Monday Night Confessional

- While I love the switch to daylight savings time in theory, I hate losing an hour of sleep. Yesterday we never even made it to church. So last night I made sure my kids' clocks were turned forward and their alarms set for school this morning, and then didn't wake up until Cooper burst into my room in a panic because school was starting RIGHT NOW and the boys had just woken up. The kids arrived at school 25 minutes late and I was a walking zombie.

So yeah, we're winning at daylight savings.

- Last weekend, after going 20+ years without ever backing into something with my car, I backed into a hotel parking lot lamp post and crunched my back bumper. I was like, "really?! That kind of sucks, but at least it wasn't someone's car." And then the very next morning I backed into someone's car.

WHAT THE FREAK.

I cried pretty hard, 100% due to intense mortification, and then spent the next hour absolutely mortified over how hard I'd cried.

Bottom line: the weekend will go down in history as the moment when Cooper, my poor car mate that morning, learned the hard lesson of how to (and how not to) properly console an overly emotional woman.

- Sometimes I want my husband to try on jeans that I think will look good on him and he refuses simply because they're not "loose fit". So I force him to try them on anyway because, well, I'm bossy about jeans, and then he comes out like this:

And we both die laughing. (Especially when he proceeds to shake his thing in front of everyone in the store so we can all observe that he was right and I was wrong. Dang it.)

Awkward & Awesome

Awkward: 

- When you're videoing your almost-8-year-old son open his birthday card from his great grandparents in New Zealand so you can send them the clip, and he surreptitiously picks his nose and EATS it on film. Niiiice. 

- When you return from your family trip to Baker City for the basketball state finals with your son's arm still in a splint after he was told he fractured his elbow, only to find out it wasn't really fractured, and he wore the splint for a week for nothing and missed all the fun hotel swimming with his cousins and friends needlessly, and he is NOT pleased. (But yay for no casts!)

- When your birthday boy (back to Blake again) takes it upon himself to make homemade birthday invitations for all his friends at school and takes them and hands them out WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE OR AUTHORIZATION, when you actually haven't even planned a party yet, and then you have to tell those kids' parents that call you asking about the mystery party invite that's missing pretty much every piece of pertinent info they would need, that oh, I'm so sorry, please tell your child NEVERMIND. Ugggh.

Awesome:

- Spring blossoms down your driveway!

- Having a husband full of energy again after his basketball season is over! Yeah for long overdue yard work and home projects!

-   Cadbury cream eggs EVERYWHERE! Mmmmmm, cream eggs... ;)

STATE CHAMPS!!!

They did it! Our girls won it all in the 1A basketball state championship in Baker City this weekend and it was absolutely incredible. Best Baker trip ever!

These girls are phenomenal ballers, and I am so, so proud of them all. I've watched them play since they were little girls and love every single one of them. I think my eyes were welled up from happy tears for them all for a solid hour after the final buzzer rang! 

And I can't even express how proud of my husband I am. Or how happy I am for him. He's been coaching basketball for 18 years, longer than we've even been married, and after taking over the girls team that hadn't won a single game in years, building up the girls program from basically nothing, he's brought his team to the final eight in Baker 5 of the past 8 years. Amazing accomplishment. 

Basketball is a big part of our family's identity and I look forward to many more years supporting our school - and watching our own kids play all the way through too! 

Celebration time! Let's just say we had ourselves a good evening on Saturday night and finally climbed into our hotel bed in the wee hours. Did I mention it was the best Baker trip ever? :)

Do We Get a Prize?

Yesterday started out so well. A shopping date for our school's upcoming benefit auction meant my friend Kristie and I got to play in Ikea all day while spending other people's money. Throw in a little Panda Express and you have what I like to call a WIN-WIN situation.

After picking up my kids from school and the dog from the groomers later in the day, things got a little dicey as I tried to run several last minute errands in preparation for our road trip to Baker City today... and then pack, do the last batch of laundry, and fix dinner, while simultaneously making my children do some of their school work they'll be missing for the rest of the week. (Always a confirmation that I was not cut out to homeschool. Voices were raised and gauntlets were thrown.)  

At 6:30 pm I had to attend an auction meeting, and it wasn't until after this that I was able to take Cooper up to urgent care to "double check" that the arm he'd been mildly complaining about off and on for the past week didn't actually have something really wrong with it.

The answer was yes. In fact, it did.  

A fractured elbow to be exact.

and this would be our THIRD broken arm between my two boys in the past 3 years and we may need an award, or at least some classes for my boys on how to play appropriately and safely. The cast tech took one step into our room last night and said, "oh hey! I know you guys!"

Here's a very sleepy Cooper at midnight, finally getting to leave urgent care four hours after we arrived. God bless late shift medical personnel everywhere. I made sure to sincerely thank every one we were seen by and we were awarded with the most amazing brownies snuck in from the breakroom by a kind CNA. 

You guys, chocolate sometimes does make everything better! At least, it sure helped this mama come down from the stressed out heights she'd managed to fly up to ;)

broken arm #1

broken arm #2

InstaSaturday {Life Lately}

Here's the quick rundown of life lately, according to the pics on instagram and my cell phone

 (aka, the highlights!)

Kendall went to a Valentine's progressive dinner. She wore my wedges and was as tall as a baby giraffe. And as equally graceful in them. Hehe. 

Max husband points were awarded for this sweet Valentine's gift: sugar cookies instead of flowers. He knows the way to my heart, that guy. 

Kendall does too. She left these paper roses she made and some little treats in my bed while I was showering one morning. I'm a lucky mama.

"Mom, come see! I'm window fishing!" (with a pool stick.)

Last Saturday night... district champs and league coach of the year! Yeah Cougs!

Late night fro-yo run because Russ was feeling the cravings. School night bedtimes suffered. 

Temps reached the seventies for the first time this year and I celebrated by putting on my CAPRI length yogas instead of my full length ones, because I'm classy like that. 

Kendall and I got to attend a local paint night on Thursday with some friends and we had so much fun! I am not a natural artist, but give me step-by-step instructions with a side of pizza and I'm in!

Realizing you have 3 blue gingham shirts in your closet. Justifying it with the fact that one's cotton, one's flannel, and one's clearly a different shade. Yep. Keeping them all. 

Ordered my first pair of leather earrings from Nickel & Suede. WON'T be my last. 

I love them! They are so light you can't really feel them. Next up, silver. And then ALL the colors.

And the very best part of our week... last night Russ's team won their 2nd round state playoff game and made it to the state finals in Baker City for the 3rd year in a row! WOOOHOOOO, ROAD TRIP!