I am THAT Mom

You know. 

The one that takes a picture (or three) of a crying child in a funny situation before helping them out of it. 

I couldn't help myself.

And man, that little pink tote was really stuck on there! 

Too bad... it had been the perfect birthday hat for Blake's imaginary party he was throwing himself.

Over the weekend...

- Our oldest niece and nephew both graduated from the 8th grade. I was at the hospital when both of them were born. (Statements like that do nothing except make me feel old. Drats.)

Cousins Miranda and Ben

Funny story though: When Mandy was being born, Russ came and picked me up at some ungodly hour like 5 am and then raced to the hospital to be there in the waiting room for the birth of his brother's first child. So of course we were pulled over for speeding, and as soon as the cop walked up to the driver's window Russ started to explain he was in a hurry because his sister-in-law was in labor. The cop immediately leaned past Russ to ask if I was okay and offer his help. Um, no officer. I'm the 17 year old girlfriend that's still in high school. Thank you, though.

Russ got off with a warning.

- Back to the now-heading-to-high-schoolers though, we are so proud of them. Pretty much the greatest two 14 year olds out there.

- At their joint party afterwards, I ate this and discovered my new favorite pizza ever! The Thai Pie from Old Chicago. Yummmm.

- On Saturday the sun came out and we played, and played, and played all day. 

And by "played", I mean I weeded my flower gardens until I couldn't hardly stand up straight and Russ did some heavy labor moving and delivering play structures. But we were outside in the sunshine and that made us happy! 

- The kids were in their swimsuits by 10 am. As soon as it reached 80 degrees they were running through the freezing cold sprinkler, didn't phase them one bit.

- We spent the evening at my sister's with several other couples and their families, enjoying our first outdoor BBQ of the summer, and trying to stop my brother-in-law from burning down the neighborhood with his fire-pit (hehe, I love teasing my brother-in-law).

- And on Sunday, among other things like church, high school graduation parties, and visiting my friends Rob and Shay and their brand new gorgeous baby, I caught THIS guy meticulously cutting his own hair in front of the mirror with a pair of craft scissors!

Blake having a serious conversation on the TV remote "wif my Dad".

- I swooped down on that kid so fast he didn't even know what happened to him. Luckily it seems he had just started and no visible damage was done. LUCKILY.

But I'm pretty sure he won't be touching a pair of scissors any time soon. 

Monday confessional - a puppy tale

Confession #1:

When I was 16 our family got a new puppy name Coey, a lovely fluffy ball of a mutt that we all fell in love with instantly. While she was still quite young, within her first 6 months I believe, one of her front legs broke when she was playing rough with my Dad. It was just a freak accident (one my dad felt horrible about), and according to the vet not that unusual, because her quickly growing bones were still fragile. So Coey hopped around with a cast on her front leg and it was during this time that I backed over her with my car in the driveway and broke her other front leg. 

I'm surprised the vet didn't call an animal protection agency on us. Perhaps it was because he was too busy trying to calm down the sobbing 16-year-old in his office who was suffering from the worst guilt of her young life.

(Coey healed up just fine though after her stint in double leg casts and lived a long and happy life, just so you know.)

Confession #2:

I knew I had a picture of Coey as a puppy so went looking through some old pictures. I remembered one of me cuddling with her on my dad's La-Z-Boy rocker and sure enough, I came across it.

What a cutie, right? Scanned and uploaded. Done.

Then I kept looking through my old album because, you know, that just happens when you see all those pictures you forgot about, and it's a good thing I did because that's how I came across this one...

Well hang on a second now, that's still me in my dad's rocker, but THAT'S Coey! Good grief, I didn't even realize I'd scanned a picture of the wrong dog!

(That first puppy was a friends, I think.)

And that pretty much sums up so much about me:

-Remembers what you were wearing a week ago, but forgets your name. 

-Remembers what you wanted for your birthday after you mentioned it that one time months ago, but forgets when your birthday is.

-Remembers lots of fond memories, but can get reeaal hazy on the details!

