Checking in

Hey all, just checking in from Baker City (which as you can see is not a city at all), where we're having a ton of fun even though our boys team lost in double elimination and are no longer in the running for a trophy.

They played two great games and our nephew Ben got player of the game in this morning's match-up so we're really proud of him and the rest of the team.

We're also not quite ready to go home yet so the vacation continues! Instagram pics from the trip coming tomorrow...

Kid Snippets

Last Friday night Kelly and I went over to our Nanna's house to have a girls night with our cousins Stephanie and Janelle and their daughters. Among other things, this resulted in staying up past 2 am gabbing, dying laughing over all sorts of stories and nonsense, and also doing mature things like looking up hilarious video clips on you tube.

I just love my cousins! And thanks to them I have now been introduced to the world of "kid snippets" and I can't help it, I have to share.

Favorite #1:

Favorite #2:

Favorite #3:

You're welcome :)

InstaFriday. On Saturday. Again.

A little late in getting my act together here. (Surprise, surprise.)

But here's what we've been up to the past week!

Serious gaming with cousin Hayden who was here for a sleepover. They took turns with Cooper's DS and it occupied a decent two hours of their time without any fighting. DS for the win!

Cousin Elijah was here too. Goodbye two-story lego house.

And hello two-year-old artwork on my recipe card for dinner!

Kendall continued to bake up amazing goodness that tested the very limits of my self-control.

Rummikub game night with the kids. Love this game!

Hot chocolate date with the cool little dude. 

My two greatest temptations... together in one place! Ahhhh the agony! I resisted... for now.

Miley's forlorn look after waiting for us to finish our grocery shopping. 

New favorite grocery find. Tiny little pots of goodness! Only 100 calories. 

Important teddy bear repair. He had a hole in his back that was letting fluff out.

Visiting my parents yesterday after their return from New Zealand... and being surprised by all kinds of goodies! It was a gooood day! :)

And this shot was taken by my friend Shay on her iphone but I had to steal it because it captures our varsity boys team AMAZING State playoff game last night.

See the scoreboard? Tied at 47-47 with 1.7 seconds left in the game. 

See our player #00 at the bottom? He just launched a 3 pt shot.

See the blurry ball above the hoop? 

IT WENT IN!

I can not even describe the pandemonium that broke loose at that moment.

And we're off to Baker City for the State finals! YEEEEAHHHHH!

Season ender

The Lady Cougar's state playoff game was a nail-biter last night - it was a great game but we couldn't quite pull off the win. When the final buzzer went off I think the team pretty much collectively burst into tears... they'd been so close! Heck, I almost burst into tears!

So off we drove to The Olive Garden to drown our sorrows in Alfredo sauce and celebrate a great season.

It took Coach Russ a little time to come out of the dumps...

But it wasn't long before he was back to his usual wacky self.

(Don't ask.)

And I think it helped cheer the whole team up.

(The girls' quite handsome young waiter may have helped too ;)

So while it was a sad night overall, it definitely ended on a high note. And of course the good news is... guess who has her husband back?!!

Scenes from a date night

At Brewtopia, the restaurant inside Cinetopia.

Russell declared his specialty burger the most amazing burger he'd ever had in his life. I was just excited to find something on the menu that I could safely eat without getting sick. And really, I was all about dessert anyway. Sticky toffee pudding, I love you. (We also ordered the roasted veggie appetizer and gobbled that up immediately. YUM.)

After eating we strolled the mall for a bit before coming back for our movie. The seats in the living room skybox where AWESOME. Complete with leather foot rests, rocking seats and our own waiters. We saw Safe Haven which I was a little nervous about because hello, horrible Nicholas Sparks endings 50% of the time, but luckily both main characters were still alive and well by the end credits. Phew.

It was a fun experience and we'll definitely go again.

And now for something a tad bit embarrassing.

While in the mall before our movie started Russ and I (ok so really just I) saw a photo booth and thought, why not repeat last year's Valentine's photoshoot?

I'll tell you why not: sometimes photo booths are a bad idea. 

I refer of course to frame #3, which is quite horrendous of me. And the reason we are laughing so hard in frame#4 (the screen inside showed us each picture right after it was taken). And also, what the heck with Russ's hair? It did not look that weird in person. 

It was a fun two-year run but maybe we just won't repeat that tradition next year.

InstaFriday

It's Friday! It's date night tonight! It's not raining! The kids and husband have no school/work on Monday! And... it's date night tonight! All reasons to put me in a great mood this morning :)

Here's what's been going on lately... at least what I remembered to snap cell phone pictures of:

Monday night Russ was at practice and me and the kids were home for the evening. I declared it a "no electronics" night and pretty soon my living room was a tornado of legos and barbies. Blake asked me to play with him so I built a two story house with a covered front porch, 2nd story balcony, and a roof top pool.

Sorry, I'm such a girl.

Next thing I know I'm being attacked by a giant goblin, have been given a sword to protect myself, and am being protected by Batman.

And that sums up playing with boys!

 Did I mention I'm a little excited about Survivor's return to TV?

 

 Blake's morning outfit of choice for taking the kids to school. Stylin'.

 Yesterday afternoon brought me flowers and a sweet card.

And later that evening, a very happy husband with a 3rd place district trophy. Off to state!

Elijah is back today and Miley doesn't stand a chance. She MUST be loved!

So did I mention that tonight is our Valentine's date? Don't judge me but I've already checked out the restaurant menu online to scope out the dessert selection.

Priorities, people.

Have a great weekend!

Ten Things on Thursday

1. Basketball has been consuming our lives around here lately. But the end is near! Russ's team plays at district's tonight for a spot in the state playoffs. Even if they go all the way there's only a couple of weeks left!  (Of course I'm rooting for that to happen... go Cougars!) And Cooper's season ends in a short 9 days.

