48 hours on the nose

vegas!
it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. well, actually, i didn't have any worst of times. my poor husband got robbed- by the casinos, but aparently that is not something you can report to the police, which ironically my husband is the police so...

anyhoo, chris and i left for vegas last friday evening with our wonderful friends christin and drew. i think we were on the road by 5pm and we made it to vegas by 10pm. the car ride was part of the relaxing vacation because there were no children with us! we got to our hotel- New York New York, and we started partying right away- even though the old people that live inside us all really wanted to go to sleep! we went to the casino and the fun started. i won $10 at the roulette table! chris won a bunch more, and then we split up. christin and i wanted to do just do stuff that we aren't normally able to do as stay-at-home-moms to young kids. we had pizza at midnight, we saw go-go-dancers as we walked around the casino, and we went to bed at about 1am. crazy!

we woke up the next morning to the sound of drew's phone going off. but i didn't care, cause it wasn't a child asking for milk (breast or cow), and it wasn't 5:55am, which is what time topher had woken up at the day before out of excitement for going to hang out with his grandparents up north.

so our day started soon after drew's phone call, and it was so great! we had coffee and donuts for breakfast, and then christin and i hit the outlet mall, and the boys hit the casinos, or the casinos hit the boys. the outlet mall was excellent! i don't even remember the last time i went shopping without a stroller. we were at the mall for about 4 hours and i didn't have to put anyone in time out or threaten or bribe anyone. it was so relaxing!

we got back to the hotel where the boys were waiting patiently for us, with open arms and empty wallets ;) so we did tons of free stuff- hung out at the pool, walked along the strip, and drank free samples of tequilla. we had dinner, hung out, and slept- all great things!

here's a picture of chris and me. note: christin is a VERY TALENTED hair dresser. she also happened to do my makeup and transformed me from regular-old-jihae to fancy-pants-vegas-jihae:

we left vegas the next day at about noon and we picked up our first kid at 5pm-  exactly 48 hours after we left for our little vacation. we were back rejuvenated, rested, and missing our crazy kids like crazy. i had a great time with my friends, and with my stud-muffin hubby, and my kids had a great time with all their grandparents (lily and topher hung out with wes and kim, while mia hung out with barb and jerry, and with my friend grace for a few hours on sunday- THANKS SO MUCH guys for watching our kids!). great time had by all= successful vacation. the only unsuccessful part of my vacation is my trying to upload pictures from my phone to this stinkin blogpost. oh well. you win some, you lose some- that is life in vegas.

not a Tiger Mother

you may or may not have heard of a book that stirred up much controversy a few years ago about a chinese mom and the very strict way she (and almost every other asian parent out there) chose to raise her daughters. there is a particular part of the book where the mom describes a mother's day card that she received. upon receiving it she crumpled it up and threw it back in her daugher's face. (i actually have NOT read this book, but lots of people have talked to me about it, so if i get some details wrong- i apologize!!!) she received a ton of critism for this particularly calloused move, but the now-adult daughter spoke up and told the critics that she scribbled a card at the last second and gave it to her mom just for the sake of giving her mom something for mother's day. she knew her mother deserved more than a scribbled card, and her mom knew that she could produce a far superior piece of art than that. anyhow, my dad was and kind of still is a bit of a 'tiger father' if you will. he thinks his kids can do all things, which is why he is still kind of waiting for me to get a PhD while raising my 3 kids. what a nut! but i guess it's "flattering"(?) that he thinks i could accomplish something like that. i think i am a bit of a "stray cat mother"- not as hard core as a tiger mother, but i still expect great things from my kids- cause they're great! this mother's day, i was showered with love and tokens of my family's devotion. i still have my iphone. i definitely thought i would have broken that thing by now! chris took the kids out cause they wanted to buy me a present, so they ended up buying me a dress that has purple, green, and black designs on it. my 3 favorite colors, which the kids actually remembered. see? GREAT kids they are! they will do great things one day! barb and jerry, and robert and lindsay and their litter came over for dinner. we, the mothers, ordered Oregano's- a veggie-filled pizza, a magical chicken salad, and a wicked-good pesto penne dish, and the boys picked it up and payed for it. perfection! i had a great great day, even though i received a different kind of card from my one and only son. i almost had a tiger mother moment when i saw it, but then i put it on the fridge and pondered the depth of meaning behind the "error", if there is even an error to be found. ponder with me what topher could possibly mean by his mother's day card that he made for me with such care and precision:

he must think that i can do a better job than our landscaper. anyway, i hope you had a wonderful mother's day surrounded by people you love. props to all you mamas out there! especially to the 3 ladies i am proud to have as moms- sylvia, barbara and kim- i am blessed to have you all in my life.

