so you know you can dance

monday was a momentous and wonderful day in the watson household. dance lessons started!!!!! we signed lily up for ballet lessons and topher for an all boys hip hop class through the city of gilbert's parks and rec. i think it was $35 for 8 45-minute lessons. kind of an incredible deal! lily started off dance day with her lesson in the morning. she looked SO PRECIOUS in her new little leotard that she actually got for Christmas last year (thanks nana!) and her little black tights and pink ballet shoes. to the chagrin of every mother there, we were not allowed to sit in the room and watch our girls dance. and the window on the door was very small which is why i didn't get any video footage of the lesson, just a few terrible pictures. i will take more next time! i didn't want to be a window hog though. lily loved pointing and twirling and had a great time in her class. yeah lily!topher was a sweet little brother and asked if we could go in to watch lily dance. he's so precious. i love him. then the afternoon rolled around and it was finally time fro topher's dance class. he was so very excited. he really wanted to wear his ironman costume- since lily got to dress up for her class, but i told him the polyester that his costume is made of was not breathable and would probably burst into flames as he tore it up on the dance floor, so he agreed to leave his prized costume at home. we got to his lesson and it was so cute. 9 little boys ranging from 3-5 years old just shaking what the their mamas gave 'em! again, we were not allowed to stay in the room, but we all loitered around the windows and door quite a bit. it was too funny. the kids were dancing to very age-appropriate music (i think they were basically ducks quacking to a beat) which was GOOD, but i wouldn't mind if they end up doing their final routine to a little Ne-Yo or Kanye or something like that. we'll see. anyway, be prepared for more dance videos and pictures over the next two months. enjoy what i got from their first lessons:

more eating. MORE sleeping

i spent the most wonderful 24 hours away from my kids this weekend!

chris and i dropped the kids off with our saint-friends: jeff and mary beth and their 2 girls on saturday morning, and then proceeded to drive for two and a half hours up to heber to hang out at chris' dad's cabin with 10 of our closest friends. it was magical. chris and i sipped our starbucks and chatted about work (his), life (ours), and the awesomeness of being alone together. i love my hubs.


the weather was incredible. during the day it was in the low 90s, which may seem hot, unless you are escaping 117 degrees. then 90 is perfect, if not almost a little chilly. our friends started showing up about an hour after chris and i got there and the party started.

we had sandwiches for lunch, then we had ladies' craft time, boys' golf and shuffle board time, and no kids were around to ask for more chips, or to complain that they don't like turkey, or to cut their hair off with any of the six pairs of very sharp craft scissors that were littered on the table along with burning candles and lots of flammable rayon material. it was a nightmare for children, but a dream come true for mothers without kids.

we ate, we laughed. A LOT. we played games. we had smores. we put on sweatshirts. and we slept. A LOT. i think we all went to bed after midnight, and woke up after 9am. NINE AM! phenomenal stuff! everyone there, except the suiters, have young kids. but the suiters are made up of a teacher and a high school pastor, so they have over 100 kids between the two of them ;) and actually, greg left at 6am to take care of his kids, so i guess that makes him a better parent than the rest of us lazy bums who slept in!

anyhoo, it was a much needed 24 hours away to recharge our batteries, laugh about inappropriate things, and reconnect with friends that we don't get to see enough of. we are so blessed to have these incredible people in our lives. so super blessed.

thanks wes and kim for letting us use your pimpin cabin. and thanks to the village of people who watched the 9 kids that we left behind.

eat. sleep. repeat.

apparently i am not in my third trimester yet (i'm at week 27. i don't actually know when the third trimester starts!) but i have no second-trimester energy or pep left to speak of. my kids are awesome and they let their tired mama nap for at least 10-30minutes everyday.

life has calmed down since our houseguests left. having four toddlers in the house for the summer has truly helped me to appreciate my two. there are still moments when i want to punch myself in the face, cause they are still 3 and 4 after all- complete with tantrums, attitudes, and needs. but they are my 3 and 4 year olds and i love love love love love them!!!!!!

of late, i have been feeling contemplative... nostalgic... i don't know what word i am looking for. but i have been starring at my kids in an almost-stalkerish kind of way. i do it cause they're beautiful- stunningly beautiful- their doe eyes, perfect mouths, button noses. i also do it cause i am so curious as to what our third child might look like! but i only do it when the kids let me, which is not often, cause i think they are starting to get creeped out by me.

when i hold them, one in each arm, i wonder who is going to get ousted when baby 3 comes out. but let's be real, lily's probably going to do most of the caring for her little sister. she's been 'changing her dolls' diapers' lately, and even rolls the 'dirty' one up when she is done with it. so hilarious. i can't believe how big my little girl is getting! complete with her beautifully chic layered hair cut ;)

i am feeling lots of things these days- discomfort, perpetual hunger, bouts of narcolepsy, and eternal gratitude. i am so blessed. thanks for my family Jesus!