We aren't going to know what to do with ourselves after that!

2. My parents are in New Zealand right now. In 75-80 degree, beautiful, still-summer New Zealand. I am so happy for them, and so, so jealous at the same time :) The cool thing about technology today is that before they left we all downloaded this free app called Viber onto our phones and now my brother and sister and I can text and talk to them while they're there for absolutely free. So we're keeping up on all the family visits and cool stuff and yummy food that we're missing out on. Which isn't helping the jealousy but is still really awesome.

Cutest V-day pic ever from my Dad's facebook page this morning

3. Survivor started last night. Does anyone else still watch Survivor or is it just me? Because I still loooove that show! Bring on the drama, baby.

4. Downton Abbey is almost over and I have to confess that after watching the first episode of season 3 on PBS I couldn't handle the suspense and searched the internet to find a way to watch the rest of the season (since it already aired in the UK) online. Which I did, in like 3 days. Cheaty McCheaterson right here, folks.

And I can't wait for the last episode to air here so I can finally talk to somebody about it! I have EXTREME emotions that I need to vent!

5. While my Mum is in NZ I have been helping watch my nephews for my sister. It's been pretty easy because Hayden spends the whole time playing Lego Star Wars with Blake and Elijah spends the whole time running back and forth through the living room calling as loudly as he can for the dog to chase him. I have literally listened to "C'mon Miweeeee, c'mon!" being repeated about 200 times so far.

The funny thing is that Miley is only slightly interested for the first 10 times or so before she gives up and sits on the couch blatantly ignoring Elijah. And this has not phased the two-year-old one single bit. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be hearing "c'mon Miweeeee" in my sleep after this week.

6. Russ and I are going out tomorrow night to celebrate Valentine's and I'm pretty excited about it. And not just in a "hey I'm going out and it's not to a basketball game!" kind of way. We're going to Cinetopia up in Vancouver, WA and we've never been before so we're looking forward to the fun new experience.

7. And while on the subject of fun experiences, I'll tell you of one that wasn't so much. Last night I helped Kendall and Cooper put together their class Valentine's gifts. I saw this idea on pinterest and thought it looked so simple yet cute:

    

So I bought the supplies and made little name tags to attach to them. When we began assembling them however we quickly realized that gummy candy doesn't slide as easily as you'd think onto a bamboo skewer... in fact some kinds don't slide at ALL. And thus began the stickiest, slowest, hour of my life. That's right, it took all three of us working together an HOUR to put together 27 candy kabobs. 

They turned out pretty cute, at least.

  

8. And now for a safe family movie recommendation: Touchback. Russ and I watched it the other night and both enjoyed it. And seeing as that it was a sports drama it of course made Russ cry ;)

(And as an interesting side note: the actress in the movie that play's the main character's wife, Melanie Lynskey (of Sweet Home Alabama, Ever After, and Two and a Half Men fame) is from New Zealand and went to New Plymouth Girl's High School with my sister Kelly. Weird.) 

9. Watch this video in Kelle Hampton's blog post today. It will make you tear up good tears (if you're a sap like me that is). I don't have kids with special needs but I hope my kids will be the ones serving and dancing with and loving on those that do like the teens in this video one day.

10. Last but not least... Happy Valentine's Day!

Love Jodi

Monday Confessional

I don't know why I'm so embarrassed to admit it, but recently I joined the still-very-confusing-to-me world of twitter.

(Maybe because I swore I would never ever join?)

Don't bother finding me, I'm not actually a "tweeter". I use it almost exclusively to follow celebrities. 

SAD, BUT TRUE. 

Last week Jana came over and I sheepishly made my confession to her. At which she laughed and admitted to the exact same thing. 

And that right there is why we're best friends. We spent the rest of our visit looking up more famous people we could stalk read tweets from, most of which I still don't understand because I'm not kidding when I say it's confusing. 

I don't speak twitter!

But darn it all if I haven't fallen into this new-to-me world like a complete sucker, so I'm working on it.  

InstaFriday

Life through the cell phone lens: capturing the day-to-day moments of life.

That's why I love them, no matter how grainy, blurred, or poorly lit.

(Plus, instagram filters make everything better.)

Prince Blake dressed up for his friend Jillian's princess themed birthday party. Kendall made the crown and came up with his costume. Having older kids is awesome :)

And speaking of Kendall, she had some girlfriends over for a sleepover and they wanted to make a treat. We'd done nutella filled crescent rolls before but were out of nutella.
Their solution? Peanut butter and chocolate chips.

Oh my gosh... they were amazing!
(Yes I ate one. Yes I got sick. Dang acid reflux!)

A fave from our sledding day up Mt. Hood.
Poor Blake!

Did I mention how much fun we had? ;)

I love the Scentsy honey pear cider scent so much I had to get the brick.
And I'm glad I did now that they don't sell them anymore.
Bring back the brick!

New hair. I pretty much covered this yesterday so I won't elaborate.

I made a special note on my grocery list to remember to drop off my ink cartridges to be refilled.
Too bad I didn't make a special note to remember to pick them up 45 minutes later. So here we are, visiting Costco for the second time in one day.

I love being freshly stocked after grocery shopping. These are my new "special diet" favorites (low in acid): Roast chicken, brown rice, Dave's killer bread, butternut squash, honeydew melon, bananas, and strawberries.

If you've never head of this stuff before you are MISSING OUT. The best heat protector/hair smoother & shiner I've tried. It's a bit of an investment but goes a long way and is sooooo worth it. And now it's at Target - how convenient!

I'm linking up here! Happy weekend!