Our modern day Noah

my beautiful son. you've met him- he has the most luscious locks and lips in the world:

you know the story of noah, from the Bible, right? he was told to make a giant ark, and everyone laughed at him and thought he was crazy. well, that's how topher's been living for years too. in his young life, my sweet topher has incurred much ridicule much to the chagrin of his father and i. but alas, you can't protect your children from every single person that crosses paths with them. you can try, but you will fail. but our topher is so strong. he doesn't let others' comments get him down. he keeps on keepin on. that's our boy. and finally, after years of mockery, all things came to a head this weekend. on mother's day of all days. so, you must be wondering what it is that causes people to point and snicker when my tophy walks by- and you might even be wondering if you are guilty of doing the same. well here it is:

yup. the rain boots.he loves them. if he grows out of a pair, he has another pair waiting. (actually... i'm waiting for them to go on sale... then he will have some waiting!) living in the desert, where we essentially get no rain (that's why they call it a desert!) i have no idea why they even sell rainboots. but alas, they do, and i buy them. so, sunday, chris took the kids shopping because they (the kids) wanted to buy me a mother's day present. so cute. they had each just finished a giant sucker that they got from church, so they had sticky faces and hands. wanting our children to look respectable to be out in public, chris decided to clean them up a little. there was a cup with water in the cupholder, so chris told the kids to dip their hands in there to rinse off. topher went first. then it was lily's turn. she was a bit overzealous with the whole hand-washing-in-the-cup thing, so when she pulled her hand out of the cup she splashed a bunch of water all over the place. a big, juicy drop of water landed on topher's foot, which happened to be protected by his rainboot, and he said in his most serious voice: "and THAT'S why i wear these boots!"

Photo Book

i finally finished it! remember i said i was trying to make a book for lily of her first five years?!?! i said that right before her birthday- which was about two months ago! and i finally just now finished it- cause my groupon was expiring today (i don't know how to finish things unless i have a deadline!) so i am so happy with how it turned out. my crazyawesome friend jenny bishop made a pregnancy book for her daughter, who is only 10 months old (you go-getter jenny!) i am not even remotely as creative or organized as jenny is, but i am still happy with lily's book. there's a page with her birth story, the origins of her name, her stats as a baby (only the first 2 months...) and her yearly check-ups (lost her stats for year 3! again- not organized!). i love the idea of scrapbooks, and when i see other people's books for their kids, i drool with covetousness and jealousy and disdain for the fact that i cannot do stuff like that. but alas- shutterfly makes it easy to be a 'digital scrapbooker'. yeah shutterfly! so here is the fruit of my labour. can't wait to get it in my hands! in 3-7 days...

Click here to view this photo book larger

You'll love Shutterflys award-winning photo books. Try it today.

now to get started on topher's book. if i start now i will hopefully have it finished for his 5th birthday... we'll see...

Pretty Little Things

last week was a busy one. i made 40 cupcakes and 20+ wedding dress sugar cookies for a bridal shower that i found out about 7 days before the event. fortunately my calendar was pretty empty, so i was very happy to provide sweets for this family that bid on my cupcakes at a silent auction on sunday (the day before the order was made!) i don't know the bride very well, though she goes to the same church as me (which means not a lot since apparently there are HUNDREDS of people who go to the same church as me), but i did house sit for her family 7 years ago before chris and i got married, and she works at the starbucks by my house so i have run into her there a few times. how's that for random degrees of seperation?? but her mom did e-mail me her pinterest page, and though i continue to not be on pinterest, but i think you can tell a lot about a person from looking at their pins! this bride to be is a lover of vintage and lace, so that's the look we went for with her cupcakes and cookies. both the cupcakes and cookies were taken from pinterest for the most part, so i have very little to do creativity-wise. though i did make these flower cupcakes for chris' grandma's 80th birthday last year. again, please excuse my inability to take special looking pictures. i just got my mother's day present (hint- it starts with an 'i' and ends with a 'phone') so i am looking forward to glamming up my pics the instagram way from here on out!!! i don't know if you can tell, but the cupcakes are covered with lace. found that at Hobby Lobby. love that place. the icing colors were beige, tan, and white. going for the vintage vibe:

found this cookie cutter at 'Sur La Table'. love love love that store. you can't really tell from this picture, but there is glitter/shimmer on the cookies. actually, i don't know if anyone could tell that i did that, which begs the question- why did i bother, but alas, i tried to make these pretty. hopefully i succeeded:

i haven't heard whether or not the treats tasted any good or not. as long as no one got food poisoning, i feel like i did my job.

that's mr master watson to you

the other night i was talking to chris about something. i was asking him if working at the department was at all like high school with a cool clique, nerds, and the like. i was just trying to get a feel for his job. then chris says to me: "sorry babe. i stopped listening about 8 minutes ago." other than his inability to get on board with my random pointless jibberjabber late at night, my husband is perfect and awesome. to add to his awesomeness- he got his masters yesterday. barb, jerry, robert, and our friend charles, went to his convocation last night. it was so great! here's his name in the program:

that's as close as it gets to being Facebook-Official. i will post it on facebook soon to make it officially official... here he is walking down the hallway, away from his ceremony, even though it was not over. in fact, they may still be calling people's names as we speak:

it was a beautiful ceremony and i could not be prouder of my hubby. he worked hard and somehow managed to graduate with his masters in 2 years. i continue to take subpar pictures, and it didn't help that i was sitting REALLY far from the stage. here are some more random pictures from chris' ceremony so that he can remember the magic of the day for years to come: this guy announced chris' name:

here are chris' faithful supporters, all staying entertained via their smartphones:

chris graduated from the college of public programs, as you can see from the picture below:

then we partied! quatro de mayo style at our fave mexican restaurant- Abuelos. here we are with barb and jerry, robert and lindsay, charles and grace, and wes and kim. great time had by all :)

so, my husband is fantastic. he is a hard working fool! how he managed to knock me up, move to a new house, have a wife who had a baby (again- he did not birth mia. that was all me folks), work well over 40 hours a week, have a great relationship with his family, and get his masters is beyond me. seriously beyond, far, far, far, beyond me. congratulations chris wastson! you are a piece of work! a Masterpiece in fact.