a kind of disgusting week

one day last week, i was having dinner with lily and topher at home (chris was working) and i sneezed. for normal people that's fine. i am no longer normal. i totally peed in my pants. not a lot. but enough that i had to excuse myself from the table so i could change my underwear and shorts.

but then that evening my girlfriend cindy came over to hang out for a little bit. cindy is also pregnant (maybe having a baby today? tomorrow? definitely this week!!!) and she has the sweetest heart. i told her about my dinner-sneezing-urination fiasco. she laughed and came to sit on the couch with me to give me a hug. but when she did that, she knocked over a bottle of water that started to get her butt all wet. she laughed nervously at first as she jumped up. she looked at the couch to assess the situation and was relived to see that there was a bottle of water spilling water on my couch. she thought that i had another 'outburst' and that i was peeing on her! amazing. that would have brought our friendship to a new and very different level.

then on tuesday, i was getting ready to go out with chris and some friends, so i put on a t-shirt and was doing something in the kitchen by the sink. i just happened to look over on my shoulder and what should i find perched there but a scorpion! A BIG OLD DISGUSTING SCORPION! omg. i almost died. i started screaming for chris to come and help me (he was giving the kids a bath) and so he comes running and i am for some reason trying to get the scorpion off of my shirt by running water on it. but then it started crawling into the arm hole and chris was yelling at me to take my shirt off. not something that happens often ;) so i finally took my shirt off and my brave husband proceeded to kill the scorpion with my tshirt. my kids were safe in the tub. though they were very interested in the commotion.

how did the scorpion get on me? did it crawl up my leg and back and find a nice resting place on my shoulder? did it fall from the ceiling? or was it in my closet and already on my shirt when i put it on? i am banking on it being the latter, so i have already told chris i need a new wardrobe.

in other disgusting creepy crawly news, i also found a gecko and it's dislocated (though still moving) tail in my newspaper last week. it's been an interesting and kind of disgusting week. i'm glad it's over. happy weekend people!

being a mom rocks my socks

being a stay-at-home mom is great. and sometimes not so great. some days are better than others. i just read my sister-in-law's blog, and it sounds like she had one of them 'others' kind of days. sorry lindsay! corban will stop being a two year old one of these days ;)

as for me, we had plans to have lunch with a friend, but she cancelled, so we had the day to ourselves. we went shopping, we had lunch at home (fiscally responsible!), we had ice cream cones and sat by the pool (the fill-up yourself kind), and then we watched 'Despicable Me' and ate Cheetos. i sat and watched the whole thing with them. dishes and laundry be darned! then we did our sticker books and puzzles, and then we had dinner at home- and chris even managed to join us for that! yeah family time!

it was just a really great day. the calm before the storm. not a bad storm- but having a newborn in the house again is definitely going to feel like a storm.

here's the video of my kids doing the Lord's Prayer. i made the mistake of trying to take this video while the kids are eating ice cream. topher is not focused! and my camera may be kind of broken cause the volume is no bueno. but turn your computer volume way up and try to enjoy!

what up watsons

chris: has been a working fool!!!! in fact he just got called into work- on a monday night! poopers. but as annoying as it is to have my husband whisked away to deal with criminals when all i want to do is watch some tv with the guy, we are so thankful for the overtime! thank you Jesus! and when chris isn't working, he is being crazy. chris did another triathlon yesterday. this one was a sprint, which means he only exercised for one hour and forty minutes straight, as opposed to the last time when he exercised for three and a half hours in one go. he's so stinkin crazy! why he does this to himself, and pays people money so that he can do these things- is beyond me. but i had a great time watching him, and his equally crazy brother, robert, racing for no reason. even though we woke up really early to support these boys (and their other crazy friend dan) i had an awesome time hanging out with barb and lindsay.

me: i am 32 weeks pregnant and i waddle around like a pissed off duck. it's not attractive. the day before the triathlon i felt like i had shrapnel in my crotch and couldn't walk. it was creepy. i am trying to be productive and all that, but i waste a lot of my time playing sudoku while laying down. i had a terrible week last week- my allergies nearly killed me, and i had to take the 3-hour glucose test. i do not have gestational diabetes which is great news, but fasting for 12 hours before the test, and not eating for the 3 hours during the test just about killed me. lots of dramatic 'near death' experiences for me last week. (i am becoming weaker and more dramatic as this pregnancy continues...)

lily: she has a new-found love for the asian baby doll she received for her birthday 6 months ago that was supposed to replace 'Jun Lee', her creepy asian baby doll that she has had since she turned 1. this new baby doll is now named 'Mia' and lily loves putting her to bed and getting her dressed and pulling her hair and swinging her around by her ankles. it is sweet and terrifying to watch. it's good though because then we have a chance to talk about what is ok and absolutely not ok for her to do with her little sister. here is a video of our latest project- working on the Lord's prayer. we introduced it to the kids a few weeks ago and they have latched onto it and won't let go! which is so great. you may have to turn the volume way up. my camera is kinda crazy.

