
"the lions ate Jesus!"

silence...

i'm gonna have to talk to topher's teachers next week. that's not the same story i read in my classroom. and hopefully none of the other classes read that either.

smash this

as i mentioned in another post, july is a crazy birthday month. last saturday, i had the pleasure of making a smash cake for precious little (gigantic) greyson, my lovely friend erin's baby boy. erin created a cute circus themed birthday party for her lil' one year old man, and it was amazing! she asked for a chocolate cake with colorful dots. easy enough...




except that i am on a 'new kick' where i am trying to make more stuff from scratch. so the first thing i tried was fondant. i usually use the ready-made wilton stuff which is SO EASY to use, but it does not taste very good at all. so i found a recipe to make marshmallow fondant. it tasted good enough, but it was SO HARD to work with. so sticky. not easy to cut. not easy to form. basically, what's it good for then, right? ironcially, with my making things from scratch, i have bought more supplies so that i am free-handing less. strange.

anyhoo, erin's 'order' sounded so simple, but working with my new fondant was a pain in the butt. and i wanted to make a small, but not cupcake-small smash cake for greyson, so i used a meatloaf pan for the cake, cut the cake in half, and piled it up.it made for the perfect sized cake, but i should have cut the sides more to make smoother edges. and it didn't help that it was over 110 degrees here, and that i had to transport the cake to greyson's party. some of my dots were quite a few centimeters lower on the cake when we got there. it didn't look as pretty and polished as i had hoped up-close, but from afar, it looked ok. it probably looked the best smashed up on greyson's face though. he ate the whole thing up, so i am going to take that as a compliment from him :)



then today, we had a 'little' family party for my nephew corban. lindsay's been calling her little boy 'prince' because he likes what he likes and he really let's you know if there is something that he doesn't like. for instance, food. apparently he's a bit of a picky eater. and he doesn't like it when adults leave the room. and i feel like there's another reason she calls him prince, but i can't remember it right now. anyhoo, you can call him 'prince' or 'typical one year old.' 'prince' is kinda cuter. so we went with a prince-themed cake and cupcakes.



(the crowns on the cupcakes are made from melted white candy wafer-things that i bought at michael's, piped into crown-shapes, put in the fridge for 5 minutes to harden, and then they were ready to go. that was pretty easy.)

again, i had a vision for the cake and cupcakes, but using my new fondant that i hate to work with, made the process VERY VERY VERY annoying. and then i couldn't get the smash cake to cooperate with me while i was trying to ice it, so i legitamitely threw two cakes in the trash. fortunately they are pretty small cakes to begin with. i really wanted to have a fondant circle on top of the cupcakes, with a 'quilted' pattern, and then a crown or little dots on top. i thought i could roll out the fondant, cut circles, and place them on top. oh no. that would have been too easy. instead, i had to roll the fondant into a ball on my shortening-smothered hands, smoosh it ever so slightly, then place it on top of the cupcake, and then get my shortening-covered little rolling pin and roll the ball out to be a circle. if i could have taken video footage of the ridiculousness of the whole thing, i would have, but i didn't want to get shortening on my camcorder.

anyway, corban LOVED the icing (from betty crocker. so much for my trying-to-go-homemade stint) and got some in his hair, and on his face, but i think very little of the cake was actually consumed.

(ah, my beautiful nephew!!!! how i love this little guy.)

anyhoo, for all the hours and love and 'stress' (it's icing-a-cake stress, not i-can't-afford-to-feed-my-family stress) that went into these smash cakes, i had tons of fun, and i want to thank erin and lindsay for letting me and my sugar-offerings be a part of your sons' big days! love you guys!

and now i am thinking that maybe i should just make a little cardboard box cake-frame, and frost and decorate the heck out if, and that way it will look clean and crisp, and still do the job of overloading young children with way too much sugar. something to think about...

renters are just horses

i'm feeling kinda poetic with all my metaphors these days...

so, i just need to share our 24 hour journey with renters. we've had renters for over two years now. well, two years in one house, and one year less a month in the other. i find the whole 'landlord' thing a bit stressful, and i don't technically do anything! but should we be able to keep these rentals for years and years and years, that would be great. and if not... then, not.

