tough morning

topher got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. which is a weird expression because he is still in his crib, and he only gets out on one side. but this morning, that side was the wrong one. he had peed through his diaper so his pjs, and bed were wet. boo. but once i got him nice and cleaned up- he made a huge pee pee on the potty! way to go topher! gotta take the bad with the good.

then i got a text from a good friend of mine and it said: "meeting at my house now! can't wait!" she meant: "we are meeting at my house instead of the other place we had talked about. can't wait to see you later tonight." but i read: "get over to my house now. i can't wait till later. having a serious meltdown. please hurry." isn't it funny how you can read one thing in two totally different ways??? so needless to say i rushed over to find my friend doing great, and surprised to see me. i could have been embarrassed, but i got to hang out with my friend for a little while which is always a big bonus for me. take the good and the bad.

we left my friend's house early cause topher was having a meltdown. again- wrong side of the bed thing. everything was upsetting him. being in the car. having his shoes on. not having his shoes on. it's like he has baby pms for boys. it's not cool, especially since i have REAL pms for women. right now. later i looked into topher's mouth when we were brushing his teeth, and he has 3 teeth breaking the surface right now. that sucks for him. and everyone who is within ear shot of his cries and complaints. i have had two cankers in my mouth this whole week, and i think mouth pain is some of the worst pain you can be in. this coming from someone who birthed two childern, and wore braces for almost three years. so i am trying to have way more sympathy for him right now.

then i got a call from my girlfriend who has a nephew who is waiting for lots of different things to fall in to place so that he can go home to his new mommy and daddy. this little boy lives in an orphanage in haiti. and praise Jesus because he, and everyone at the orphanage are fine. how?? grace of God. i am complaining about a tough morning with my cranky kids, but i am well aware that it is much worse for so many others. please pray with me for those in haiti, and for my friend's nephew to miraculously get to go home sooner than later. only God can make something good come out of something so bad.

First and Only NFL Game

here's a picture of the supercute and disappointed kid who sat in front of me at the cardinals game on sunday. that's right folks, i went to THE cardinals game on sunday, and it was amazing. it was my first ever live nfl game. and it will probably be my last, because there is no way i will ever go to a game that good ever again.

i really enjoy symmetry in my life, and earlier this year, chris and i went to flagstaff to see the cardinals at their training camp with our friends brian and carrie. then our wonderful friends called us up this week cause they had just gotten four tickets to the game and wanted to take us. how awesome to have disgustingly generous friends.

the day was just perfect for everyone. nana and papa were slotted to watch the kids ALL DAY. fortunately they hung out at chruch all morning, which left the afternoon for naps, escalade driving (i'm going to have to get a vidoe of that up here soon), and football watching. thanks so much for being the best nana and papa ever! lily and topher did not even miss us a little!

chris and i were able to have a great meal with our friends- plus adult conversation that was not interrupted by 'don't put that in your nose.' (lily's new favorite thing to do is stuff things in her nose.) the weather was ridiculously gorgeous. our seats were in the end zone where all the good action took place. and after about 3 and a half hours of being on our feet- we, the cardinals, came out victorious, and i, jihae watson, came out a few pounds lighter. a perfect day for a perfect game.

serious rambling

i find it's really helpful to add a cute picture to a boring and long-winded post. i haven't writte the post yet. but i can tell it's going to be boring. and long winded. so enjoy the pic. try to get through the post.

so last night before bed chris and i were chatting about this 'family story' business. and he wasn't sure that he knew what i was talking about. i have lately been feeling really unsatisfied with my prayer life. for some crazy reason, i have friends who think i am a 'crazy prayer warrior'. i truly wish that were true, and i am working on becoming one. but i fall very short. i think my technical name should just be 'crazy. likes to pray. wars with the mirror daily.'

every night chris and i pray before going to bed. unless he is working at night. i love chris. and i love to pray. but i cannot wake up at 4am to pray with him. i just can't. we take turns every night, and it's really good for us. you can't really be mad at someone while you are praying with them. there have been a few times when i have been 'too upset' to pray outloud, which automatically made it chris' turn to pray again. which let chris automatically know that there was something wrong with me. good times.

so last night we were talking after we prayed. prayed for the same old thing- thanks for everything, please help, please bless, thanks again, amen. nothing earth shattering. pretty regular stuff. and that bugged me. we pray for the kids every night. and that's really important. so i don't want to take away from that. but i don't have my sights set on a whole lot outside of my immediate family, and i felt like that was my missing link.

