cousins!

i'm not sure how a whole week has passed since my last post, but we have been busy and exhausted here with our on-slaught of extra family members. what have we been busy with? i'm not sure. we have gone to a good number of malls, been dressing lily and sunha in matching outfits, and have gotten wet every day (steady 100+ days are here to stay). buying a kiddie pool at walmart was the best $20 i have ever spent. really, i have nothing new to report. we did meet batman on sunday, but that deserves it's own post. otherwise- nothing. nada. i have actually tried to post for the last 3 or 4 days in a row, but either i have fallen asleep, not been able to find my camera, fallen asleep, or not been able to think of anything good or special to write about.

so, what to do when you have nothing to write about? post pics of a bunch of crazy kids. so here you have it- more pics of my kids and their crazy cousins.

they are here!

it's been awhile!

we've been mucho busy around here now that the malloys are here!
the malloy invasion happened on saturday afternoon, and it's been so great.
i haven't seen my sister and nephew, sungu, in about 15 months. and in that time of seperation, my sister had a baby girl, sunha, and i hadn't met her until saturday! sadness!!!!!

sunha is now about 13 months old, and is a serious bundle of cuteness! she has a couple of cute tricks, like reaching for the sky, but the cutestest thing she does is snuggling with her uncle chris. she just loves hanging out with chris! it's so stinkin adorable i want to die from cuteness overload.

and it's been so great having sungu back in the fold. he has developed into a very smart and hilarious giant boy. he's turning 4 next month, and at this rate, he will probably be taller than me when he turns 5. he weighs in at a whopping 40 lbs! big boy. it's been so funny hanging out with him cause sometimes he has a weird accent when he speaks english, kinda british, kinda english-as-a-second-language-ish. i am a giant racist jerk for making fun of him. maybe i will stop soon... maybe not. looking at sungu also makes me laugh, cause he looks a lot like one of my brothers. the Ham gene (ham is my maiden name in case you have no idea what a 'ham gene' might be) is strong in these malloy kids. much stronger than in mine.

i baked some muffins the other day, and i gave one to sungu for breakfast. he was really happy to see it, and then he asked: "did the muffin man come here and make these?" welcome home sungu! that is one of the funniest things i have ever heard.

anyhoo, jeehon, sungu and sunha will in all likelihood be in a lot of my posts for the next three months, so get used to it now.

here are some pics of the happy kids from the last couple of days. i would just like to give some major props to my gay minivan. as lame as my minivan may be, it is the ultimate driving machine with 2 boosters in the back row, with room for another adult to sit in the middle, and 2 more car seats in the captains' chairs, and still room for me and chris too. it's not cool, but it's pretty dang efficient!

crossing the line

something happened the other day ago that has never happened before.

this is the third child i am carrying at present. the third of chris watson's flock. and he did something that he has never done before. he didn't think before he did it, and i don't think he was thinking when he did it. but he did it, and it can't be undone.

what is this heinous crime that my otherwise wonderful and perfect husband committed?

he came home from work, put his lunch cooler and water cup down on the counter, came over, gave me a kiss, poked me in the belly, and then went to find the kids to give them hugs and kisses.

yeah people, he poked me in the stomach. like i was the pilsburry dough boy! can you believe that? sure, my belly is protruding and almost asking to be poked. but just cause it's asking for a poke, doesn't mean you should poke it!

i do not care when people touch my stomach. it doesn't really bother me. i actually am a stomach toucher myself. i think baby bumps are beautiful and adorable. but poking a baby bump? never! unheard of!

so, if you see me around, you can touch my stomach. as long as i know who you are. but if you feel so inclined as to poke my belly, please be aware that i will probably be so inclined to punch you in the face. yes dear husband, i am talking to you! ;)

too sudsy

crazy thing happened today.

actually, about a month ago our washing machine started leaking. or something started leaking everytime i did the laundry. this made an already ridiculously tedius job all the more annoying because i would have to lay out a towel or two to catch the water, and then need to do the laundry again soon after to wash those towels. vicious vicious cycle.

chris started to inspect the laundry as it would run to see what the real issue was. he said the washing machine started leaking near the end of the cycle as the washing machine was draining. i had no idea what he was talking about and was convincced he was just avoiding buying another washing machine. i started looking on craigslist.com and he kept preaching about the wall.

then we bought some 'liquid plumber' cause chris read on the internet that sometimes there can be a clog in the wall. so we poured that in the wall and waited. (you like how i used 'we' in the last two sentences, when clearly only one of us bought the stuff, and the other actually poured it into the wall. you can figure out who did what.) no change. flooding? check. dreams of a beautiful new washing machine (aka one that doesn't pee all over the laundry room and leak into the kitchen)? check.

so, chris did something we should have done a month ago- called a real plumber. the guy showed up today, did this thing and that and then declared the wall was clog-free. then he asked me if we had changed laundry detergents while this was happening. and though i thought it was an absurdly absurd question for him to ask, when i took a second to think about it- i had changed detergents at PRECISELY the exact same moment that our flooding issues began. i usually use Purex or Arm and Hammer (cause i get coupons for them! and chris doesn't have an allergic reaction to them) but when i ran out a month ago, i started using a detergent that has like triple concentration. and apparently that backed up the drain! and thus the flood! who woulda thunk???!?!?!

so after the plumber left, i ran a load with some new detergent that i had just bought yesterday (cause i was running low on the evil detergent) and VOILA! no overflow of water. just a nice clean load of laundry and dry dry floors.

so, if you are experiencing the same heartache/hatred i have been experiencing the last month or so with your washing machine- try using a different detergent instead of buying a new washing machiine. this little tip might just save you $200...

