lovely and trouble

lily and topher are such special kids. sometimes when they are together- everything is right in the world and they are so good to each other and those around them. and other times the exact opposite is true.

here are my sweet kids at the zoo on topher's birthday. can't believe they were big enough to go on th camel by themselves:



lily said to me a few days before topher's birthday that she wanted to buy her brother a present with her own money. is that not the sweetest thing in the world or what?!?!?! i love her so much! so we took $3 out of her piggy bank and headed over to walmart. she said she also wanted to get him a card so i was looking for the $.97 cards but couldn't find them. finally lily said that she would just make him one at home, and i told her that was a great idea cause then she would have more money to buy him something.
so we started walking around and i listed some things that i thought she could afford to buy her bro: stickers, a little book, a ball, etc. i didn't want her to have her hopes up, thinking she could buy a transforemer dream house with just $3. when we got to the big bouncy balls, lily said that's what she wanted to get for topher. sweet, they were $2.50. she told me to grab a blue one for toph and a pink one for her. i kindly explained to my girl that she only had enough money for one ball. she was perplexed. and then she said to just get a pink one for her. NOOOOO!! not what i wanted her to say. i told her that we came to the store to buy a present for topher today and that if she wanted a ball for herself that we could come back to the store another day. we started to walk away, both of us with heavy hearts, and then lily said she changed her mind- she did want to buy a present for topher afterall. yeah!!!! the world was right again. we went home, wrapped her present, and she made him an AWESOME card all by herself:



then last night happened. i had food poisoning from dinner at the olive garden the night before. major sadness. and chris was supposed to be home all day with me, but he got called into work. i've never had lasagna and criminals ruin my day before, but there's a first for everything. anyhoo, much of the day was spent on the couch and in the bathroom, and when 8pm came around i was so happy that the day was over. i put the kids down and went to lay down, again. i could hear the kids chatting up a storm, but i was too tired to do anything about it. then chris came home and i thought everything was just getting better and better. the kids were excited to see their dad for a few seconds, and then he tucked them back into bed. after a while, we heard quite a bit of commotion and then some crying. when chris went to check on them, the crying escalated.
chris kept saying they weren't going to get a spanking, but that they just needed to follow him. i knew something good was coming up if he was trying to bring them back to our room for me to see the spectacle:


lily decided it would be a great idea to draw on topher's and her faces. only problem was she didn't use a real 'washable' marker. the original cries that we heard were from lily when she tried to wash the marker off and saw it wasn't coming off.
we dumped the kids in the bath and after a LOT of soap and a lot of scrubbing, most of the marker came off. lily kept muttering: "it's all my fault" and i just kept putting my head down so that the kids couldn't see how hard i was laughing at their ridiculousness. lily and topher- lovely and trouble, usually both simultaneously.

supertopher is super4

my sweet little precious topher is 4. i think i would be having a more serious cow about it if topher was my youngest, or if lily hadn't just turned 5 a week ago. he is my happy medium!

topher is still big into superheroes and transformers and power rangers and sweatpants. for some reason, every day, he wants to wear sweatpants. i must have made a comment about him in sweatpants one day, and told him he looked cute, cause if i lay out jeans for him, he says he wants sweatpants and asks if he looks cute after he puts them on. he is my words of affirmation boy.

he had a pretty serious meltdown when it was lily's birthday last week. he still has some jealousy issues. it's ok, cause we are working on it. i made some bad mom moves that day and told topher he was ruining lily's birthday a few times. i know. it would be bad if i told him that once. but alas- i said it more than once. anyway, he just cried and threw tantrums all the live long day. then when it was his birthday, mia started crying, like all 4 month olds do at some point during the day, and topher said to me: "mom, mia is ruining my birthday." he is my i-will-not-forget-anything-and-you-will-be-paying-for-my-therapy-in-a-few-years boy!

anyway, we have our ups and downs but i love love love my topher. he is so special, so smart, so creative, so sweet (most of the time!) but whether he is being good, or bad, or something in between, he is my supertopher all of the time, and i love him with all of my heart! happy 4th birthday topher!!!

cinqo in marcho

my phenomenal little girl Lily Jaye Nara Watson turned five on monday.
lily is half way to being TEN! chris and i have been parents for half a decade! everything is happening way too fast!

we had a very crazy week this week. chris went to vegas for 'a work thing' (yeah right! he didn't take any pics so i have no proof that that's who he was with... ;). he was gone from sunday til wednesday, which means he missed lily's actual birthday, but he was around for her two birthday parties, and that made up for his absence.