some recent pics of my beautiful crazy kids:
(the one of lily in the rocking chair is my favorite because she is wearing socks with a bathing suit, and holding 'renew my heart' a devotional that she was pretending to read before i took the shot.)

costco treasures

i just found two amazing things at costco that i wanted to share with you today.

but before i do, i just want to say that my son is so dang cute, and last night he said to me: "mom, pop out my friend so i can play with her!" he was talking about his little sister. so crazy. so cute. love that monster.

anyway, the first thing i found at costco, via my m-i-l Barb, is a sticker book. but it's not just any old sticker book- it's a learning adventure sticker book! the ones we have are 'my little pony' and 'dora the explorer'. the dora one is actually a bit better than the other one, only cause there are more numbers and 'math-type' pages. but both of them cover simple things like seasons, completing patterns, matching shapes, etc. lots of fun! topher and lily will sit for about an hour doing the different pages. great times, especially when it's still over 100 degrees outside!
the books are $7.99 each, and i think it's a worthy investment. just make sure the kids don't try to do the books by themselves, otherwise they will probably use the wrong stickers for the wrong pages and then you will just have a jumbled mess. i would not pay $8 for a book with stickers, but an educational one- yes. i will, i have, and topher finished his dora book so i am going to get him different one.
(i have also seen a superheroes book, sesame street, and i think there was a barbie one too.)


here is a page of the seasons. it's not right-side up so i apologize for that. but this is great cause my kids, who have lived in arizona their whole lives, cannot get a grasp on the concept of seasons. they know winter is cold, but they don't know when that actually ever happens.

here's another page. i think it's a page of completing patterns. so fun to watch things click in the kids' heads!

here's what the cover of the 'my little pony' book looks like. i'm not getting paid by costco to advertise these things, though i really wish i were. i would accept payment in the form of coloring books, giant bottles of salsa, or even bags of beef jerky.

the next awesome things that they have at costco right now are superhero costumes. and they are only $16. this is great since i was going to buy topher an Ironman mask at walmart for about $10 and then spend money-time-stress on making a jumpsuit of sorts for him for halloween/everyday-dress-up-funtimes. these costumes come with a mask, gloves, and a bodysuit that has built-in muscles! so awesome! topher wears his every day, even though he knows he needs to be supercareful with it so that it doesn't rip before halloween shows up (in two months and 8 days).

they have two transformers- optimus prime and bumble bee (already bought the bumble bee one for sungu!) and then they have other superheroes like thor and spiderman, and then they had one or two other random things too. they have two sizes- 4-6 and 7-8. good luck getting the 4-6. they are selling like hotcakes!

topher showing off his abs of steel! or highly-flamable cottong stuffing stuff...

here's topher in his Ironman alter-ego, working on his dora sticker book. he is strong in body and mind. so proud of him!

hair today, gone tomorrow

lily really wanted short hair. yesterday i trimmed topher's hair around his ears, and lily said she wanted her hair cut short too. i told her we would cut it at the end of summer (octoberish here in the desert). she said ok. we were going to go swimming at chris' cousin's house so i just wanted to keep damaging her hair with chlorine and sunshine, and then cut it once swimming season came to an end.

so we went to chris' cousin's house and had a great time. lily even got a piece of gum from their fancy little gum ball machine. she loved it. she chewed that tiny little gum ball for almost an hour. and i don't know how it ended up in her hair when that hour ended, but it did. so, i cut her hair,much to the chagrin of her father who really loves long hair. but i told him he should be super thankful because i almost cut her hair that morning, and she probably still would have gotten gum in it anyway, and if she had, i would have had to cut her hair even shorter. he was very satisfied/relieved that lily looked adorable with her new shoulder-length hair cut. i didn't take any real pictures of it. wish i had.

then today happened. nothing special at first. then chris left for work in the afternoon and the kids had quiet time. i think my kids must really hate quiet time cause they do their best at destroying things during it.

lily had quiet time in my room today. i fell asleep on the couch for about 15 minutes. then i played some words with friends. then i decided to go check on my kids, cause it sounded like they were both in my room, even though topher was supposed to be in his room. so i opened the door and found lily holding a pair of scissors and chris' deoderant.

i tried assessing the situation in a hurry, but i could not. there was too much going on. lily was wearing her ballet outfit (she is starting ballet classes next monday!) so she looked supercute. but then there was hair everywhere, and i couldn't decide if it was hair from yesterday;s haircut (i'm gross, i know. i didn't clean it up yet.) and then there was the mystery of why she was holding chris' deoderant. and then i really looked at her hair. and i saw that she had cut off the ends of her little front pig tails, and then i saw that she had just haphazardly cut out chunks of her hair. it was a seriously serious disaster.