anyhoo, we had these renters in our mesa house. nice folk. they own a tattoo parlour or two here in the valley. the guy is also a photographer on the side. two businesses that don't exactly thrive in a recession. they were late with their payments once in a while, but always paid, so we were just fine.

but then came The Text, and panic reallyreallyreally wanted to set in, but chris and i tried (prayed) to keep all that at bay. we knew God had a plan. we really really hoped and prayed that God had a plan. we got the text message that our renters had already vacated our property at about 5pm on monday. monday night chris and i sat at our kitchen table and did our psalm bible study. so glad we did, cause we happened to be on psalm 20:

"May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!
May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!" v.1

that's how it starts out. so great. then comes verse 7, a personal fave:

"Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God."

staying on the horse theme, it reminded me of another favorite psalm which goes a little something like this:

"A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all its great strength it cannot save.
But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine.
We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord,
even as we put our hope in you."
Psalm 33:17-22

renters are a vain hope for deliverance! as is money! we said that if we had tons and tons of money, this wouldn't be our issue- but we would certainly have a ton of other ones! we read these verses, gobbled them up in fact, and we decided there were lots of roads to take, we just needed wisdom to know what first step to take.

the next morning chris went to the house, took pictures of it (everything was left in great condition. those texting fools really took great care of our house.) and then posted them on craigslist. if you are looking to rent out your house- craigslist is your best bet! last year we paid to have our places on apartments.com and another site that i can't remember, but both our renters came through craigslist. so chris posted the house at about 12:30pm. he went to meet a buddy for awhile. i laid low at home, still trying not to worry about having to possibly prostitute myself, and my husband (but not the kids! that's just wrong.)

at 3pm, i got a call from a very nice lady who is living out of state right now. she was interested in our craigslist post! we chatted for about ten minutes or more and she sounded so nice and perfect! she was moving out aug 1st, she had 5 kids, her husband had gotten a job at the hospital 5 minutes away from the house, and she had a job at a hospital 10 minutes away. i told her to call chris when she started to ask specific questions about the rental procedure (remember- i am not really a landlord! why am i so stressed then???). chris was out, but as soon as he got home, he e-mailed the lady a rental application form.

at 5pm, we were eating pizza with barb and jerry, and the lady called back. she had filled out the form and e-mailed it back. she asked if it was crazy that she hadn't seen the house but was willing to take it. that's not crazy woman- that's prefection!!!! and she is renting it for the exact same price our previous renters were paying us. yipee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so, that was one of the more eventful 24-hours we have spent in awhile. and unfortunately it was probably one of the most God-saturated 24-hours we've had in a long while too, cause we were in a bind and needed Help. Divine Capital-H Help. we are so weak and pathetic and even insincere in our faith sometimes, and yet, somehow, the creator of the universe still loves us, knows us, cares for us, and helps us out, even when we don't deserve any help of any kind.

thank you God, for being the one who gave the horse his strength and for clothing his neck with a flowing mane. (Job 39:19) i could not have done that. and thanks so much God, for sending us a horse. and in 24 hours to boot!

garbage men and obgyns. same thing?

so i had my annual check up the other day ago. it went fine. once they were able to find my ever-shrinking bossom, i got checked out and no breast cancer. thanks kimchi and all the other garlic-infused foods i injest daily!

anyway, when the exam got to the seriously uncomfortable part, and the doctor had to call her assistant in, i thought about these two women who were doing something i would NEVER EVER do in a million years. and i really really really wanted to ask them what the heck they were doing in this profession. but i couldn't, cause i am a wimp.

all i could come up with, was that their job is much akin to that of a sanitation engineer, aka garbage man. these hard working folk deal with some foul junk, but i'm sure every once in awhile they come accross some serious treasures that people haphazardly toss in the trash. so, even though obs have to do gross things like annual exams, they do have the amazing responsibility of bringing new lives, little treasures, into the world. but that's just ob's, i really do not know what the deal is with the gynecologists then.

