One of those Days

Hello everyone...today there will not be any pictures-sorry. I just felt like doing some typing as a form of stress relief, and figured, I could kill 2 birds with one stone by updating this.  Today I was planning my evening trip to town to run errands (making lists & figuring where I all needed to go) & on my list was: make prints of family photos.  We haven't had any professional family pics taken since Brae's been born, and finally decided to do it a few weeks ago.  In an effort to save money (which still seemed to have costed more than I anticipated), I opted for the CD package & thought I'd print some myself.  Well, of course I had the disk in my purse, and now I can't find it.  Now, I'm not blaming Brae yet, but if I set my purse anywhere she can reach it, it's always dumped out & when I pick it all up I just make sure I still have my liscense and check card.  Of course, I should know by now to keep it out of reach, but it's just habit to set it in the entryway & start my car to warm up while we put shoes on & stuff.  Well, to make a long story short, I spent half the morning looking for it & ended up with freezing hands from standing outside digging through bags of trash, toys spilled out everywhere, cause the kids dumped out the toyboxes to help me look for it, and still haven't found it.  I guess it's not that big of a deal, but just big enough to irritate me until I find it!

While digging through the trash, I found a toy & a pajama shirt, and wondered what else goes missing that I don't even notice.  A few weeks ago, we tore the house apart looking for the tv remote, and finally found it in the dumpster.  And I'd say at least she isn't putting toys in the toilet, but she does that too! I can say "at least she doesn't flush toys down the toilet"! Or at least that I know of... but I've found the wii remote among other things floating in the bowl before. I suppose it's only a stage and hopefully a short one, but some days are just more trying than others!

On a cuter note, Braelyn has been copying so many words lately.  She knows: ball, baby, cheese please (cheese peas), nummy, hello (hewwo), poppa, bu-bye, Toga (Goga), puppy, ducky, doggy, uh-oh, owie, mommy :) ,  and all her old ones: hot, daddy, Heidi & uckies.  The cutest one is "thank you", I'm not even sure how she says it, but whenever she repeats me, it's sounds so funny. And her other favorite is "HI", like to everyone we meet while in the stores, and she waves her hand and yells "Hi, Hi, Hi", and I'm not sure if she freaks people out with her persistance, but only about 1 of every 8 adults will reply back with a Hi or Hello! Kids on the other hand, get a kick out of it, and almost always reply!   And whenever she hugs me she makes this noise like "ohhh" and squeezes my neck & lays her head on my shoulder.  Of course every mom has the cutest and smartest kid, but gosh, it's just so fascinating when kids learn new things. :)  And of course if you spend any time with her, you'll think I'm lying because she hardly ever does any of this last paragraph around others! (minus the Hi) :)

Mason is still loving school & yesterday his class got to go to the gym with the older grades and watch what he called a "basketball magic show", as he described it as kids doing tricks with basketballs & bouncing 2 balls at a time & under their legs and stuff.  He thought that was pretty cool.  The teacher sent home a note one day, stating how she just loves being his teacher and he is such a wonderful boy & a good leader!  I thought she maybe handed it to the wrong kid by mistake, but the top read: To Mason & family, so there is proof that kids do act totally different when parents aren't around.  But honestly, I think for the most part, he is a great kid, I just like giving him heck about why he's such a good listener at school and not at home! 

See now that I ended on a positive note, I'm not near as bothered as I was before! :) I suppose I'll have Shane dig through the trash one more time, just in case I missed it, and from there, I'm sure it's bound to show up somewhere!

Another month gone by...

Wow...It's been over a month.  I think about updating quite often, but it requires me to get the camera & cord out of the closet and actually upload pics to the computer, so I kinda put it off.  I usually putz on the computer at naptime, and once I sit down for that peace and quiet time, I really don't feel like getting up! :) Today I must have a little extra ambition!

So, like a month ago we had the Wissota national banquet here in St. Cloud (which is super handy for us). We had a good time, but sort-of were crunched on time because Shane had shot a deer that evening before we went and he left it lay, so we had to go it because it was rather warm out.  I never knew looking for a dead deer at 1am, after a few cocktails could be so entertaining. Thanks Scott for being our sober cab!

The Midwest Mod Group (minus the champ).

