crazy chris strikes again

this has been a crazy month for my crazy chris.

two weeks ago he did this ridiculous race called the Spartan Race. it's an 8.5 mile obstacle course filled with wall climbing, people hitting you with sticks, fire, and lots and lots of mud:

that's chris and his buddies after the run. note to anyone who is planning on doing the Spartan Race in the future: do not wear a white shirt, unless you want it to be orange. i'm sure martha stewart could have gotten that shirt back to it's original creamy white hue, but alas- not a subpar home-maker like myself. that shirt is now in the trash.

anyhoo, then friday morning, chris and 11 other crazy people got into 2 vans to run in the Ragnar race which is a 200 mile relay race. each runner runs a certain amount of miles, chris had to run 19 miles, which is a lot, but is even more when you are doing it with a slightly sprained/bruised ankle:


that's one sexy cankle!



yup. my husband is getting worse with age. he has now reached a stage in his physical fitness where he can actually do these running things with minimal training. i can't remember if i posted about chris doing the pf chang half marathon last month, but he ran that 13.1 miles like he was going for a jog around the block- it's sickening! this ragnar race was particularly more exciting for him as part of the 11 other crazy people who ran with him were his uncle matt, cousin todd, and brother robert and sister-in-law lindsay. it was lindsay's first official run and she did so great! way to go lindsay! i guess this craziness that chris has is in the watson blood, and you can catch it just by being married to one of them! i have a strong feeling i am immune to it, though chris is pretty convinced otherwise. we will see...

baek il

can you believe that 101 days ago, we did not know this little lady cause she was still confined to the womb?!?!?!

i am convinced that i have written about a baek il before, probably topher's, but i just checked my old posts and couldn't find one... i am losing my mind.

anyhoo, today was mia's baek il (100 days). korean people celebrate this day in a big way, because back in the day, a lot of babies didn't make it to their 100th day, so the ones that did celebrated still being alive and well. today korean families celebrate the day with a big party with lots of food, rice cakes and presents and stuff. i am fully korean, but my kids are only half, so we celebrated this day as in i recognized that it existed, and that's about it. i thought about making a cake, but what would be the point of that? mia couldn't eat it, and it's her special day, so if she can't have cake- no one can! i'm sure she would have loved some cake though, what with her diet consisting of kimchi-and-coffee-flavored breastmilk. she will get her cake though, in 265 more days...

it was funny looking at my old posts cause i used to only write and rarely ever post pictures. now i rarely ever write and usually only post pictures. how things change!

anyway, it's been a very blissful and wonderful 100 days. mia is so sweet and happy and delightful and adorable. she is wanting very badly to roll over, but she has too much junk in the trunk and can't get that to flip over. in due time.

here are some more pics from today:




happy 100 days mia! i love you so much my chubby little monkey child. hopefully at some point over the next hundred days you can learn to sleep through the night!... ;)

teaching and learning

my kids are very selfish. they always want to be served first, choose first, go first. i have been trying to teach them that it is nice to let other people have a chance to go first and sometimes we should ask someone else: "hey, would you like to go first?" so, one day we were running errands and we were all in the car together, and i had treats to keep the kids quiet and happy. when i started opening them up, the kids automatically started chiming- "give me mine first! me first!" and then i reminded them about not always being first, so then i heard lily whisper to topher: "hey, ask me if i want to go first." and topher, being the obedient and awesome little brother that he is says in a nice loud voice: "hey noona, do you want to go first?" classic big sister/oldest sibling move! it was amazing.

i love these kids even though they are not picking up what i am putting down for them ;)

(just tried to put up pictures of my crazy kids but blogger is being uncooperative so you will have to wait til next time to see them. i know- a post without pictures- what a waste ;)

party party party

a few years ago i used to be a party animal. ok. maybe not an animal, but if someone had a birthday, i would be out with my friends, hitting the clubs, going out for dinners, etc. it was oh so glamorous!...

now my kind of parties involve very little glamour, and no clubbing- unless there's a pinata on the scene. but that's ok. these parties are just as fun as the parties i used to go to- a decade ago!...

well, this weekend i went to my niece's first birthday, and we also re-celebrated gabe's birthday with the family. so that meant i did more baking and decorating! i did not get a picture of the cupcakes that i made for gabriel, but i made him a Rio (the movie with the birds) cupcake. i went to his house with donuts on wednesday (his actual birthday was wednesday) and he was playing with a toy from the movie and he said he wanted a cake with Blue (the bird's name) on it. ugh. these toddlers are so stinkin smart and have such great memories that i knew that if i showed up to his birthday party with anything other than Rio cupcakes, he would have been like: "hey, didn't i tell you that i wanted cupcakes with Blue on it?" not cause he's sassy or rude, but just cause he's four and remembers stuff now! i was happy to oblige him with what he wanted though ;)

and then i made a cake for emma, which made me happy cause i was able to make a little fondant figurine that looked like her. well, not really. but i knew the dress she was going to be wearing to her party so i made her fondant self with the same dress. good times with sugar.




anyhoo, happy birthday to my febraury niece and nephew! thanks for keeping me on my baking-toes this month! love you crazy kids!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

birthday funtimes

birthday season is, and has been upon us for awhile now.
my birthday was about two weeks ago, and it was awesome.

here i am flanked by a buttload of watson kids. it looks like they all really love me, but the true love of their hearts is SUGAR. and that's what they are all trying to get to.

and speaking of sugar, i used about two tons of it to make gabe's superhero cake for his superhero birthday party on saturday:



it was tons of fun, especially since gabe seemed to enjoy it so much.

now i am getting ready to make a cake for emma's first birthday party this saturday, and i am mentally preparing myself to make cakes for lily and topher's birthdays, which aren't until next month, but they talk about them everyday so you would think (and hope) that they were happening tomorrow. oh well. gotta love kids' enthusiasm for their birthdays.

happy birthday gabers! you are one superspecial boy and i love you tons!

topher's turn

in the above picture are two of my favoritest things in the whole wide world- lattes and my son topher. and the picture is taken at one of my favoritest places in arizona- liberty market. good times.

anyhoo, the last couple of weeks i have been struggling with topher's prayer life. for someone who has memorized the Lord's prayer, he doesn't seem to fully understand what prayer is- talking to Jesus. so when it's his turn to pray he either recites the Lord's prayer or he says this: "thank you for my big bumble bee. amen." his big bumble bee is a transformer. this has been going on for almost two months i think. and it's so annoying. i want him to be more thankful for all the millions of blessings the Lord has bestowed upon him, and yet every other night all he can come up with is to thank God for a stinkin toy.

but tonight he really switched it up, and it was amazing:

"dear Jesus, thank you for my sister named Noona and Mia. thank you for my mom, named mom, and also Jihae sometimes. thank you for my dad named batman. and thank you for my bumble bee, amen!"

i couldn't make that up if i tried! i love that little boy!

and in other wonderful bedtime news, topher is officially able to sleep without a PullUp! it took two years for him to get to this point, but i am so happy he is here. he has had an accident or two in the last few months, and every time he wakes up with pee in his underwear, he wakes me up and tells me his underwear are 'spicy'. which is so funny cause if you've ever wet yourself, you know that wet underwear does actually feel a little bit spicy! my son- so astute.

even though chris is definitely the funniest person i know, topher is hot on his heels for that title. thank you Jesus for the great men in my life!