Late night Monday confessional

After a meeting and some errand running this morning I had to drive up into Portland for an appointment and didn't have time to swing back home for lunch. Instead I took my sidekick Blake through a drive-thru and then drove to our destination and parked in the parking garage to quickly eat.

Of course, Blake doesn't know the meaning of "quickly eat", so while waiting for him to finish I decided to check instagram on my phone (since I hadn't looked at it in a whole hour).

Next thing I knew, the parking garage was slowly moving forward (which was weird - it being concrete and all), so I glanced up and saw with shock that we were rolling backwards and halfway to hitting the row of cars parked opposite us.

Turns out parking requires you to actually put your vehicle in PARK. Huh.

Thankful no one was walking behind us,
Jodi (the unsafe cell user)

InstaSunday

Because sometimes the simple act of uploading your instagram pics and captioning them is too much work for a Friday (or even a Saturday).

Last weekend was date night. Or as we called it, "cheap date night". Free movie tickets from Christmas and a stop at the Yogurt Shack for some froyo on the way, plus free babysitting from Grandma = $4.83 well spent! We saw Jack Reacher and I can tell you that I am not above being entertained by a good action/suspense guy movie involving Tom Cruise.

 Cows in the midst. Not as exciting as gorillas, but not as dangerous either.

 Blake looking tiny in our master bath pool tub. I couldn't fill it or it would go over his head!

After several days of freezing mist that never lifted, our place looked like a winter wonderland minus any actual snow. Just layers and layers of frost.

 My kids meeting their new cousin (technically 2nd cousin) for the first time.

 

 And me getting my snuggles in.

 Indulging in a little sweet treat after a long grocery shopping trip.

Blake was pretty pleased to be along for the trip!

And then Friday we had to go visit Tristan again because I was Blake was having withdrawals. Yeah, that's it! ;)

And now is when I would usually wish you all a great weekend, but since it's pretty much over, I'll just say, have a great week!

Awkward and Awesome - the short list

Awkward

- while visiting my cousin and her new baby in the hospital yesterday, I noticed my cousin's hubby leaning over to discreetly let her know she had a gap in her gown. I slightly averted my eyes to give her privacy but couldn't help but notice that she didn't seem to make any adjustments, nor could I see where she needed to. Fast forward 2 minutes and I stand up from my seat only to have my cousin discreetly lean over to me to let me know my shirt had come unbuttoned. In THREE spots. Instantly I could see what had really gone down and OH THE SHAME.

- attempting to help my 6th grader with her math homework and having to resort to a google search and a youtube video. The good news is that I am now proficient in regrouping to subtract mixed numbers.

AWESOME

- watching Blake fall in love with a little baby. He was transfixed by little Tristan and held him forever, not wanting to give him up. He kept snuggling his head close to Tristan's and gently touching his nose or forehead. Cutest thing. 

(Unfortunately I made the mistake of telling Blake we'd visit him again when they came home and in the last 24 hours Blake has asked when that will be approximately 462 MILLION times, cried when he found out we probably wouldn't see them today, and concocted a plan for Mike and Linley to move in with us, which includes Mike sleeping on the couch, Linley on the floor (poor Linley!), and baby Tristan in Blake's room, of course.)

- forgetting my grocery shopping list at home but still managing to remember every single thing I had written on it. Booyah! Memory for the win!

- a mommy/daughter date night with Kendall - watching American Idol on the couch while Kendall practices her french braiding on my hair (and I purr).

Welcome, baby Tristan!

One tired and content mama

 One proud papa

One cute lil' guy!

and one giddy "auntie" 

(because first-cousin-once-removed sounds really lame)

The weekend

It's a sure sign that you've had a long day when, on a Monday night, you start to blog about your 3-day weekend but can't remember what happened on Friday OR Saturday.

I know it will come to me... but let's start with Sunday, shall we?

After church we headed up to Russ's parents for our 13th annual family prayer day. I've blogged about it before, but in a nutshell: we gather to share our praise reports from the year before and lift up our requests for the coming year. The kids all join in too and it's a really special time.

We also celebrated my beautiful niece's sweet 16th. Happy birthday, Miranda!

Today we worked on our rental property in town, getting it ready for a new family because our previous renters recently moved out. I spent the better part of four hours cleaning ONE disgustingly mistreated side-by-side fridge, and did I mention that we had no heat on in the house and it didn't reach above freezing today? I'm sure you can understand why I picked up Chinese take-out for dinner and was in my flannel pj's and under my heated blanket by 7 pm.