 The superstock Group (minus the champ)

 

Shane and Terri

 The Guys

The Gals

 Sidenote: I really liked my dress for the banquet, but boy was my hair awful.  I'm working on the annoying, difficult, never ending easy task of growing my hair out, but it is just taking FOREVER.  I really like pics of me with short hair, and it was so fast to dry and style, but for some reason I just want to wear a stinkin pony tail! I also darkened it more to my natural color so it makes it seem to grow even slower cause you can't see the change in color at the roots! lol :)

The kids haven't been up to a whole of new things.  Mason went on his first snowmobile ride while we had that nice snowstorm a few weeks back.  And I would sure like another one like that before Christmas! :) He's still loving school (and the fact that Grandpa takes him to get a happy meal afterwards), but doesn't like to wake up in the am.  He is into cartoons alot, which is wierd because he used to hate TV (unless it was a shooting movie), and gosh, the commercials are so annoying during Christmas time.  It doesn't matter what I'm doing, or how loud our house is, about every 8 minutes, I hear him yelling "I WANT THAT! MOM, I WANT THAT!" I told him to write down everything he wants, and Santa will pick a few.  He even wants the "Slushy Magic".  And if something comes on that he doesn't want, he blames it on me....for instance, some kind of foam that you spray on showers and it changes from blue to white?? He says "mom, don't you want that? Put it on your list!"  No, son, I don't want scrubbing bubbles for Christmas!!

Braelyn had a visit to the ER one day because she was vomiting ALOT and not eating, and I called the doctor office to see if it pays to bring her in, and they said to take her to the ER.  She had fluids via IV and perked up, so we went home that night.  It was probably some viral bug, and thankfully it only lasted a day.

She just loves to be outside! She doesn't care how cold it is, she will sneak out the back door if the kids leave it cracked open; freezing cement and no shoes (or socks) and doesn't bother her a bit.  Drives me nuts that she won't leave a hat & mittens on (or leave her ponytail in, or leave her shoes on in the carseat, and that she opens drawers and sits in them, and won't go in her carseat without a fight (like a wrestling match type fight) or that she still won't sleep through the night, and that she STILL finds entertainment in digging in toilets, and that she sat on my printer and broke it, and takes my jewelry and loses it), but otherwise she is just as sweet as can be!! :)

Shane did some rifle hunting and is now muzzle loading, and has got 2 doe so far.  Mason hasn't been interested in going with this year, but he likes to go shining if Brae & I go with. I'm hoping him or his dad get at least one more deer so that we can have some more venison for sausage and jerky!

I'd say have a good week, but I'm gonna say "Have a good MONTH, just so that way I"ll have ya covered til next time!! :)

October Recap

For some reason I just haven't been in the mood to blog lately, nor has there been a whole lot going on to write about.  The month of October was spent finishing up the 2011 race season, turning the big "30" for me, turning the big "1" for Brae, a small 4-wheeling trip, halloween, and house cleaning. 

We put our house up for sale two weeks ago (with mixed emotions on if we really want to leave this place or not).  But we found 8.5 acres not far from here and we have needed more land (room for all our crap/toys) for years. The house needs some remodeling, but we love the location/land and it's potential! If our house doesn't sell, we will look at tearing down our garage and building a decent shop (and continue to store stuff at my dads and Shane's grandpas :).  We go back and forth on what the best decision is, but truth is, we will be happy wherever we are!

 We celebrated Braelyn's birthday this past weekend.  She got lots of nice gifts, and by the looks of it, enjoyed her cake!  And oddly, the Vikings won so that made it an even better day for those who continued to watch them after all those losses! 

 We got her a little 4-wheeler for birthday and she knows how to run the throttle, but has no clue how the steering works. So when she crashes into a wall, she keeps it pinned while the tires spin.  Soon she'll be riding with the big boys!

And for Halloween Mason wanted to be a cop (in the worst way), so we forced Brae to be the little Jailbird! Halloween always seems like such a fun and festive ocassion, but this year was pure stress (for Shane and I).  Braelyn whined every time we buckled her up, my shoe broke at the 2nd stop so I went barefoot (yes I was wearing flip flops because it was warm out!), and Mason never wanted to leave the houses when it was time to get going.  We only went to 6 houses, but I was exhausted at the end of the night.  And now we have a crap ton of candy (stuff that the kids got and leftovers from what I set outside for kids who came to our house) that I don't know what to do with.  Shane says "duh, eat it!" Well, Mason's teeth don't need it, nor does it need to sit there and tempt me everytime I walk by the bowl.  And the moms of the daycare kids probably don't appreciate their kids coming home with sugar highs! So if you missed trick or treating, you can come to our house, or it's going in the garbage.

Braelyn likes to grab things out of the fridge when I have it open, and this is how she eats the oranges! If I try to peel it she screams, and she sure is proving that girls are so much more whinier than boys.  But thankfully she's too cute to even care!! :)

Time to Catch Up

Sorry It's been a few weeks since I last wrote...just busy I guess.  The weeks seem short (but the day drags on), and the weekends are even shorter.  Lately my "to-do" list has looked much the same: grocery shop for the weekend, cook & pack for the weekend, go racing, come home, clean out hauler, do laundry...repeat the same for the following weekend.  This week, I added "update blog" so it actually gets done! I am such a "lists" person.  I used to keep a notepad on the counter, and have a list of jobs for each day.  Then when I had too much crossed off it started to look messy, so I'd re-write a new (cleaner looking) one. But then I felt unproductive that day cause I couldn't see all that I had done.  I ditched the notepad and got a whiteboard for the fridge.  Daily chores on one side and extras for this week on the other. Works great!