since he's been home we have literally been partying non-stop and i am exhausted! it's 10:50pm, and i am so tired but i am anticipating the arrival of my youngest brother who is flying in to phoenix in about an hour (fortunately chris is going to pick him up!) so this hectic week will bleed right into another fun-filled-whirlwind of a week.

but back to my lils. i know i complained about her SO MUCH after she turned one until... recently? i feel kinda bad about it cause none of that was really her fault. she was entitled to have her terrible twos, just like any other kid, but it was just so terribly inconvenient for me cause topher had just hatched. poor lily. poor topher. poor me. poor everyone. but we survived and i would say that we are now thriving. life is so wonderful, and a lot of that has to do with lily.

mia could not ask for a better older sister. lily dotes on her and is able to make mia laugh more than anyone else around here. the other day, lily was laying in bed with us, and mia was fussing in her pack and play beside my bed, and i was getting ready to take care of my baby, lily hoped out of bed, put the binky back in mia's mouth and bought all of us an extra 30 minutes of sleep. the best 5 year old mama hands down!

lily and chris also continue to share a special and beautiful bond. tonight as they were getting ready for bed, lily looked at chris and said: "dad, i wish you had hair." and chris asked her why. and then she said: "because you would be so handsome with hair." after chris picked up the pieces of his broken heart off of the floor, he asked lily: "so does that mean i'm not handsome?" and lily immediately said: "you are." so funny! but other than that very random conversation, lily is always telling chirs how much she loves him and misses him when he's at work. if she crawls into bed with us in the middle of the night, lily always goes in on chris' side cause she knows he won't make her go back to her room. ;)

anyway, lily my love, we are so proud of the wonderful little lady you are growing to be! you are so active, and fun-loving, even though one of your favorite things to do is sit around eating popcorn and watching movies (which is why we watched 'The lorax' in the theater on your birthday!) right now you are big into disney princesses (which is why we had a little princess party for you), especially rapunzel. you are learning to read and do basic addition, which you are pretty good at! i can't quite pinpoint if you are a rule maker or rule breaker. sometimes you are all about coloring in the lines and making sure everything is 'the right color', and other times you color one picture over another so that it's hard to tell where one thing starts and the other one ends. but that's good- you don't want to be put in a box! i'm still trying to figure out who you are at the same time that you are trying to discover who you are and want to be. you are a wonderful piece of work miss lily jaye and mom and dad love you with all of our hearts. we could not have asked for a more wonderful first child than you!

happy fifth birthday my love. you can stop growing now. please!


lily taking a nap while sitting upright and watching a movie. her last day of being four was exhausting.

lily taking another nap! two days in a row! this hasn't happened in at least a year. turning five is obviously very taxing.

enjoying dessert with lindsay and corban. lindsay was so sweet to make dinner on lily's bday!

she is the ultimate Big Sister

daddy's special girl

seriously so cute together!

like father like son

long time ago, when chris was a wee little boy, he used to sleep walk. one night he walked to the bathroom to pee, whilst still asleep. impressive, right? almost. in his state of unconsciousness, he pulled down his pajama pants and started peeing into the bathtub. not bad, right? cause if you are going to pee anywhere besides the toilet, i would choose the bathtub, wouldn't you? well, i'm sure everyone would pick the bathtub except for chris' dad- who happened to be sitting in the tub, taking a bath, when his son decided to pee into the tub.

now, fastforward about 26 years. last night, chris and i were sitting in the living room watching a movie while the kids were asleep. then all of a sudden, topher emerged from his room in a daze. he was in the hallway right behind us, which is thankfully all tile. he pulled down his pajama pants and started urinating. a lot. like a rainbow stream of pee was coming out of his wee wee. i know, cause i was watching him in utter disbelief and sheer amazement. i ran to get the camera but i was too late. all i was able to get was this blurry pic of topher pulling his pants back up:



i picked him up, brought him back to his room, laid him in his bed, and thanked him for not wetting the sheets. cause quite frankly, if you're not going to pee in the toilet, or the tub, the tiled hallway is definitely my third choice.

not fun and very fun

here is mia sleeping. she is sick. AGAIN. she had an ear infection a bunch of weeks ago, and seemed to be getting better, and then she caught another cold and is all crazy congested and snot-filled and it is so sad and not fun. and then she had her 4-month well-check and got 4 different vaccines and ran a bit of a fever from that yesterday. this poor girl cannot catch a break! her 4 month stats are as follows:
head circumference: 16.25 inches (only 50th percentile. not sure she is really a watson.) weight: 14 lbs 9 oz (70th percentile). height: 25.25 inches (90th percentile. yes. she is a watson!) she is growing like a weed, but i hope her immune system develops a little bit faster.