The fridge looks very pretty though. Yeah, accomplishment!

And now I'm experiencing some serious eyelid droopage so let's just cut things short. I'm sure Friday and Saturday were fun but who cares about the details, right?

Right!! Shhhnnnnzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

InstaFriday

First of all, thank you for your hairline/eyebrow/no coffee/no chocolate support yesterday!

LOVED the comments :)

And now for the pics from the cell phone this past week!

 Cooper's basketball season has officially begun so we're now in the gym every Saturday for TWO Games in a row. Luckily, I'm a well practiced b-ball watcher! 

 My sister threw my nephew, Hayden, the most awesome 5th birthday party last weekend. She is a genius.

 And are these not the cutest cupcakes you've ever beheld??

My kids got to bring their box cars home and suddenly no one wanted to sit on the furniture anymore.

 And the next day.

And the three days after that. Until they mysteriously disappeared because a mom can only handle 3 large boxes in her living room for so long.

 My cousin Linley at 39 weeks. NOT me ;)

 Cooper has had this Tony Hawk skateboard game for the Wii for almost a year now but Blake has just recently become obsessed with it. Pretty cute to watch because for a four-year-old he's actually not to shabby at it!

Well THIS happened last night while I was trying to adjust our antenna. 

Pretty sure those things aren't supposed to snap off. 

And just like that my American Idol watching dreams went down the drain...

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

Some things I want to say

1. We were a little excited for the new season of American Idol to air last night. We don't necessarily make it all the way to the end of every season, but we always start out strong... especially through the highly entertaining auditions.

2. It took me all of 10 minutes watching to confirm my suspicions that I would not care for that Nicki Minaj. No sir.

3. In more important news, can we talk about my all-of-a-sudden barely there eyebrows, as witnessed in the above picture? (while not talking about my weird ONE droopy eye, not sure what was going on there.)

Once upon a time, my eyebrows used to look like this:

WHERE DID ALL THE EYEBROWS GO?

I don't pluck or wax them at all these days, just fill them in, thanks to this little guy:

Maybelline's Define-A-Brow

I don't really know what I'm doing though. Or why my eyebrows decided to start disappearing at such an alarming rate.

4. And in other face-related news, I have just recently discovered that I have quite the asymmetrical hair line.

Was my hairline always like this and I didn't notice? Or is hair abandoning ship all over my head?!! I'm a little concerned.

5. Yesterday I went to my cousin Linley's final prenatal appointment with her and posted a picture of her 39-week belly on Facebook, tagging her in the pic. A sweet acquaintance thought it was me though and I imagine about fell over thinking she was just now finding out I was about to pop one out of the oven. I found this quite hilarious for the sole reason that if I WERE pregnant there is no way anyone would NOT know, because I would be complaining every single darned day of the entire 9 month wait. Loudly.

Which pretty much explains why I'm not pregnant.

6. I did think I might be a couple of weeks ago though. After fighting nausea on and off for over two weeks and taking an at-home test that came out negative, I took myself off to the doctor's office to see what was going on. Turns out it was not a baby growing in my tummy, but acid reflux.

7. So yes, disappearing eyebrows, receding hairline, acid reflux... I think my body has decided to skip a couple of decades and head straight into its golden years.

8. Maybe this explains why twice yesterday I had to speed up my pace to keep up with Linley, the 9 MONTH PREGNANT LADY?

This just in: I am the slowest walker in the world. But I guess I always have been. What can I say, I like to enjoy the scenery. So picture ME 9 months pregnant walking with my speedy-McSpeedster of a sister, Kelly. I can't tell you how many times she would get 3 or 4 car-lengths ahead of me before turning around and noticing I was no longer beside her. It always made us laugh.

9. Now back to the acid reflux for a moment: there has been a plus side. As my triggers seem to be coffee, chocolate, and peppermint, things I majorly over-indulged in over the holidays (hello triple-threat of peppermint white mochas!), I've been avoiding them ever since (a Herculean effort, believe me), and in two weeks I've lost 9 pounds.

10. 9 pounds!! It's been a great kick-off to the new year. Oh the happy consequences of a much-restricted diet.

(This is me choosing to look at the bright side. Best not to discuss chocolate with me yet...)

