my boys

my men and i have been at odds lately.

first- topher. when he was 2, he wasn't terrible, but when he wanted to be terrible- he was successful. and then when he was 3, he was better than when he was 2, but when he wanted to exert his will over mine- he was successful. and now he's 4. and he is a delightful 4! BUT, when he wants to be crazy- he is succesful.
but i am going to try not to dwell on the negative. there are negatives to be dwelt on. but not here. not today. my topher loves his legos, and he will play with them alone, quietly for hours on end. QUIETLY. ALONE. so great. his brain is so special. half the time he is actually just looking at the instruction manual again, studying it, whilst chewing on his breakfast, or lunch (no lego books at dinner though!). i thoroughly enjoy watching him do whatever it is he is doing. when he talks, i am engaged, even if i don't know what he is talking about (already a star wars nerd). his teeth. he has adorable teeth. they make his words come out so adorably. today while he was pooping, we had this conversation-
"mom, can you hold my hands? do you know who remind me of everyday when i look at you? Belle. because you are beautiful... do you know why i am staring at you? because i love you."
melting near the pot.
i love him. there are moments in our days that are painful. he's freaking out. i'm yelling. he's grumpy. i'm grumpier. he's acting like he's 4. i'm acting like i'm 4. it's bad. but man, when my boy wants to be amazing- he's successful.

one more thing about my topher that i don't ever want to forget!:
the other day he got a new pencil and he excitedly grabbed it and said: "where's the sharpener? i want to make my pencil come alive!"

well, i ran out of time, so i will have to save my story about chris for another day...

fall break

lily has been on fall break for the last two weeks, and last week was topher's fall break. what is a fall break you ask, my canadian friends? remember lily started school in JULY??

even though most of north america is enjoying delightful weather and scenes, we are still enjoying a lot of sunshine and dust. thus all the car washes ;)

 

anyhoo, here are some pics from last week. the pictures say 'fall' but it was over 90 degrees on the days these were taken.

 

mother nature's farm at baseline and stapley. $3 for adults and $10 for kids over 2.

kinda cheesy but the kids loved it.

 here's lily being freaked out by the animals were wanting to come out and play

farmer lily walking her sweet little cow topher :)

strong (yet not successful) attempt to take a pic of my three pumpkins and their adorable chauffeur

mia checking out all the pumpkins

 

the next day we went to the farm at south mountain for breakfast. pretty surroundings, yummy food, delightful company. and it was a magical 80 degrees. mia is shocked at how nice arizona can be.

lily and grace. beautiful!

my stud son/mummy

and then we went to bass pro and enjoyed lots of free awesomeness:

my red power ranger on a reindeer.

lily, aka ariel the little mermaid, on a moose

we also colored and got to trick or treat! check out their website to see the different events and activities they have going on until halloween :)

clean inside and out

today i got a free car wash at greenfield and baseline. i was over there cause i am a terrible mother and i have been waiting for mia's diaper rash to go away (not on it's own- i have bought 2 different diaper rash creams, used a vat of aquaphor...) and all i have to show for it is a baby with open wounds on her heinie. I KNOW! horrifying. my pediatrician says she really likes 'bag balm' which they use for cows with mastitis (a propos for my girl who i call moo.) but she actually prescribed this magic and random compound of some high cholesterol medicine mashed into aquaphor... strange. and don't try it at home. i waited at walgreens for a VERY LONG TIME cause a professional was making the strange mixture...

anyway, back to the car wash. it was free. always love getting free stuff. like a lot. and to boot- they gave me a free cloth to wipe down the interior of my car whilst getting the exterior nice and sparkly! bonus! so we get into the car wash and i start wiping down the dusty dashboard. we live in arizona, therefore everything is always dusty always. which is why i don't bother dusting. but if you give me a cloth and a moment to myself- i might just dust.

so i was happily dusting and the kids were enjoying the car wash. and all of a sudden water was pouring into my van! i had no idea what was going on as i was getting assaulted by water, soap, and those mop-like strands that were violently swishing all around. in all my dusting excitement i had accidentally pushed my window open. and every time i tried to close my window, one of the mop strands would get stuck in my window so i had to reopen my window and reclose and reopen and reclose. don't tell anyone- but i am pretty sure i was cussing the whole time. but the kids couldn't hear me cause the car wash is really loud. and all the louder with an open window...

so, that was my awesome day. in all honesty- my eyes kinda still sting from all the soap and water that was spraying in my face. and the one thing that i was SO THANKFUL for at the end of the ordeal is that chris wasn't in the car with me. cause he would have just straight up died. and i love him so much that i cannot bear the thought of living without him. so i am glad he was at work and that today's ordeal is my little secret.