sportsball champions

for the last seven weeks, we have been going to a fun little thing called Sportsball, offered through the city of chandler. it was 45 minutes for 2-3 year olds to hang out with their parent, and a professional Sportsball Coach, and learn the basics of sports with balls- volleyball, soccer, golf, baseball, floor hockey, football, and tennis.

we had an awesome coach in Coach Megan. she was just all about the kids and encouraging them, and being so patient and excited for any and every thing they did. we did a little bit of one sport each day, with other little fun things for toddlers to do- jumping over a wiggly rope on the ground, going through an obstacle course, 'rescuing animals from a tornado' (aka trying to get a bean bag without getting hit by a bean bag at the end of a rope that Coach Megan swung over her head VERY CAREFULLY.)

the whole thing was a very positive experience for us, cause we were able to be active with our kids, and have them follow instructions from someone who wasn't related to them or one of their friends' moms. the kids did pretty well- lily a little better than topher. but that's ok. listening skills are developed, not just something everyone is naturally gifted with (especially boys/men! i don't care if that's sexist or a stereotype.) we are on the fence as to whether or not topher just has a really short attention span, or is not very interested in sports. or maybe a little bit of both. hockey was his best sport, which is maybe his half-canadian side coming out. (though i hate hockey, and that's why i left canada :) as big a sportsfan as topher's dad is, he was very ok with the fact that his son might not be. maybe we will sign topher up for hip-hop dancing, even though he (and you) will have to wait till he's 3 for that. lily did great with most sports, and we are definitely setting our sights on sports scholarships to get her through college. her next stop will probably be ballet though. just to keep her options open.

anyway, it cost us about $70 ($50 instructor fee, $20 class fee) which is kinda steep, but it definitely made us get off of our lazy bottoms and into that class every saturday! it's fun to expose the kids to different things and having them interact with other toddlers with sports equipment in hand. it's also interesting to see what the kids gravitate to, and what they do not. i would definitely recommend it if you have the extra cash floating around, but if you don't, there's nothing wrong with converting your livingroom into a baseball diamond/soccer field/obstacle course at least once a week.

text much?

ours is a generation where we have so many, too many, methods of communication- phone calls, e-mails, blogs, texts, facebook updates, tweets, letter writing, using dixie cups to write messages in chain-linked fences over freeways ('prom?' was a message i once saw. who was asking who though? i could only imagine how many girls hysterically thought the guy of their dream was asking them to prom.) etc. etc.

today we got a text from one of our renters. they had moved out of our house,left the key in the kitchen drawer, and left the backdoor unlocked. the text ended with a "sorry." OUCH. sorry??? really? what has happened to our society that as shocking as it was to receive this text, it kind of wasn't. people break up with other people via text. people find out that their siblings are pregnant at the same time as millions of others via facebook updates. is this not craziness to anyone but me? what happened to picking up the phone and having a conversation? or asking someone to meet face to face to talk about serious things- like breaking your rental agreement 1 year and 1 month early?!?!?!?...

i am an avid texter, i admit that. but i do it mostly so that you can't hear my kids screaming while i am texting. you can (and will) if i call you. that's my excuse though, what's everyone elses?

"i do it!"

there are 3 little words that i kinda detest hearing right now, and they are "i do it!" and yes, they are alwaysalwaysalways followed by an exclamation point. or as lily calls it: "i" (at the beginning and the end!)

the kids are in a very funny, very annoying, but ultimately amusing independant phase. they think they are old and big. case in point- topher likes to pretend that he is going to work sometimes. just like his dad. (and mom, once a week.) the other day ago, he was strutting around the apartment, getting ready to go, putting on his shoes, and then he shouted out to me: "where's my coffee????" i thought chris put him up to it, but alas, the lad came up with that himself. lil' punk.

anyway, i guess this phase is good cause the kids want to do stuff themselves, which means i will sooner than later not have to do those things for them. but the things they get real worked up about doing are things they truly cannot do without my help! which is where the annoyance factor comes in.