Monday Confessional

Does this count as a confessional if I'm telling on my daughter? And she doesn't know?

The thing is she did something pretty silly yesterday, something that made me stare in disbelief, roll my eyes in frustration, and finally, laugh. (At her, of course.)

But first off, a word to the wise: if your 11-year-old asks to use your smoothie maker to make shaved ice, it may be best to stay in the kitchen to supervise, rather than laying down to take an afternoon nap.

Mom fail.

Within 10 minutes in the kitchen Kendall managed to shatter the blending jar of my smoothie maker into several pieces and stain my counter top a lovely shade of kool-aid cherry red, a fact that I took relatively well really, making sure she knew I wasn't mad because sometimes accidents happen. I figured since it was several years old the thick plastic had probably weakened in some way.

Um no. Turns out the jar shattered because Kendall left a METAL SPOON inside the thing while running it.

Pretty sure that's not covered under warranty.

I couldn't be too hard on her though, because haven't we all done things like that before? I'm pretty sure I've confessed to at least fifty or so equally embarrassing incidents right here. So thanks, Kendall, I'm glad I'm not the only one ;)

InstaFriday

Random pics from the cell phone... if you're on Instagram I'm jodalamode!

Wearing my new hat from my sister that was handmade by our friend Amy. So thank you Kelly and Amy - I love it! Three cheers for a great 2nd-day-hair cover!

 The night that I put together a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle while eating an entire head of cheese covered cauliflower.

*not my proudest moment... but at least it was a vegetable?

 Being amazed by beautiful blue skies.

(In winter. In rainy, drizzly, foggy, Portland.)

 Another pic from New Year's Eve... because I like it :)

 It's frosty out these days! Blake says, "bundle up!"

 Linley NOT in labor - just getting a little baby external inversion attempted!

 Mum and I were along for support. Although when the nurse whispered to us to "distract her!" we immediately froze up and could think of NOTHING to say. I think my mouth hung open for a full 30 seconds. 

Support FAIL.

 Russ has been away at lots of basketball games lately. Last Friday night instead of traveling along, me and the kids had a movie night at Jana's with her kids while her husband worked. I can tell you it was WAAAY better than a basketball game ;)

 My return to the treadmill continues... 16 miles completed so far this month, and 4 in one day when I watched the season opener of Downton Abbey!

Taking a grocery shopping lunch break yesterday with my sidekick. Yesterday was the day he decided he liked the "mustard" (it was mayonnaise) that was on his sub and licked it all up. Huh. Maybe soon he'll finally jump on the ketchup bandwagon?
(so far we're 0-3 in that department with our kids.)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Awkward and Awesome

Awkward:
- my love affair with my new heated throw. I'm a little obsessed.
- when my husband walks in the room and I don't even notice or answer his greeting because I am GRINNING LIKE A FOOL at Downton Abbey playing on my laptop. And then I do notice him and try to wipe the silly grin off my face but I can't because, it's just so soooo good!
- exiting the wrong way out of the Costco gas station even though there are like FIVE large signs saying which way to go and the gas attendant is yelling "other way!" in the background, all because I'm excitedly texting my husband the great gas price I got. (Love Costco gas!)

Awesome:
- my heated throw. We shall never ever part.
- Dulce De Leche cream cheese spread. Yes, it's real, folks. And amazing.
- $2.50 movies at The Wunderland Theater in Milwaukie. With $1.50 popcorn!
- surprising the kids with a trip to finally see Wreck It Ralph when they thought it wasn't in theaters anymore. And on a school night!
- the logic of a four-year-old: Me: "Blake, why did you just put a fresh t-shirt on under your pajama top?"

Blake: "So in the morning when I wake up I'll already be dressed underneath!"

Hahaha :) Kid has a point. 

"Sponebob"

What happens when your 9-year-old spends too much time on his drawing and not enough on his spelling...

It is a pretty good drawing though so I guess I won't make too much fun of him. ;)

Ringing in the New Year

Last week we partied in the New Year like the crazy kids we are... hanging out with good friends playing board games all evening. 

And let's not forget all the sparkling cider and chips and dip!

Because yes, we are that wild. 

As always there was lots of hilarious story telling...

annual group photo taking...

a little midnight dancing... (including weird-eyed Tim and a very prego Linley)

Oh, and more group photos because it's what we girls do.

(My sistas!)

Thanks for hosting again, Erik & Tricia! We loved it :)