more pics of the crazy man

i just got a disc of pics of chris from his traithlon from last weekend. the pics are awesome cause barb is awesome, her camera is awesome, and of course chris is awesome.

here's chris in the water about to start his race. every time chris caught a glimpse of us, he would smile like a fool. i love this fool:


here's a shot of the serious swimmer at work:


maybe he worked too hard. looking pooped after the first event... but alas, the almost-ironman pressed on for another 2 hours and 45 minutes.


chris on his bike. we support him, he supports us. love the smile and the wave.


here's a shot of chris running across the lake. he's like 2 miles away. how great is the orange shirt and the camera???


chris actually stopped running in the middle of his 10k run to give me a hug and a kiss. he really appreciates fan support! i on the otherhand got my shoulder completely drenched. it was worth it.


running the last few meters/yards with uncle matt. matt didn't cross the finish line with chris. he didn't want to pull a 'robert' (check my post about chris running his san diego marathon...)


the craziest man in the world. big smile cause he is all done! for now...

esQUse me?

thanks for all the blog love the last two days! and thanks for all the congratulations i have received via e-mail and facebook.
for the record- i have no more old posts hidden away, so this is all me in real time. i am really 13 weeks and 5 days pregnant, and i really look more pregnant than that. but i am ok with it. really. now to get some of my old maternity clothes back...

so the other day i was giving the kids a bath and we have bath letters, so i decided to quiz the kids on the alphabet. lily's got everything down pat (yeah for paying $200 a month for preschool...) but topher sometimes gets things a bit jumbled still. like 'W' is always still 'M'. close, but not really. anyway, i picked up a 'Q' and asked topher what it was. he got it right. then i asked him what word starts with the letter 'Q'. he thought about it and then said: "esQUse me." he's a genius. i love him.

lily is out of school as of tuesday. she had a really great first year of preschool, and i am so thanksful that she had such a wonderful and caring teacher. one thing that she didn't learn in school, but that she has not been able to kick (bad habits are hard to break) is using the phrase: "last night i..." as in: "last night i was a little baby and i lived in your belly" or: "last night i was older and i could drink that." (that being coffee, soda, stuff i drink that she is not allowed to.) when my friend lainey watched the kids last week, she was crocheting and lily proudly said: "last night i was older and i could use those sticks." funny girl. i love her.

and finally i would just like to send out a shout out to Jesus for His awesome healing powers. a month ago chris' grandpa was in the hospital for a few weeks, and we found out chris' step-dad had a malignant melanoma, and a close family friend had a benign brain tumour (benign or not- a brain tumour is a brain tumour!). things were looking kinda bleak. but a month later, chris' grandpa is up and at em and you wouldn't think that he was in the hospital for as long as he was. jerry had surgery to see if his melanoma had spread into his lymph nodes, and it didn't! cancer-free! and the brain surgery happened on monday and our friend is already home recovering. you can pray that recovery continues to happen quickly, but we are so very very thankful for the millions of answered prayers that have occured just this month alone. Jesus is awesome. i love Him.

medium shrimp

week 13, like week 10, 11, and 12, is kicking my butt. next week is the beginning of trimester two and i am hoping things turn around in a drastic way.

this week our baby has finger prints! and if it's a girl it already has 2 million eggs in her ovaries. talk about babies being able to make babies!... that was disturbing. forget i said that. all this baby-baking business continues to blow me away, even though this is my third time around.

i had a regular doctor's visit this week on monday. everything was fine until they couldn't find the heart beat with the doppler. twice. panic overtook about 45% of my brain. i was at my appointment alone, cause chris was home with the kids and i told him this was not an important visit for him to come with me. wrong! so they were able to squeeze me in for an impromptu ultrasound, and there my little medium size shrimp baby was! good strong heartbeat and all. this baby is getting a serious time-out when it's born for giving me a heart attack. i have a new white hair and i also blame the child for that one. add a minute to that time-out.

so, even though the appointment didn't start out the way i wanted, we did get to see our little baby, and that was a huge blessing:

chris thinks the baby looks like a girl. i think it looks like topher:

it's the giant head ;) (this is topher posing like the baby)

the ultrasound tech asked if i wanted her to check out the gender of our child. i had to pause for a second before i said "NO!" cause chris and i have decided we want to be surprised with this one. but i did think for a second how funny it would be if i knew the gender and NO ONE else did. but then i realised it was more messed-up than funny, and that chris might see the messed-up part of it more than the funny part.

so being surprised with the gender isn't the only different thing we are doing with baby #3. i am under the care of two AWESOME midwives and am going to try to do this birth as naturally as possible. though still at the hospital. topher was born sans epidural, but that was more by accident than anything else. but that birthing (and recovery!) went infinitely better than lily's birth (AND RECOVERY!) did. so that's why i am doing this. the midwives and i are on the same page with lots of different things so i am really excited to be on this journey with them. if you are interested in having a baby via midwife and you live in Arizona, check out Valley Women for Women. they have plenty of doctors and the two midwives i am currently seeing.

having our new ultrasound pics has really helped lily and topher see that there is a real, live human child in my womb. lily looked at the picture and said: "oh, the baby is swimming!" she tells everyone that she is having a baby sister, which has caused some people to get very excited. but then i squash those peoples' hopes and remind them that lily is 4 and does not know what she is talking about. if you chat with her for longer, she will explain that i am having her baby sister, and dad is having her baby brother. oh how i would love for that to happen! anyway, yesterday, lily said: "mom, i am so excited to meet the new baby!" and it made me more excited as well. just 6 more months to go!