today it was 117 degrees, according to my car's thermometer. that's 47 degrees celsius, dear metric readers. the kids and i went over to our friend's house for dinner, but i thought i would run to the store and pick up a nice dessert since we had missed my friend's birthday. big mistake. the kisd each had to do their own car seat seat belts by themselves. twice. in 117 degree weather. if i help, without being asked, they freak out and need to start all over again. the car is running, i am ruining the environment, my feet are burning from the blazing hot concrete and the car being on. the whole thing is a disaster. i made the mistake of picking topher up out of his seat when we got home and he was NOT ok with that. "I DO IT!!!!" so he walked over to lily's car seat, climbed into it, sat for a second, then hopped out, and climbed out of the car. oh.dear.Lord. give me patience!!!!!!!!!!
and please oh please oh please make arizona a lot less hot!

to pee or not to pee

i had kind of a terrible day yesterday.
we met our friend jenny at 9:30am. or we were supposed to. only i was about 15 minutes late. sorry again jenny! hanging out with jenny was definitely not the terrible part though. we met at chik-fil-a cause they have a big slide. that's pretty much all my kids need to have a fun time. that or a pool.
anyway, we were having a gay old time, until topher wet his pants. another mom, who was sitting with her kids and two other adults came over to ask if those were our kids and to inform us that the little boy just ran up the climbing apparatus with wet pants. oh expletive. i even thought i should have made topher pee before he started playing, but he's been so good about telling me he has to pee, even when he is playing. but alas, he peed.
so i took him to the bathroom. jenny was good enough to climb up the VERYSMALL, and urine-infested climbing apparatus to get a sad lily who was dealing sith sudden abandonment issues. thanks jenny! after i got topher cleaned up and wrapped up in a pull-up, we went to the counter, ordered some food (had to give these people some cash before i dropped this bomb on them) and told them topher had an accident. i asked if they had any disinfecting spray and that i would be more than glad to clean topher's mess, but the girl at the counter was very sweet and told me they would take care of it 'no problem.
so we sat, ate our food and waited. the girl came over and put a 'caution-wet floor' sign up on the door. then she was gone. for like ten minutes. the mom, who knew that topher had peed in there, let her kids go in and play. but i stopped them and told them that it was closed. the mom came over to see what the 'commotion' was. so i told her it was closed and that someone was coming to clean the area. she smiled and said 'oh! usually the person who causes an issue takes care of it, but, ok!' WOW. do you think that because you make a jab at someone with a smile on your face, that it makes it less of a jab???? i hate jabbers. i wanted to slap the woman. i was going to tell her that i had offered to clean the mess up, but i was too pissed due to her snideness. thanks for making an already bad situation worse lady. i really wanted to punch her in her smiley little face.
then the girl from behind the counter came over, armed with sponges, bags, gloves, and spray bottles. she asked me where the accident happened, and i told her i didn't know. cause i didn't. but that there was definitely pee on the steps, and that i found him at the top of the steps. so she looked at me and said: "oh, so, like, everywhere." i told her i didn't know, but that i really really really wanted to help her clean it. she said it was company policy that they take care of it. her 'no problem' attitude was no where to be found. there was a problem. and that problem appeared to be me.
needless to say, we ate and got the heck out of there. but not before another family came in, and the kids immediately ran for the closed play area. 'sorry guys, they're cleaning it right now.' this time, the mom (who knew nothing of the real situation) was pleasantly surprised. 'wow! that's great that they're cleaning it.' and it WAS GREAT that they were cleaning it. cause i have never really seen a fast food chain clean their slides and stuff. so now the question that irks me, (besides what the heck that other mom's problem is) is whether i should always walk into fast food restaurants and tell them that topher peed on their slide just so i can see someone clean the dang thing.

liar liar pants on fire

my kids have started lying. it's not good. and by 'started', i mean they've been doing it for a while now. but today, as i was getting ready for church, topher was hanging out in my room, messing with stuff. as usual. then he dropped two books on the ground and said: "uh oh! noona did it!" it was SO HILARIOUS. cause lily was no where near us! i had to muster up everything in me not to laugh and to tell topher very firmly that it is not ok to lie.

