Baby Updates!

First off, I just want to say “Congratulations!” to Jaron and Bethany! We found out today that they are having a little girl. Bethany is due in May, which makes our babies being born only about a month apart. I’m so excited! I grew up with girl cousins around my age, and I’m excited Kate will have the same experience!

As for me, I am now 24 weeks! That puts me in my six month of pregnancy! It won’t be long now, which is both really exciting and a little scary. According to my book the baby is now 1½ pounds and about 8 inches long.

Our collection of baby stuff is growing. We now have a crib (with the cute bedding I bought), a stroller, a car seat, some clothes (not a lot, just some that I saw and said “I have to have that!”) some blankets, and one of those baby bouncer things. It’s definitely becoming more real every day.

The biggest development is that the baby has started kicking….a lot! As I’m writing this, I can actually see my belly moving because she is kicking (or punching, not really sure) so hard. Dustin has finally been able to feel the kicks as well, which increases his anticipation. He is so excited to be a daddy. He’ll say (at least once a day) “I wish Kate were here already!” He really will be a great Dad, and it eases my apprehensions about motherhood a little.

Here’s the most recent picture of me and my belly. It’s not the best picture, I actually think you can see my belly better in the Foree family picture in my last post.Because I work at night, and Dustin plays basketball in the evenings, we are unable to attend a birthing class. That our excuse anyway, I'd rather do the research ourselves. I found a Lamaze class on DVD that I’m going to purchase, but does anybody know any good books that can help us prepare for this?

Christmas!

This is all of us waiting to come downstairs Christmas morning. If you’re wondering who the guy on the right is, it’s Scott, Sherice’s boyfriend. No, they are not engaged, but we are hoping!

When we got downstairs we finally saw what awaited us: new strollers for the pregnant couples, pink bikes for Sherice and Lacie, and some toys for Maddock. Unfortunately, Maddock was only interested in the bikes.


After opening all our wonderful presents (thanks again everybody!!), we headed to Snowflake to finish Christmas with my family.


I had gotten my gifts for my mother and my sister way back in August, so I was so excited to finally give them their presents! I got them tickets to see The Lion King. I saw it before when it came to Phoenix about four years ago, and I’ve been wanting to see it again ever since! They are awesome seats (front row of the middle balcony), and I’m just so excited to have such a special girls night!



After all the exchanges were done, we had a very special present for my younger siblings. Jelly Bellies. Not your ordinary Jelly Bellies, though. It’s a special box of them entitled Bean Boozeled, I think, I can’t remember the name of them right now. But here’s a picture of the back of the box.

So the joke is, there are two identical jelly beans. One is the normal flavor, the other…not so much. I had taken the beans out of these boxes and put them into normal Jelly Belly bags so the kids had no idea what was coming. I couldn’t have asked it to work out more perfectly. The first one or two jelly beans they got were good flavors, then they started getting the bad ones, and that’s when the hilarity started.






We had such a wonderful Christmas this year! It was so nice to have a week off of work and just spend time with our families! We love you all!

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve Jaron got a call to play Santa at a neighbor’s house. We thought it would be entertaining to have him stay in the costume and come and see Maddock. We tried to prepare the little guy by saying, “Santa is coming!” to which he would reply, “ho, ho ho!”. But as soon as Santa came through the front door, Maddock ran the other way! It seems that he is afraid of Santa. (Actually, to be fair, I think it’s all white-bearded men. He was deathly afraid of the old gentleman that makes balloon animals at Texas Roadhouse.) He would only sit on Santa’s lap if Sherice sat with him.

As is tradition in the Watson household, we had our Christmas Eve Mexican feast. Green chili burros, bean burros, guacamole, tamales, enchiladas, beans and salsas. Delicious.

After dinner we all gathered around in the living room to hear my father-in-law read some Christmas stories. Then we played Bunco. This is one of our favorite traditions because everyone is so competitive; it becomes a really intense game. Dustin ended up winning, and we took home a football and a Subway gift card as prizes. Then we all went to bed. Well, tried to anyway. I’m one of those people who still can’t sleep on Christmas Eve. Add on the pregnancy woes of an aching back and having to go to the bathroom every two hours…yeah…I didn’t sleep at all. I also think my baby knew it was Christmas because she started kicking and squirming inside me from about 5 in the morning. Which needless to say, kept me up as well. So I was very thankful when Christmas morning came and we all got to go downstairs!