chris said he didn't know what kind of family story i was particularly looking for, but he felt that our family story was pretty simple- to love. to love each other well, to love others well, and to show others how to love well. so cheesy sounding, but it's true. and i agree with him. my main prayers when praying for others often involve praying for marriages to be good and pregnancies to happen and be healthy. those are the two greatest sources of joy and blessing in my life, and i want others to experience the same.

i am doing a 'chronological' reading of the bible right now. i am in genesis, of course, and marriage is a huge deal. it's one of the awesome things God made in the first 6 days of creation. it's important to Him. and it should be important to us. especially if we are already married. and then after marriage, He tells us to "be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth." this has been hard for me to get my head around since my prayers for quite a few of my friends is for God to bless them with babies so that they can do what He told them to do in the first place! but that's another post for another day...

anyway, i am going to close off this post for now cause i am rambling, i pretty much don't have a point, and i am pretty sure no one has made it to this sentence. but just know that i am searching and seeking for something. and when i find it. i will let you know.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

i finished my first book of the new year! sure i started it at the end of november, but i finished it in january!

my girlfriend kendra recommended this book on her blog, so i had to read it. it's by donald miller, a christian guy. he is a lot like francis chan- discontent with america's view of Christianity and the church. but that's not what this book is about. this book is about stories. his story. the stories people he knows are living. the stories he knows God wants us to be living.

this book is written because one of his other books is being turned into a movie. but you can't just turn a book into a movie. lots of changes need to be made so that there's action. something to propel the story forward. even though donald miller was a successful author before this book, in the midst of it he goes to a seminar to learn about story. what is a story? how do you tell one? how do you live one?

basically a story is a character who wants something and has to overcome something to get it. very simply put. and that's what life is about. or it should be. but there are lots of people, characters who don't know what they want. and their stories suck. so they might go and join someone else's story because they are overcoming an obstacle to get what they want.

miller talks about this 16 year old girl who gets caught by her parents with some pot. it's from her boyfriend. her boyfriend sucks. but he is a character overcoming obstacles to get what he wants. he is living a story, but it's a bad one, cause the thing he wants is drugs. this 16 year old girl doesn't have a story, so she joins her boyfriend's terrible story. miller tells his friend, the dad of the 16 year old, all this. and the dad realizes it's his fault. he hasn't created a story that's interesting for his daughter. so he tells his family one day that they are going to buy an orphange. crazy. but it works. his daughter, and his wife, get caught up in their new family story. they want something and overcome obstacles to get it. before this, they were just a dad, a mom, and a teenage girl. no story. no desires. just 3 people living together in the same house. the marriage was dry. the family life was the same.

chris and i are on the prowl for our family story. it's probably not going to involve buying an orphange. at least not in the foreseeable (sp?...) future. but what does God want for us watsons? i don't know. but i am looking forward to finding out what that is, so that we can start overcoming some obstacles to get it!

God wants us all to have great stories. something more than just raising our kids, making sure they do well in school, have friends, and eventually get married. when we get to heaven, God is not going to care whether my kids went to harvard, (cause i am really counting on Him not caring that i didn't go to harvard.) He is not going to care whether or not my shoes matched my outfit every day. He is not even going to care what age lily and topher got potty trained. God cares a bit about the 'what'- seeking Him, not drugs; wanting more for others, not ourselves. but He really cares about the 'how'. how did we live our lives, how did we love His people.

this is a really great book with lots of different stories that challenged me, and in turn my family. i still don't know the big 'what' of our story, but i know the 'who', and that's chris, lils, toto and i. and that already makes this story pretty dang special for me.

Finally! Zoolights!

at the end of the night, lily had had enough. no more pictures. no more walking. let's go home dad. didn't help that she was seriously constipated.


checking out the lights that danced to the music.


lily, happy to be out for a night on the town.

i have lived in arizona for 5 winters now and have said i will go to zoolights every year, and it just never happened. zoolights is over on the 10th (this sunday), so we figured yesterday was as good a time as any! the weather was perfect, as was the company. we had dinner at robert and lindsay's first, where we had a traditional 'vig' (lindsay's maiden name) meal of swedish meatballs and potatoes. superyummy! thanks lindsay.

we loaded up the four kids (in two seperate vehicles. cause even though i have a mini van, we cannot fit 4 car seats and 4 adults in it.) and were on our way. we stopped at starbucks on the way which was a particularly wonderful treat for me. i don't actually remember the last time i had a latte (maybe a month ago), so i seriously savoured it.

it was $7 for us to each get in (not the kids. they're free) cause i have a zoo pass. there were tons and tons and tons of lights. it was very fun to look at it all. the kids weren't really able to appreciate everything, but i think in a few short years, they will come to love zoolights. only a section of the zoo is open for zoolights, and i was surprised at how short the walk seemed. but chris told me we had already been there for an hour and i was shocked. time flies when you're having fun!