the kids 'lie' about stuff all the time actually. their favorite word right now is 'No'. topher likes to scream it, repeatedly and loudly. lily just likes to say it. even if you ask her 'do you want some water?' and she is clearly parched, she will still say 'no' if she is feeling sassy, and then when you walk away with the cup of water, she starts crying and says that she wants water. this drives me crazy for so many reasons, but i have tried to explain to her that this is called 'lying', cause she is not telling the truth. most of the time, her sassiness overpowers her better judgment.

though it is in our sinful nature to lie, as our pastors often remind us- you don't have to teach a kid to lie, you do have to teach them to tell the truth, i feel like my kids are at a particular disadvantage because chris is a seriously good liar. this really helps him with his job, which makes me happy. i guess. remember i told you april fools is one of his favorite holidays? it's cause that's when his talents are really highlighted. his mom told me a story a couple of weeks ago, and i shared it with some friends over lunch today, and i thought i would share it with you now:
when chris was about 5 years old, his mom left him with her friends so she could go out on a date with chris' dad. the friends, a wife and husband, took cute little chris to the store. cute little chris was sitting in the shopping cart, politely telling his babysitters that his mom buys him something every time they are at the store. they said 'not this time'. but they did not realize how persistent cute little chris was. so he continued to badger these poor, kind people, who had unwittingly agreed to babysit cute little conniving chris. well, the babysitters stood their ground with this stubborn little kid they were babysitting, and made it all the way to the checkout counter without buying anything for chris. and at this point cute little conniving chris decided to make these people pay the expensive price for ignoring him and his wishes. he started screaming: "help! help! these people are kidnapping me! they are not my parents!" the lady at the check out just looked at them, shook her head at chris, and told them to go.

chris' pants are always on fire. and if you really know chris, you know this statement is true for many different reasons.

what's up with october?

i am watching the 'cupcake wars' episode where owners of a local coffee shop here in arizona win the whole thing. i will be going to said coffee shop (it is called 'the coffee shop') any day now to eat me some yummy yummy cupcakes :)

watching these people make 1000 cupcakes is crazy. i am honored to be making a few cupcakes/cakes myself this month. and it made me think of how many birthdays there are this month. july is a crazy birthday month! on the 5th (five days ago) we welcomed the newest member of the giant-watson-clan. i have two very pregnant friends from my small group who are ready to erupt. another friend who is a missionary overseas is actually past her due date and pissed! but in a holy kind of way. :) today is my friend grace's bday. my nephew, corban, is turning one on monday. then two of my girlfriends have babies turning 1 this month as well. one of my dearest friends from high school and beyond has a bday this week. my sister turns 32 next week. i looked for a birthday present for her today. didn't find anything, which means she will probably get her present closer to christmas. my sister-in-law, bre, is also having a birthday this month. chris' brother justin had a bday earlier this month. chris has 2 cousins and an uncle that had bdays this month (thanks for the giant birthday list grandpa!) and i'm sure more people in my family had bdays in korea this month, but i honestly don't know any of those dates.

so, the question that lays open here is: what is so sexy about october???? apple cider? thanksgiving (for canadians!)? making halloween costumes? does that bring a married couple so close together that they create new life together? i don't know. all i know is that i will keep my distance from chris this october, seductive autumn odors be darned.

L and T 'milestones'

-we are actually 'loving' summer here in the desert. we swim, or find some kind of water feature to splash around in, pretty much every day. sometimes even twice a day.
topher thinks he can swim. but he can't. but he is the cutest thing in 'floaties'. yes, even pink ones. (they belong to his girl cousin! don't judge him.) topher loves his dad and tries to be just like him. i love my chris+topher!!!!

-lily came out of my room the other day with her hand behind her back. 'guess what i have' is one of her favorite games right now. usually it's something that she shouldn't necessarily have- nail polish or a bottle of lotion. i will admit that i give lily a little baby pedi every week. only cause colorful toes make her SO HAPPY. she loves seeing other people's colorful toes, she loves having colorful toes, and she especially loves when our toes match. anyhoo, this time it was none of the above. 'what do you have lils?' i asked. 'popsicle!' she screamed and presented me with a Tampon! yeah!... it was still in the wrapper people. don't freak out too much. i told her it was not a popsicle. 'chocolate???...' not even close my love. i told her it was not for her and she should just put it back in my bathroom and never go in there again. she did not believe that it wasn't a wonderful edible treat. so she opened it up and was so very disappointed to find cotton on a string in a mess of plastic tubing. can't wait to tell her what that is really for...