saturday was a much funner day than yesterday. for me, it started with a manicure and pedicure with some of my favorite ladies- sarah (chris' brother's sister's sister), my niece christina, barb, and lindsay. it was awesome hanging out with these wonderful women. the tie that binds (besides being related) is that we have all read 'the hunger games' and are all really looking forward to the movie (coming out in 10 days!). after being pampered we very appropriately ate at 'Pita Jungle' as no 'Gale Jungle's exist...

and then saturday night we dedicated our precious mia to the Lord at a sweet little service at our church. the extra fun thing about this dedication was that my friends erin, cindy, and cassie were all dedicating their sweet babes as well. it is so wonderful being surrounded by families who love Jesus and are trying to raise their kids to do the same. such a blessing! i have to admit, we did not attend the parent dedication class- cause i went to two of them already and they were virtually the exact same. so i decided to forego this last one. but then the service was kinda crazy cause lily and topher were kind of all over the place, so i missed what pastor dennis was saying. but the meaning behind the dedication service was that chris and i, as mia's parents, were promising:
-to invest quality time and unconditional love to our sweet girl
-to assume the primary responsibility to teach mia the spiritual truths and values of Scripture
-to pray consistently for mia's physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being
-to be good examples of the fruit of the Spirit of Christ.
(so glad they provided us with a folder and dvd of the child dedication service!)

here's mia and her grandpa wes

here we are celebrating mia's dedication with some delicious 'chipotle'. very fun ;)

this week in history....

-this week we celebrated being in this house for ONE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!! and we aren't even really talking about moving! all our renters are staying put for the time being, and therefore so are we! thank you Jesus for our home, and for our renters.

-we bought the movie 'puss in boots' and there's a part in it where someone yells: "this means war!" then topher asked: "what?" so lily repeated: "this means warm!" and topher asked even more bewildered: "what???" and after thinking about it for a split second, lily declared with all the confidence in the world: "this is warm!"

-i was changing mia's diaper on my bed, and i let her air out a bit before putting her next diaper on her. then she farted. then she laughed. like really hard. she is such a watson! mia's gift to mankind is her smile, her laugh, and her gas.

-mia had her first ear infection at 3 and a half months old. sadness. she has not been sleeping well, which means i have not been sleeping well.

-lily was 'reading' with chris before bed, and when she gets nervous her mind SHUTS DOWN. so her brain was not working very well, and chris' patience was also shutting down. the last word they were trying to read was "FUN", the opposite of what either chris or lily were having. topher saunters over and says: "let me just look at the letters. f.u.n... fun?" God has blessed these kids with very different gifts. very different...

-lily has a future in making fondant figurines i think. she made these snowmen out of play doh, but they are awesome! i believe they are supposed to represent her, topher, and mia. you can tell which ones are the girls because they have pony tails ;)


-ok. topher also makes great play doh figurines. this is a snowman made after my dad who is always wearing hats. this snowman is also wearing a hat as you can plainly see:

both of my kids are artistic! i love it!

-and finally, chris and i went to see WICKED and it was WICKED! chris' favorite musical is Les Miserables, but i can't think of what mine is, though Wicked is definitely high up there. the story is amazing, the music is excellent, and even though we watched the show from the first row of the balcony (which nearly scared my hard-core gangsta husband to death) we had a great great time!

(i never feel like i am short until i look at pictures of me standing next to my husband, robert, and lindsay in heels.)

one more cake...

it's late and i am going to go to bed very soon so that i can be woken up every two hours by my precious daughter who is battling out her first ear infection. supersadness. she is doing pretty great during the day, but she really likes to remind me that she is uncomfortable in the middle of the night. often. she reminds me very very often.

anyhoo, this weekend my sweet little friend paige, and her friend emma, celebrated their 7th birthday with an outdoor pool party. gotta love arizona and the fact that you can have an outdoor pool party in february. the pool was heated, and it also happened to be about 80 degrees, so everything was perfect. except the fondant i used was not that fond of being out in the harsh heat. the 'b' melted a bit in transit. i will have to think hard about using that fondant in the serious hot months here in the desert.

anyhoo, paige is one sassy and adorable little 7 year old. i have had the pleasure of knowing her my entire life in arizona, so the last six years and four months of her entire life. her favorite color is purple and she LOVES zebra print. so i made her a cake to go with those two favorite things. i used purple fondant and pink and black sugar sheets. the sugar sheets were a first for me. they were pretty easy to use so i was pleased with how they worked out for this cake. and the birthday girls were happy too so i guess that's all that really matters in the end!