topher: is loving Christian music right now and really pays attention when we are listening to Klove (a Christian radio station). he asks great questions about what he hears and i am just amazed at his brain and heart. the other day 'Manifesto' by 'the City Harmonic' (a canadian group- happy almost thanksgiving to my canadian friends out there by the way!) came on, and i told the kids that the Lord's prayer was in it. when that part of the song came on, they were riveted. i actually just purchased the song on iTunes- the only song i have payed for on my iPod! your welcome Apple, use my $.99 wisely... here is topher saying the Lord's prayer:


i lied. no videos. you can't really hear the kids. so i will retape em and repost em. maybe tomorrow. we'll see...

back to cupcakes

it's been a seriously long time since i have had a cupcake post. i made some cupcakes in june for robert's and for sungu's birthday, but i never really bothered writing about them cause they weren't stunning (sorry boys. there was lots of love in them, but they just weren't that pretty.) i don't even have any pictures of the cupcakes that i made for robert that had a 'words with friends' theme to them, cause quite frankly my brother is addicted to that game. here are two pics i found from sungu's birthday party. yeah for decorating for a four year old- they don't really care what the cupcake looks like, they just care that they are eating a cupcake! sungu did request batman cupcakes, and that's what he got:



so, since june, i have done no real baking and therefore no decorating. until we celebrated grandma's birthday this weekend. grandma said she liked chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting. easy! it took a while to figure out how to make chocolate frosting special, but then i remembered seeing people make cupcake bouquets, so i decided to look that up. it was pretty easy! i didn't have the necessary supplies to make the bouquets (flower pot, styrofoam ball, etc) but i will make one of those one day! but i did have the right tip to frost the cupcakes the way that i wanted to, and i also had pretty qhite pearl-like sprinkles which helped to add a little more pizzazz to my chocolatey treats. i was really happy with the way they turned out, and this was probably the fastest and easiest cupcake-decoarating endeavor i have ever undertaken. maybe i will add a video or step by step pics on how to do this cause it was really that easy. someone just needs to have a birthday and needs to request that i make flower cupcakes for them...

here are my kids helping me/helping themselves to a lot of sprinkles:




and these are the cupcakes i made for grandma's 80th birthday.

80 and greaty

ok. that might be my worst title ever for a post. but this is a post to commemorate my fantastical grandmother who just turned 80! as most of you know, this grandmother of mine is actually chris', but being the possessive person that i am, i have claimed his grandmother, as well as most of his family, as my own.

grandma, also known as GG (great grandma), and Jaye (lily's middle name!) is truly one of the most incredible women i know. i love spending time with her because she is always full of great stories, encouragement, and wisdom. she gets this wisdom from being in the Word daily, and listening to sermons on her computer while playing solitaire (i think it's solitaire she plays.) i really cannot believe how tech savvy this woman is for an 80 year old! she has a facebook account and everything! i am hoping to be half as sharp as she is when i am 80, though truth be told- it's probably not going to happen, because at 30 i feel like i have already peaked and am on my way down!

one of grandma's best qualities is her love for her husband. she and grandpa did our premarital counseling, and it was such a blessing because they have such a beautiful and healthy marriage for us to look up to. they continue to counsel us by giving us reading materials, and just checking up on us to see how we are doing. 6 years of follow-up! that's premarital counseling at it's best!

anyway, i just love love love my lovely grandmother and wanted to take this moment to wish her a happy birthday and to remind her that i love her and think the world of her. here's to another wonderful 80 years grandma! (i raise my bowl of butter pecan ice cream up to you, another excellent thing that you have added to my life!) if anyone can live to be 160- it's you Jaye Watson! i love you! happy birthday!

getting schooled

this year i am teaching the kids some pre-school stuff at home. i won't call this homeschooling cause what i am doing is not even close to the calibre of stuff that my serious homeschooling friends do with their kids. and unfortunately, i have quite a few friends who are hardcore homeschooling their kids so i really know how short i am falling!

i try to do an intentional lesson with them every monday, wednesday, and friday, and hopefully still teach them a thing or two on the other days of the week as well. mondays we try to focus on our korean, wednesdays we do the alphabet and phonics, and then fridays we do numbers and basic math.

you can judge how smart my kids are by the things that have happened this week and the conversations that we have had:

- i taught the kids chris' phone number a few weeks ago so that they could call chris if they ever got lost, or to call him in case i had an emergency. i felt like this was better than teaching them 911, because 1. i don't want them to abuse the power of 911 (aka i don't want to pay any fines for prank calling 911) 2. if i was in a serious emergency and the kids were able to relay that fact to their dad and he was at work, he would show up as fast as the real 911. anyway, we have practiced calling chris a couple of times and it's been great. then today topher had my phone and called chris without my knowing. chris loved getting a call from his son who really just wanted to chat with his dad. it was pretty dang cute.

- we aren't really doing anything 'sciency' though i am thinking i need to add that in because of this convo we had in the car yesterday:
lily: "do whales eat fish?"
me: "yes. lots of whales eat fish."
topher: "we eat fish too."
me: "yes we do topher. and dolphins eat fish also. so do penguins. and some other animals too..."
lily: "whales also eat Jonahs."
me: "no. only one whale ever ate a man named Jonah. God had a special plan for Jonah and for that whale. if a whale eats a person that person usually dies."

- we aren't really focusing on learning any spanish right now, and really the only spanish the kids know are their numbers and colors. trying to now learn their colors in korean is starting to mess with their heads. topher seems to think he can speak spanish because he asks if he can pray in spanish very often, and eveytime it goes like this: " (long pause. probably trying to think of any spanish words.) then- Dear Jesus... hahahaha!" ah the sense of humor of a three year old.

up since 4:30

my husband is the worst.
he decided to go running with his uncle this morning and got up at 4:30am. who does stuff like that?!?!?? so, he tried to be quiet and stealth and all, but his alarm clock was loud and i heard it. so i tried to fall back asleep, but i failed. i tossed and turned (that makes me sound light. i actually mean i heaved and rolled my giant body about on the bed like a beached whale) and tried and tried to fall back asleep. but to no avail. i had to pee. so i peed. then i went back to bed and closed my eyes and started to pray. i prayed for some of my friends. i also prayed for more sleep. i hope my friends feel blessed today cause if God is only answering one prayer at a time- it was not the one about more sleep that He chose to grant.

and then i realized i was really hungry. so i have already taken down a banana and my toast just popped out. let me throw some jam on that real quick...

delicious.

anyway, i don't have a ton to blog about. or maybe i do. i just noticed that i haven't blogged since last monday. where does the time go?!?!

you didn't miss much last week though. i did a ton of laundry last week. topher had been awesome about waking up with a dry diaper for quite a while now, so chris and i finally decided he was ready to sleep in undies (with lots of protection on his mattress). he did so great for over a week. and then he had three accidents in a row. argh. and of course one of those accidents was on my bed, on my comforter. good times.

but last week topher showed some real interest in his new baby sister. he sat on my lap one night and just started reading a story to her/my stomach. that was really cute, but the cutest thing was that it was a story about chris playing on the phoenix suns. it's a book that chris got as a gift from his dad about 20 years ago, and there is a picture of chris' head on the body of a basketball player, and topher thinks that it's real. so toph was introducing his sister to their dad, the phoenix sun.

lily has been delightfully surprising chris and i with her awesome brain. i have to admit, we have already pinned our kids as 'lily the jock' and 'topher the brain'. that's probably bad. but lily has been spewing back stuff that i am trying to teach her like nobodies' business! in the summer when jeehon and i would take turns teaching the kids stuff, lily was the least interested in learning. but now she is all over our korean lessons and learning the Lord's Prayer and other wonderful things like that. i am so proud of her! and for some reason, lily is also really obsessed with the car being parked backwards. gotta love the mind of a four year old.

so, that's about it. like i said, you haven't missed much. chris is getting ready for a sprint triathlon with his brother in 2 weeks, so you can look forward to that post. as for me, i am just getting ready for a marathon, aka childbirth and everything that comes after that.

meeting our favorite pig

saturday morning we headed over to our favorite bookstore- Changing Hands Bookstore, and we met our favorite pig, Olivia! it was awesome. except that i guess the person inside of Olivia can only see through a patch in the costume's neck so Olivia's head was always tilted pretty far back. i couldn't get a great pic of her:


see?

anyway, we heard two Olivia stories and got to hug Olivia herself. the kids were in awe, and i really wonder what they thought of her. surely they know it's a person in a costume- right? right? i couldn't ask though. i don't even know how i would bring it up.

anyway, this saturday the 10th there is another event with another pig theme. apparently the guy who wrote "Where the Wild Things Are" is releasing his first new book since "Where the Wild Things Are" was released in 1981! The new book is called "Bumble Ardy" and is about a pig who decides to throw himself a birthday party. The story will be read, and there will be pig crafts and piggy cupcakes too! yeah! the fun starts at 10am. for more info you can go to

baseball firsts

eons ago, when lily was an only child (for a brief 373 days), she went to two diamondbacks game. the first one was with me, her uncle robert, and our lovely friends mike and cindy. then we went to a playoff game as a family- just chris, lily, and me (with topher baking in my oven).

here are the pictures i dug up of those two momentous games:




then, three years later, we finally took topher to his first baseball game. what kind of terrible parents are we that we haven't taken our son to a baseball game but we took our daughter to two in her first 6 months on earth??? i repent.

anyway, tuesday august 30th was the big night. and topher was not that thrilled. probably because it was baseball, and baseball is not that exciting. but what was exciting was 'the sandlot', an area for kids to play on slides, or to play wiffle ball, and basically not watch the game. another major highlight was seeing the giant-headed baseball players. i can't describe them any other way. but there is a picture below. i am so glad the Diamondbacks were running a promo where they were selling seats for just $5. i am all about my kids experiencing new things, especially if it can happen for the same price as a starbucks drink.