mini sessions!

everyone is posting about mini sessions these days- so i thought i would too!

as in, i will post about other people's mini sessions, cause i have no mini- or full length sessions of anything to offer.

anyhoo, if you are looking to update your family pictures- now is the time! i have two awesome photographer friends, and they are both offering very reasonably priced mini sessions- so please check out:

my lovely friend jenny bishop. i have blogged about her plenty as she has taken a ton of our family pictures, and most recently (almost a year ago!!!! yikes. time has flown) took Mia's newborn pics.

jenny is up in scottsdale and has 3 different days to pick from:

and

my supertalented friend erin dezago will be serving the gilbert and chandler areas well- so check her out!!!!!!

• 30 minute mini-session at one of two pre-determined locations
• 10 images to choose from in an online gallery
• one digitial file emailed to you for printing as you desire
• (and the best part...) 25 custom designed double-sided Holiday cards with envelopes
• All for only $125
• Add-on options are all 10 images on CD with copyright release for $50 or extra 25 cards for $35.

Sessions will be available on these dates:

• Saturday, October 27th at 3:15, 4:00, and 4:45 pm at the Riparian Preserve in Gilbert (Greenfield & Guadalupe)
• Saturday, November 3rd at 3:15, 4:00, and 4:45 pm in Downtown Chandler

I am happy to open more dates/times if you can fill them, which is why I am also offering an extra 25 cards for each referral you send my way that books a session! For two booking referrals, I will throw the CD your way for free! Merry Early Christmas to you!
And, because photos are always more fun than words, here are the cards available::


hope you contact one of these awesome ladies. they are both stay-at-home moms, so i am all about getting their businesses out there, and they are both ridiculously talented and professional.
i can't believe it's alrady time to say this but- happy holidays (pictures)!!!! :)
  

LEGOLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

in the midst of all our familyfun-having in los angeles, james, chris, and i managed to take lily, sungu, topher and mia to san diego to go to Legoland. we actually got 3 free adult and 2 free kid passes from a friend, which means we paid regular admission for one kid to get in. which was beyond AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! cause let's be real- it's about $65 for a kid over the age of 3 to go there, and about $75 for one adult. all prices that we would otherwise NEVER pay to just go to an amusement park.

sungu and topher LOVE legos right now. and lily just loves her brother and her cousin, and also has a good number of legos herself, so this was a serious treat for the three of them. mia was along for the ride and she did SO GREAT! i love this baby. she is so awesome:

 

yeah. she napped.

sungu and i rode on the 'helicopters' together

topher's favorite part was probably the star wars miniland. topher LOVES star wars (he was very appropriately dressed as you can see) and he loved all these star wars figures entirely of lots of little legos. he wanted a picture with each figure (there were about 12 of them) except for princess leia. he couldn't care less about her if he tried. funny boy.

this one is the only one he wanted to hold hands with ;)

for some reason, boba fett is his favorite character. boba fett is an assassin... i'm not sure if i should be concerned...

my girls and i met a princess in the enchanted forest!

on a roller coaster that topher equally loved and was terrified of.

i know i dressed her- but this girl rocks my socks off. she is so dang cool!

family pic!

the awesome malloy men :)

 

Hams, Malloys, and Watsons invade LA!

did i tell you that my parents are awesome and crazy? they are in their mid-late sixties, and they are adorable. but also crazy. they decided to drive from toronto, ontario to monterey, california. that's a 3,659 mile trek if you draw a straight line from point a to point b. crazy! they left super-early friday morning, and somehow made it to jeehon's house by monday night. many many many prayers were said as they journeyed along.

so my parents hung out in monterey til saturday, and then the hams and malloys caravaned to los angeles, a mere 6 hour trip (in the grand scheme of their traveling!) while we watsons did the same thing.

we arrived in koreatown in LA and had a korean meat buffet. it was awesome. i don't know if you are aware of the awesomeness of the korean food in LA- but it is nothing to joke about. there is a korean mall in koreatown that has a food court with only korean food to choose from. SO AWESOME!!!! mia has never seen that many korean people before in her life.