-topher learned/figured out on his own how to take out a dvd that he doesn't like and turn on a new one that he does. it was all probably a lot more serendipitous than anything else, but i was amazed when i heard a korean dvd playing, when i knew for a fact that i had not put that in. i was in the kitchen making dinner, and topher was very proudly standing in the middle of the living room, looking at the tv, to me, and back to the tv. he has been shoving dvds under the dvd player, the cable box, and the tivo (i know, we have too much crap for our entertainment) for months and months, thinking he is putting in a dvd. this time he got it right. this happened at the same time as lily's tampon/popsicle moment. so many emotions going on in the apartment all at once.

-lily and topher are officially composing their own music. yesterday, during the 'singing portion' of our bedtime routine, topher found a ball and said he wanted to sing a song about it. 'ball goes up, ball comes down.' this jaunty tune was accompanied accordingly by the ball going up and down. it was awesome! we were so proud of our boy. then lily said she wanted to sing a bathing suit song. of course we thought she was going to sing 'happy birthday' to her bathing suit, something we occassionally do around here. instead she starts to sing: 'who has a bathing suit? who has a bathing suit? who has a bathing suit? who has a bathing suit?' no joke. her own lyrics. her own melody. chris and i looked at each other. neither of us had ever sang that song with her before. musical geniuses we are raising!!!!! ok. maybe i am taking it a bit too far. BUT, chris and i could not be happier that our kids are so creative and that their little brains are much much bigger than we give them credit for.

-i'm gonna throw in a big 'jihae milestone', just cause i can. yesterday chris and i went golfing and had the BEST time. we haven't golfed together since december i think. anyway, i had one 'legitimate' par and one 'legitimate' bogey. it was awesome. i am usually a 'double par' kind of player (if you don't play golf, that means if par is 4, then i usually get the ball in with 8 strokes. or more honestly, 9.) i say 'legitimate' cause chris keeps our score with our 'handicaps', which i don't understand fully, cause it makes me look like a MUCH better golfer than i am. i think handicaps were created for wives to continue golfing with their husbands and not feel bad about themselves.

-lily usually wakes up at 5:58am. that's what time she pees at. topher usually wakes up soon after that, if not at the exact same time (probably cause lily wakes him up. her partner in crime, what would she do without him?) anyhoo, our kids are not big sleepers. but the other day, lily fell asleep at 6pm, on our way home from swimming at nana's. then she could not be shaken or stirred from her sleep, not even for a little dinner. so we put her in bed and didn't see her until 6:30ish the next day. i was all at once amazed at her 1.bladder control 2.apparent exhaustion 3.bear-like hybernation-skills.

-today we all woke up at 7:45ish. MIRACLE. i don't remember the last time we all slept in that late. oh wait, yes i do. it was like 6 months ago when topher was still in a crib... sure, i was on the floor in the kids' room, with topher beside me (he started crying/screaming at 6ish), but the fact that he fell back asleep, and that lily and her alarm-clock-bladder didn't wake up earlier was all so very very great.

-topher has taken to calling chris and i 'honey'. chris usually calls me 'honey'. i don't think i call him that, but maybe i do. and i don't think that we run around the apartment yelling: 'honey, where are you?' but for the simple fact that topher does that a lot, we are thinking he picked that up from one of us. it's kind of hilarious. and the other day ago, we went to the zoo (it was only 104 degrees! the coolest day of the week!...) and chris had the genius idea of bringing a spray bottle filled with ice water in it to cool the kids, and us,down with. so smart. he's a true arizonite. every time he sprayed topher, our beautiful son would look up at his dad and say: 'thank you honey', for the cool down! how precious is that?!?!?

-lily is becoming more and more conscious of the dangers of the world these days. her big one these days is wrinkles. gotta lay that sunscreen on thick to keep the skin looking vibrant and youthful. take it from lily: sun safely folks.