Fish and other updates

- The identity of my mystery high school employer named "Molly" remains unknown. I was counting on either my mother or sister to remember this person from my past but they are both at a loss - in fact Kelly even accused me of making her up on my calendar to cover for some clandestine activity. 

Oh ho ho, wouldn't that have been clever! But seriously, that would have been waaaay too sophisticated for 15-year-old Jodi... I was all about the winking smiley face surrounded by hearts back then. 

- Wednesday afternoon I decided to step up my workout routine and try level 2 of the 30-Day Shred. The first half went well and I began to feel kind of impressed with myself. And then the second half came and I died.

Immediately after, I sent Russ the following email:

GOOD... GRAVY... just... finished... level.. 2... 30-day Shred... can't... breathe... help me... Jesus...

*faints*

(but I knew you'd be proud.)

Sweaty & stinky,
Jodi

 

Because even when suffering from workout death I try to impress my husband.

And guess what? I've lost 9 lbs now.

- After promising Cooper OVER A YEAR AGO that I would buy him a couple of goldfish, and putting it off over and over again for reasons that mostly had to do with not wanting to interrupt my grocery shopping to wait around in front of the fish counter for someone to help me, I finally bit the bullet and spent .56 cents on a pair of them at Walmart yesterday. So don't let anyone try to tell you that I don't keep my word... eventually!

I'm crossing my fingers they'll make it in their new fish bowl because I think Cooper was 100% emotionally attached within 2 seconds of meeting and naming them.

And after finishing our book "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" last night, which we've been reading aloud together, I fear we may be in for some drama if they don't survive. The ending was all about how the main character's tiny pet turtle got swallowed by his 3 year old brother (which was actually a really funny scene in the book and not sad at all), and the end result was that he got the puppy he'd always wished for, hurrah! But instead of liking it like Kendall and I did, Cooper declared it the saddest story he'd ever heard and about burst into tears over the death of the poor turtle. 

It was at that moment that I questioned the wisdom of my fish purchase. 

Please live little fishies!

My only hope is that they'll be as hardy as Kendall's fish, Rocky, who is going on 3 years old now. Surely that's not too much to ask, is it?

Stuff we done did Memorial Weekend

(Anyone been watching Swamp People lately? Sorry, but the way the people on that show talk really rubs off on you after a while! I have not been watching by choice, mind you, I just have nowhere else to go when the rest of my family watches back to back episodes on netflix ALL AFTERNOON LONG.)

Anyway, on to the recap. I don't want to drag this out into a long post, and honestly, there is nothing that exciting to tell (or even a picture to document any of the events because I'm a total slacker), so I'll be brief:

- we hung out at Erik and Tricia's Friday night and played cards

- slept in Saturday

- said good-bye to Kendall and Cooper who went off for a day of fun with my Mom and a friend

- went back to bed

- went garage-saleing

- visited our friends Tom and Nicole in their brand new home

- took naps

- went to my parents for the evening and taught Kendall and Cooper how to play Pictionary

- ate pizza

- ate popcorn

- watched the A-Team, again (and still loved it!)

- were exposed to Swamp People on my parents cable

- and just like that Russell was addicted. Seriously addicted.

- On Sunday we went to church

- had Filipino cuisine at a benefit lunch afterwards

- loved it and ate too much

- took more naps

- went to our nephew Elijah's first birthday party

- ate Subway for dinner

- rented 4 movies

- picked up Big Burger shakes (local burger joint - best shakes in town)

- had ourselves a movie marathon!

- On Monday we slept in again

- lazed around some more

- and then decided to clean up a bit

- which led to me tackling our bedroom

- which led to me spending 5 hours going through old stuff in my hope chest and reminiscing about the old days (I get derailed easily).

So to recap the recap: we had a pretty low-key, laid back weekend. And we ate way too much.

And that was our super-awesome-exciting weekend! Okay, minus the exciting, it was still actually super-awesome because it was so relaxing just to hang out with Russ and not have any agenda. For those of you who know Russell, you know how much of a Go-Go-Go person he is. So for him to just relax and not be working on any projects is quite out of the norm, and was really good for him. He got all caught up on sleep and I got all caught up on time with him - it was a win-win :)