as i stroked her hair, more chunks kept falling out. it was craziness. and her hair felt pretty weird- she had put deoderant on her head. weirdness. she got deoderant on topher's head too. fortunately she did not cut any of his hair. not that that treally matters since a simple head-shaving could fix any damage she could have caused to his hair. but things were going to have to be a bit more methodical to fix lily's locks.

lily cried and said she was sorry. that was sweet and all. but sorry was not going to undo what had been done! i guess sorry never actually undoes anything. but i reminded her that sorry means that we will never again do what it is that we are sorry for. lily, in as innocent a voice as she could muster, reminded me that she wanted to have short hair and that i did not cut her hair short yesterday. YOWSERS! so i guess i was asking for this?....

anyway, we got in the car and drove to Lollilocks at val vista and baseline. supercute little salon for kids. the hairdresser there did a great job of giving lily layers (lily did a really great job of giving herself A LOT of layers too) and a shorter new hair do. i am a big fan, though chris is not just yet.

here are pics from our special adventure today. we are all reminding ourselves that it is just hair and it will grow back. and once i start slipping in some of my prenatal vitamins into lily's diet, her hair will grow back even faster yet!

a tangled web

i have been surrounded by lies for the last two or three weeks. no. longer. and i have lied to so many people in the past few weeks that i guess i am surrounded by lies cause i have been telling some myself.

it all started at my 21 week ultrasound 5 weeks ago. and it progressed into a disaster that blew up on saturday.

here's the thing- i lied to you that we didn't find out the gender of our baby. we weren't going to. we really weren't. and then my weak husband started to cave. he said he was starting to lean a certain way towards wanting a particular gender, but that he didn't want to lean that way if that wasn't the gender of the baby. we wrestled with the decision to find out throughout the length of the ultrasound. our tech was very patient with us. finally she said that she would put the result in an envelope and that if we wanted to find out we could look in the envelope, but if we didn't want to find out then we could just discard the envelope and the wealth of information inside.

my self-controlless husband and i looked in the envelope as we waited to see my mid-wife five minutes later.

chris thought it would be HILARIOUS to not tell anyone that we knew what we knew. he thought it would be funny for me ot blog about the whole thing two or three months later. then he thought it would be even funnier for us to not tell anyone until the baby was born and then tell people that we had known the gender of the baby all along. so we decided not to tell anyone for the time being, except for my sister because 1. she knows all and 2. sunha was having surgery the next day and i wanted to give her a morsel of information that would make her happy.

then jeehon and i decided it would be awesome if we actually told some friends and family what we were having and not tell chris that we told them and then throw a surprise baby shower for him. chris has played many tricks on my sister and my friends, and it just felt like the right thing to do! in the eight years that i've known chris i've only thrown one surprise party for him and never played a real trick on him. the time had come.

so the plan was to have brunch at chris' mom's. our friends and family would get there at 10 and we would show up sometime after that. but of course our van wouldn't start that morning, so we got there quite a bit after 10ish. just as well. it was the perfect way to start off the gong show. we got there. everyone said 'surprise!'. chris looked surprised-ish. we ate, we chatted, then chris opened his presents and handed me an envelope.

inside the envelope was a letter for me, from my terrible husband, telling me that he had known about this surprise party for the last two weeks, and that my heart was too pure to be able to pull a prank off. what a jerk! he ruined everything. everyone at the party felt equal parts surprise, disgust, and amazement. detective watson ladies and gentlemen. that's who i am married to.

so, in short, i cannot pull a prank against my husband. he is too smart. but i will get him one day. when he is least expecting it. i'm gonna go ahead and blame this catastrophe on pug, just cause i can.

ps. we are having a girl and we are very very excited!

superheroes read

if you have never been to the scottsdale library- you need to go. it is the best library i have ever been to! the kids' area is like a castle- complete with a tower that you can sit in and read, there's a little bridge and a moat and everything. adorable! there is also a puppet theater and an interactive computer that reads books to your kids. so great! i have been outside of this library so many times and never once went in during the six years that i have lived here and loitered around that building waiting for chris. it seriously has to be the best library in arizona.

and another thing that makes it superawesome is that they have a display room in the middle of the library where they are doing a feature on comic books with superheroes. the kids loved it so much. especially since they are really really into superheores these days. there were costumes for them to try on, and lots of different photo ops to be had. so here are a couple pics we took from our fun superhero adventure:




if you or your kids are into superheores, i strongly recommend you make the drive up to scottsdale to check out their exhibit on comic books. it's going to be around until september 2! let me know if you are planning on going- topher loved it so much he really wants to go again.