 

our family vacation was comprised of lots of food eating, lots of catching up (i haven't seen my parents in 9 months and my sister in over a year!), lots of coffee drinking, lots of kids running around, and lots of picture taking. here are a few of them:

 

lily and topher LOVE their imo and booboo! this should be a christmas card or something...:

 

 

my sister and i and all our minions. the age gap between lily and mia is about the same as the age gap between my sister and my youngest brother, with the same number of kids in between. remember i said my mom was crazy?? it's cause she is superwoman:

 

i just love this picture of my sister and lily:

 

can you even believe that it was just last summer than sunha had surgery on her head? you can't even tell at all! she is all healed up and full of sass and magical 2 year old wonderment.

how much have i missed this precious precious face!?!?!?!?:

 

chris + my mom = bffs :)

 

the three girls rocking matching t-shirts. a terrible pic, but a strong effort nonetheless:

 

my dad with mia. he's never happier than when he is with his grandkids.

 

 

quick story about my dad and sungu when they were hanging out in monterey-

my dad walked sungu to and from school everyday that my dad was there. it was his favorite thing to do. one morning sungu asked my dad if he had $5. my dad did not and asked sungu what he needed money for. sungu told him that they were having a book fair at school and that he wanted to buy some books. that broke my dad's heart- his grandson just wanted some books! this was music to my dad's ears. he dropped sungu off and rushed back home. he asked jeehon about the book fair, which she had forgotten about. my dad grabbed his wallet and went back to the school. each student was allowed to make out a wish list. my dad looked at sungu's and bought him every single thing on it. he spent like $40. (so funny- i bet sungu thought that $5 could buy everything on his list) so cute! i know that made sungu's day, but i don't know if sungu realized that that made my dad's day too :)

 

next post- LEGOLAND!!!!!

 

august 2012

had a crazy family-filled week that i will have to post about later. i just want to get all these random things from august down so that i don't forget that they happened!

WOW.

just saw my blog and realized that the above two sentences have been on here since sunday. yikes. between my internet connection sucking something fierce, and my life feeling like a daily upward hike, i have fallen behind on many a things. but i am trying to do and be better, so here we go!

this little stud muffin above. when lily is at school, topher and i hang out. sometimes together, sometimes seperately. but after hanging out seperately for a time, topher will come and find me and ask if it's time for coffee and cookies. and coincidentally, whenever he asks- it always is! his timing is impeccable.

anyhoo, a few weeks ago topher learned a lot about a lot of dead things. his Papa Wes and Kma took him up to their cabin for two days and a night, with his cousin Gabe. (that deserves it's own post!... we'll see what i can do...) one of the adventures that they went on was to a wilderness museum, which essentially was a glorified taxidermy warehouse. chris' dad's explanation of the place was that these animals were "dead. as in they are done with being alive."

then while he was at school, topher learned about vultures: "mom, vultures eat dead things. if we see a vulture, can we give it a dead thing?" i told topher that the chances of us seeing a vulture weren't high, and the chances that we were going to run into a vulture whilst having a carcass on hand was also not likely, but if all these stars aligned, FOR SURE we could feed a vulture a dead thing.

and then out of no where- lily says: "MOM! when i die- PLEASE don't feed me to a vulture!!!"

man i love my kids.

this piece of work. such a gem. she just turned 10 months like 3 days ago, but here are her stats from her nine month appointment: height- 28.5 inches (70th %ile) weight- 18 lbs 12oz (50 %ile) head- 19 inches (80 %ile) she is crawling all over, pulling herself up on her feet, eating EVERYTHING, clapping and waving on demand (unless she just doesn't want to), and she just said "baby" today and it was so cute i almost died.

 

how do i rotate the above picture?!?!... argh. i don't know...
anyway, i am very happy to introduce my newest little nephew Xander Dean Watson.  the second pic is my almost-three-year-old niece Zoe, and her brand new little brother! she loves him so much-so sweet. (these are Justin's kids. Chris' older brother. the guy has lots of siblings! hard to keep staright sometimes)
anyhoo, Xander was born on August 21st, at 1:49pm. He was 8 lbs 9.6 oz and 19 inches long. big boy! the family is doing well in Alaska. thanks for serving this country Justin! oh army families- i don't know how they do it. but they do it and we are all grateful.

one more awesome thing that happened in august- in the midst of all the random cake decorating that i did- we went to a free baseball game! yeah summer reading program! and my awesome friends Cindy and Christin did the reading program too, so lily and topher were able to enjoy the game with some of their adorable friends. i LOVE this picture, cause these girls are so stinkin amazing, and they are the older sisters of their respective lots.

 

LASTLY- my studmuffin husband. i actually have so many hilarious things to say about him, i should devote one post to him. but alas- who knows when that post will get written.

anyway, my hubby is a HARD worker. he goes through a lot of crap, being an undercover po-po in this ridiculous desert. but he does it, he doesn't complain- cause he loves it, and he does it whilst looking GOOD. like, so super good. covet not ladies- this man is all mine!