speaking her language

i wrote in my post the other day ago that lily always asks if i am happy. and i said it's cause she doesn't want me to be sad. then i thought about changing that sentence numerous times. no, she doesn't want me to be mad at her. she doesn't want me to spank her. she does not care if i am sad.
i often do not know what lily is thinking. but here's what i do know- lily thinks in terms of happy and sad. when we sit to draw, lots of different things come out on the pages- giraffes, flowers, tracings of her hands, of mine, numbers, letters, and always happy faces and sad faces. when i draw a happy face, she makes a happy face herself. on her face. then she changes her face to a sad face and requests that i draw a sad face. this is one of her favorite things. happy and sad faces. these mean something to her.
i have embarrassingly enough shown my sad face to her many many times. my frustrated face, my tired face, and my disappointed-with-myself face are all the same to lily. they are not happy faces. they are sad ones. it is something i am going to try to conceal more this year. lily takes my sadness as personally as i take her not being able to use the potty yet. even if i am frustrated with topher's disobedience, lily looks at me and asks: "happy mom?"
i can't explain the concept of joy in pain to her yet. so i take a deep breath and say "yes." cause i still have joy in the midst of her naughtiness, and topher's disobedience. these are my babies. they are so crazy. but i love them so much. they bring me such joy.
today was another crazy day in the watson apartment. a great day. and a crazy day. it started at 6ish. it's 10 and it's finally winded down. but lily for some reason would not go to bed. all these excuses of being scared of something she could not explain, needing some water, needing her blanket to be placed on the foot of the bed just so, no- not like that mom, like this, one more song, one more prayer. not exactly what i was needing after an already too long day.
lily came out one more time. she found a piece of garbage that NEEDED to be put in the garbage IMMEDIATELY lest the apartment implode from the mess. i allowed my girl to give in to her inner streaky neat-freak, and then i decided to change her diaper one more time before bed. between her and sungu, i have changed bedsheets 3 times this week. and they are both still in diapers.
so i changed lillers diaper and helped her pop up the way she likes to after she has received the gift of a dry butt. she popped up, into my arms, where we sat and hugged. i whispered in her ear that she really makes me so happy. and she looked at me and gave me the biggest, juiciest smooch! it was dripping with love and acceptance. i tell her all the time that she is cute, and that she is a special girl, and that she is pretty, and that she is a great sister to topher. but never before had i gotten this huge a response from her. finally! i had said the simplest words that actually meant something to her!
i guess another new year's resolution is to find out the special language that actually means something to lily, and the other special language that will mean something to topher. and this is another resolution that i do not intend to break.

twenty-ten. hello.

three napping kids and a napping hubby too. this new year is looking a lot like last year. sungu is here for the weekend while his parents live it up in vegas, celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary. i can say this now, since my beautiful nephew is asleep- that i am so glad to be able to spend this time with him before he ups and leaves for Korea in a few short months! the kids have been playng together non-stop- first the trains, then sitting in the dark with their new flashlights, then playing hide-and-seek, then running to me begging for a snack and a drink. a good, fun, and exhausting age!
well, 2009 marked my first full year of not being pregnant or giving birth since i've been married! yipee!! but 2009 still had it's fair share of babies- 6 friends added to their families, and 2 of my sister-in-laws blessed our family with more little ones to love. 2009 marked the 10 year mark of my high school graduation. gulp. oldness... we went to 2 weddings and NO FUNERALS! way to stay alive everyone! our uncle Matt, who was diagnosed with cancer in october-ish, is now cancer free for as much as the doctors can tell! he is still undergoing chemotherapy to get everything cleared up, but we are all praising Jesus in a big way for watching over our family!
and now it's 2010. i haven't had much of a chance to really think about and pray about my new years resolutions. the main one i came up with is simple, yet demanding-and that is to be better at all my relationships this year than i was last year. this includes being a better mom than i was in 2009, a better wife, a better daughter to both my mom AND my dad (i am really terrible at picking up a phone to just chat with him), a better daughter-in-law, a better sister and sister-in-law, a better aunt, a better grand-daughter, a better friend (again, especially to my out-of-town friends. just gotta pick up that phone...), a better volunteer, a better one-day-a-week worker, and of course- a better Jesus-follower. maybe i should just pick one or two to really focus on, but you know what? there isn't enough time for that. these are hats i wear everyday. i can't just pick my favorite two and put the others at the back of the closet.
so that's what i've got for now. i will probably come up with a few resolutions that i will surely break, but for now, since this is my one and only resolution, i will do my best not to break it.
here's to 2010 friends! (raising my lukewarm green tea latte to you.)