here are some more details:
-it's free!
-scottsdale civic center library
3839 n. drinkwater blvd
-check out

too many wee-wees = lots of pee pee

the last two or three weeks have been urine-filled ones for me.

we watched chris' dad's dog a few weeks ago. it was just for a few days and everything went really well for the most part. d.c, my dog-in-law, and pug got along really well. maybe a little too well. they were boyfriends by the end of their time together. i guess that's better than them hating each other. yikes, did i just say homosexuality in dogs is better than a little animosity?... that's not what this post is really about.

what this post is really about is a lot of urine. the day after d.c. left i noticed a pee stain on the carpet in the living room as i was picking up some toys. then i noticed another stain. and then another. and then another. and yet another. i think i found 6 pee stains on the carpet in the living room and 1 in the kitchen. it was so anti-awesome. i brought out my handy little carpet cleaner, but that was not enough. so after i used my little carpet cleaner, i busted out the big bissel carpet cleaner that i borrowed from lindsay a while ago. i am assuming that pug peed everywhere to show d.c. that this is his house and that he is the alpha dog. maybe it wasn't all pug's fault, but at this point in my life, i like to blame everything on pug. if someone has strewn trash all over the living room, i blame pug. if there's nothing in the house for me to make dinner, i blame pug. if the kids are acting up and the internet isn't working, i blame pug. you get the picture.

anyway, i was a very very unhappy dog owner while i was getting urine out of my carpets that had been professionally cleaned a month ago. i also wasn't happy wiping pee up off of the floor, off of the walls, some toys, and my couch. but this is my lot in life- urine cleaner.

and now that sungu has been here for a bit more than two months, the bathroom that the kids use the most was really starting to smell bad. i would spray and disinfect and wipe and spray and hope for the urine smell to disappear. we also tried masking some of the smell with scented oils and such. some days were better than others. but the other day ago was much more than me and my ultra-sensitive-pregnant nose could bear. my bathroom smelled worse than a public bathroom! horror of horrors.

so i went to target and bought a butt-load of new cleaning supplies. i got a chlorox bleach spray, and something that looks and smells like a bar of soap that sits on the side of your toilet bowl. success! urine smell gone! for now. i heart bleach very very much.

i was feeling really great about my victory against my evil bathroom until topher and sungu came out of my bathroom and were giggling about making an 'x'.

"what is an 'x'? what are you guys talking about???" i demanded.
"we made an 'x'! we made an 'x'!" the boys squealed with delight.
"what is an 'x'? did you pee on the ground and make an 'x'? what are you talking about????" furry and confusion.
"no! we both peed and made an 'x'!" the boys were very proud of themselves.
i told them that that was absolutely unacceptable behavior and that they needed to take turns peeing one rainbow, with all urine making it safely into the bowl.
and this is perhaps why my bathroom smells the way it does. too many wee wees, too much pee pee.

week 24. or something like that

it's been awhile since i wrote anythnig about being pregnant, so here it is.

i'm 24 weeks along. or maybe just 23. i'm not sure. sorry third child- i don't love you less than lily just because i followed her through every week of her pregnancy. i had no idea what was going on during your brother's pregnancy either if that's any consolation to you little one. i don't shower often or hardly ever know what day of the week it is either. it's not you baby- it's me.

so a baby at week 24 is about the size of a corn on the cob and weighs about a pound. and my uterus is the size of a soccer ball. yup, that all sounds right. i feel the baby kicking and punching in two very different spots at the same time, and i used to worry that there was more than one watson living in my womb. i guess i didn't realize how big the little one has gotten! and i definitely look like i stole a soccer ball and put it up my shirt. remind me to stay away from sporting good stores till i give birth.

even though i look like i am stealing a soccer ball, it feels like i ate a bunch of weights, and those weights start taking a serious tole on my butt and crotch. sorry male readers. you can stop reading now if you'd like. but seriously, i feel like my stomach is going to fall through my crotch, or my spine is gonna pierce through my backside. maybe i should start wearing a jock strap, though for reasons other than why guys wear jock straps. but apparently all this pain and discomfort is normal for being pregnant with your third child, and gets worse the more kids you decide to have. that piece of information is the only kind of birth control i will need after giving birth to this watson. i am looking into getting adorable matching twin beds for my husband and i when all is said and done ;) anyway, to end off my list of body pain and complaints- my feet hurt when i am standing on tile for too long- you know- pregnant and barefoot and all, and my general stamina for walking around is not worthy of being called stamina at all. the end.

otherwise, i am feeling very blessed to be carrying around this little monster in my womb and cannot wait to meet him/her in november. here is the baby's face from our last ultrasound 3 weeks ago. it looks like a robot/skeletor. i haven't shown it to the kids for fear that they might think their sibling is going to come out looking like something out of a bad sci-fi movie: