fun in the snow

this weekend we went up to chris' dad's cabin in heber and had a seriously relaxing and wonderful time! we went up on saturday with our friends charles and grace. we hung out, watched movies, and ate a ton. then they left on sunday and us watsons stayed until monday afternoon. i LOVE hanging out with our little family. as an extra added bonus, there was some snow on the ground but it wasn't that cold so it was nice enough to be outside. well, it was nice enough for everyone except for mia. apparently our little girl is not a huge fan of cool weather. she is so lucky that we do not live in canada! but what she does love is car rides and she was asleep for the entire length of the 2 and a half hour ride. we are so lucky!

doing whipped cream shots with dad!


snowball fight! the picture of chris throwing a snowball at our daughter's head is amazing- mostly cause the snowball did not actually connect with lily's noggin. and topher's favorite thing to do was to throw snowballs at chris' back (well, really his butt.)




chris is about to work 12 hours a day from tomorrow til sunday, so this weekend was perfect for getting lots of extra quality dad time!

sweet sister

here's lily doing her best impression of frida kahlo- gotta love unibrows! i don't know why she is painting with her mouth though:


my lily is getting so stinkin big and OLD! the other day i told the kids to get ready for lunch. i was at the stove putting the finishing touches on their food and when i turned around i found that lily had set the table without my asking. in fact i have NEVER asked lily to set the table, but she grabbed place mats, napkins, and set forks on the napkins. so amazing!

lily is prety much the most helpful person in this house, next to chris who continues to bring home the bacon. but she is hot on his heels! she is all about mia and insists on helping out with her in every way possible- lily actually gets upset if i get a diaper for mia myself. bath time is lily's favorite thing to help me out with. she shampoos mia's head with the little plastic brush-thing they give you at the hospital, and she dumps out the bath water while i get mia dry and dressed. you'd think the girl was 10, not 4-almost-5.

though lily and i still have our epic dinner-time battles, and she does find herself in time-out every now and again, but she is an awesome big sister to both mia and topher and that's more than i can ask for.

half and half

inspect the above picture. what are you noticing? serious cuteness? how much she looks like lily as a baby? how much she resembles her mother's ancestors on the right side of her face and how much she resembles her father's people on the left? that's right- mia has one caucasian eye and one asian eye. mia's left eye has been blessed with an eye lid fold (something that many non-asian people take for granted!) and her right eye... not so much. it's football shaped. some kids have their mom's mouth and their dad's nose, our sweet mia decided she would take one of each of our eyes. so sweet ;)

the kids in the striped pajamas

ok. this post has nothing to do with a concentration camp, although maybe topher and lily sometimes feel like they are living under a crazy dictatorship. i dunno. but this post has everything to do with some seriously recycled and well-worn and well-loved pajamas.

here is topher wearing a pair of red striped pajamas when he was a wee little one:



after he was done with them, those pjs got sent to korea and sunha wore them. i really wish i had a picture of her wearing them. i actually think those pajamas may have been sungu's now that i thnk about it. if i can get a pic of that too, that will be amazing.

and now, these pajamas are back in arizona and mia couldn't be happier about it:



man i love this face!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! mia's smile literally melts my heart. what's that you're saying? that's the wrong use of 'literally'? i don't think so. when she smiles i can actually feel my atrium turning into a pile of fluid, meshing into a mess with the lower ventricle and in a few seconds, there is a pool of vessels and valves that used to be my heart, but is no longer. it's so wonderful! and this happens about 20 times a day, if not more.

so i am a sucky blogger these days. but it's cause i try not to blog when the kids are awake, but there are rarely times in my day when all three kids are asleep, so right now mia is asleep and the two big ones are playing nicely together, so i decided to steal a couple moments for myself this morning to reconnect with the outside world! but now mia is stirring, so i am out!

happy 2 months!

today is mia's two month birthday and i remembered!!!!

i had every good intention of making a big deal about mia's one month birthday last month- but i honestly forgot when december 10th roled around. blame it on lack of sleep, lack of brain cells, or both. but you cannot blam it on a lack of love cause i am overflowing with that!

mia continues to be a sweet, chubby, happy baby. she had her doctor's appointment yesterday and is weighing in at 11 lbs 3 oz (60%ile), measuring 23 in (72%ile), and her head circumference is a mere 15.25 in (50%ile)!!!! craziness. she is wearing most of her weight in her cheeks, but not in the rest of her head, like brother topher did.

here's a sweet little video of our girl, hanging out with her dad. mia really loves to smile at everyone she sees, but she gets supertalkative and happy whenever her dad is around:


happy two month birthday my sweet little baby!

bigger isn't always better...

but in this case- it is!
for the first time ever we have a FULL family picture of chris' side of the family. this does not include any aunts or uncles or cousins. this is straight up all brothers and sisters:



the top row consists of chris' sister breanne and her husband scott, and chris' brother josh and his new bride aly. the next row is chris' sister andi, her beau jason, and her kids david and christina. then there's barb and jerry, and kim and wes. on the bottom row is chris' brother justin and his wife jen and their daughter zoe. then there's chris and me and our litter, and then chris' brother robert, and wife lindsay and gabe, corban and emma.

thanks so much to amy roberts for having the patience to capture this wonderful moment in time for us!

merry christmas from 2011 in 2012...

christmastime for us watsons was busybusybusy. the kids are busy playing with the plethora of christmas presents they received, i too am busy with some of my awesome new toys. christmas as an adult is 100% better now than when i was a kid. the main reason is cause i have kids, and the second reason is cause chris' family is amazing and they get me great stuff for christmas!

ok. i just tried to upload a ton of pitures but it did not work out. there's 10 minutes of my life that i am not going to get back... maybe next time folks. (i did just upload the picture up top... i will try this endeavor again...)

anyhoo, my top two presents i got for christmas this year were cash and a kindle fire, from my two awesome sets of in-laws. with some of my cash i got a new pan that i used this morning to make crepes. it was so magical. nothing stuck to the bottom of the pan, the crepes were thin and perfect! yeah for cash! and the kindle fire was a very unexpected and generous gift. i love it. i have already read two and a half books on it in a week. that's one and a half more books than i read for the entire year before i got my electronic reader!

what have i been reading on my kindle you ask? the hunger games. chris and his family are crazy about the books, and the upcoming movie, so due to some serious peer pressure, i too am crazy about these books. (and yes, if my friend jumped off a bridge, i would in all likelihood jump right after them. as long as it was off of a bridge into a vat of marshmallows.) speaking of crazy, these books are making me a bit insane as i keep thinking that people, namely the capitol, are watching me as i cook, play with the kids, and read my book. and when i'm not paranoid that president snow is judging my every move, i think that maybe someone is going to jump out of the bushes, or out from under lily's bed, and shoot me with an arrow. i know you're out there katniss...

so besides some serious paranoia, christmas this year also brought a ton of wonderful new memories for me to store in my crazy brain. lily and topher were SO EXCITED to open their presents on christmas morning. lily kept gasping for air as she ripped her presents open. it was too funny. topher, totally unprompted, declared: "best christmas ever." it was especially funny to me cause i had just watched the Glee christmas episode where they kept dropping that same line. topher is so with it and he doesn't even know it.

if you were to take away all the presents and extra fluff that surround christmas, we watsons still had a supergreat time. we saw our whole watson family, including chris' brother justin, and his wife jennifer, and their daughter zoe. they flew out from alabama, where they are stationed, and we hadn't seen them in over a year, so it was superspecial having all of lily and topher and mia's watson-related cousins with them. we even managed to have a photoshoot on the 26th with all of chris' parents, the six kids, all the their spouses, and all their kids. that's 27 people. 18 adults, 2 teenagers, and 7 kids under the age of five. i haven't seen the pictures yet, but i am interested to see if there is a single one with all eyes open and looking towards the camera. i am going to guess not. but that's ok. it was just so great (and a miracle!) for all of us to be together. pictures to follow one of these days...

and of course, the reason for the season is our Lord and Saviour's birth. we sang happy birthday to Jesus, complete with birthday cakes and cupcakes, twice. topher kept saying he wanted to see Jesus and we told him he would one day. then he asked if Jesus lived in our hearts, and we told him that He does. then topher asked if God lived in our hearts too and we said that Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit live in our hearts. then lily corrected all of us, in a way that only first borns do (ah sparks of a mini-jeehon!), and she told us that they lived in our stomachs cause we ate heaven. i don't know where that came from, but there you have my four year old's theology. at any rate- Happy Birthday Jesus. again. cause even though christmas was 9days ago, it's still worth saying and celebrating today and every day. thanks for being born Jesus and thanks especially for saving me.

look! pictures uploaded too!