Christmas Eve Eve

Our Christmas week started off on Monday. We picked Andy up from the airport at around noon, and left around 1:30 to head home to Snowflake and Pinetop. We were really fortunate and missed the big snowstorm that was to come later that night (see previous post). We stayed in Snowflake that night, and Andy and I went through almost all our home videos (aka movies Andy and I made) and tried to organize them. We laughed a lot, and we found some stuff that we had totally forgotten about! We left around 11:00 the next morning to visit Dustin's family in Pinetop.

That night after dinner we decided to play Cranium. That was really fun. Especially when all 9 of us played. This is a picture of my mother-in-law performing a stunt. In order to get our points, she had to crawl 10 steps without dropping the two dice that were on her head.
Then all of this madness began...

It started out with Sherice bragging that her boyfriend could do five pushups with her on his back.

So all the other men had to try it too...


They weren't sucessful.

Then my father-in-law claimed that he could put both feet behind his head. Unfortunately I didn't capture a good picture of that, but he did try rather diligently. So, of course, everyone else had to try too.

Not quite...

Sherice got the closest, but wasn't satisfied until she could do it while sitting up. This video depicts how that went.


It was a fun night, as it always is when we're together. I'm sure I'll have plently more to blog about later!

White Christmas

We don’t see snow very often living in the valley (ok…never), so we enjoy snow when we see it. On Monday night, Pinetop got 15 inches of snow! We are also supposed to receive another 15 inches tomorrow! Although we are hoping to avoid driving in snow storms, it sure is a pretty view.

Watson Family Christmas Party!

Last night Sherice decided to throw a Christmas party. I’m so grateful to have family close to us. It’s so much fun whenever we get together, I hope nobody ever moves! We had mozzarella sticks, wings, and pizza, had a white elephant gift exchange, and played Christmas Pictionary.

This is Dustin and Maddocks favorite game. Maddock will climb up on the ottoman and then jump off into Dustin’s arms. He’d keep going all night if you let him too. That kid never gets tired!

Maddock missed the landing on this one. Are you all right Dustin?

Dustin was changing Maddock’s diaper, when Maddock got up and ran away from him! He then peed on the floor! We all know we shouldn’t laugh at Maddock when he does things like this, but it was so hilarious! So sorry Bethany, your kid now thinks it’s funny to pee on the carpet!

The White Elephant game was really fun, even if it was over rather quickly. There are only six of us so it was over in about 5 minutes, but oh well, we all got awesome gifts! This is what I won:

Sherice and Scott got a grille and funny teeth.

Dustin won this miniature bowling game. They tried to play it like it was life size. They weren't too successful. Even with their "sweet jump" constructed out of a swiffer mop.



No this isn't dog food. It's People Chow. That's right... People Chow. It comes in a can attached to a doggy dish. It's basically like Chex Muddie Buddies, and it was really good!

We ended the night by playing Christmas themed Pictionary. That was really fun, even though some of the items were impossible to draw! How exactly to you draw Bob Crachit, CC Moore or Thomas Nast (we're not even sure who those last two are!)? And we'll never forget Jaron's depiction of Gabriel ("yeah, that's what you think it is!). Anyway, I love all you guys so much. I can't wait for Christmas next week.

I gotta get my shopping done!

How Did I Forget About This One?

It was a few weeks before Christmas, and Andy and I were helping our younger siblings write their letters to Santa. The kids were dutifully making their lists when I had an idea. An awful idea. I had a wonderful awful idea! I immediately took one of the crayons and a piece of construction paper and started to write this:

Dear Santa,

Jared wants an onion.

Jennifer wants chocolate cheese.

Alex wants a bag of dirt.

Thank you,

The Foree Family

Among screams of protest (“Noooo! Stop it, you stupid it! I DON’T WANT chocolate cheese for Christmas!!!), Andy and I put the letter to Santa in an envelope and ‘mailed’ it.

The weeks went by with questions (“Erin, did you really mail that letter to Santa?) and they’re responding taunts (“Of course! I thought that’s what you really wanted!”).

When Christmas Eve came, Andy and I set our devious plan into action. We created chocolate cheese by melting chocolate chips and pouring it over sticks of cheese. We made a beautifully colored onion with food dye. We went out into our back yard and filled a Ziploc bag with dirt. We went to bed satisfied with our work still cackling our evil laughs.

It was worth it in the morning.

“Why did you tell Santa I wanted this?!?”
“I DID NOT WANT an onion!”
“I want to play with my bag of dirt!”

We did eventually explain that it was us, and not Santa, that had done these things. But not until after Jennifer had tasted the chocolate cheese.