Ok, so now I'm sure you're thinking "I don't really care about your list obsession, get on with it".... but it got me to update this, and I'm sure you care about that or you wouldn't have read this far. :) Lol!

2 weeks ago we raced at Willmar for their fall festival and final race of the year. I know he won both nights with the superstock, and won 1 of the nights with the B-mod, but the rest I can't remember (must not have been too impressive).  I do remember everyone laughing after Shane raced his A-mod, cause he got out of his car and walked around the front and saw this....

 Look closely and you will see a wrench that rode there the whole race!  DJ must have thought he didn't get enough grief for leaving the fuel cap off! LOL :) I suppose after all his endless help, he's entitled to a few mistakes every now and again! :)

This past weekend we headed up to Good Ole' Bemidji for their final race of 2011.  There's something about the track that you just have to experience for yourself.  Though I wasn't too impressed with the place, I will give props to the pay.  It was below average (compared to other tracks we race) for the first place position, but the pay from 2nd on down, I was quite surprised with.  Compared to the previous weekend, Shane took home almost double from Bemidji, with similar finishes.  

Mason started school a few weeks back, and has really adjusted well and loves it! He cried at first because he didn't want me to leave, nor does he like waking up at 8am, but now he runs right in!  They emphasize on social & life skills rather than so much academic (which will be overwhelming come kindergarten anyway...so I appreciate that they let them be kids)! He really enjoys playing with his new friends and his favorite part of the day is songs and outside!

 This was the first day as I was walking out...He was sad :(

 I walked around the corner of the hall, and peeked in through the window, and he was already fine, clapping and talking to the teacher!  I could sit and watch through that window all day if I could! It's so fun watching him answer questions, wait his turn, and play with others.  He's like a different kid when I'm not around, so it's fun to be there when he thinks I'm not there!

And on the way home!

Braelyn hasn't been doing much new... She turned 11 months last week.  We never put shoes on her before, but now that she is walking, I've been putting them on her, which she's had to adjust to walking with objects on her feet. She loves dancing and hates going on walks.  I always have good intentions of going on my 3 mile route, but she's done after a half mile, so we make the 1 mile loop and head home.  A new gym opened up in Rice, so I might have to take advantage of that! It's either that, or have another baby and breast feed til I die, because I'm really missing my breast-feeding body (ear muffs, dad...Lol!)...easy weight loss and big boobs. :)  And I've lost most motivation for at-home workouts.  I need a change of pace.

That's all for now...Get out and enjoy this beautiful weather! Hopefully it sticks around for the weekend!

Wissota 100

I will give a quick run-down of the Wissota 100 from this past week out in Huron, SD... Quick becuase I didn't snap a single pic and right now I'm too tired to think...I'm guessing I just still haven't caught up on sleep yet...And it didn't help any when we went to bed at 9pm on Sunday and Braelyn thought she should wake up at least 10 times throughout the night. (No, I'm not exaggerating!)  So I took her in Monday evening to have her ears checked, and the doc said everything looked good.  She woke up Monday morning with a bloody nose (probably from the dry air and furnace on), and she's had a stuffy/runny nose for a week, so I thought something was up, but NOPE! no ear infection, tubes looked great, and throat was fine.  So I put a humidifier in her room and she slept all night last night! Thank God!

But anyway, back to the Wissota 100... Let me just warn you that I could be wrong on some of these, and i'm too lazy to look it up! (scratch that-I can't even remember his heats) And besides, the format is so dang confusing for most people to understand, so I will just say that he made the feature with all 3 cars.  You race your heat, then a qualifying feature, then the top 12 from the qualifying feature (each night) go to the big feature.  He finished 4th in the mwm feature, 11th in the super, and DNF'd in the mod.  He did pick up a win in the Race Of Champions with the mwm, so at least we went home with a little money.  And by home, I mean, spent waayy more than we made :(  The weekend was hard on everyone's wallet (I think Buzzy Adams, Lance Matthees, & Tim Johnson made out alright though ;).  The track ate tires like candy, the 10 hour round trip does a number on hauler fuel, and there's ALOT of racing (wear and tear on car, fuel) that takes place just to try to earn a spot in the money-paying show.  We had fun and enjoyed our "mini vaca" (other than the cold temps), but are glad to be home!

Harvest Cup Weekend

Regular weekly racing has come to an end, and from Labor Day on, is weekend specials (or week long, as is the case this coming week).  This past weekend was racing at Ogilvie Raceway for their annual Harvest Cup.  It wasn't the best finishes, but it was an improvement compared to how he normally finishes there!  Shane has never done all that well at Ogilvie...Not sure if he just can't figure out how to set the car up for that track, or if he needs to change how he drives there, or maybe just more laps around it would help! But anyway...typically he goes backwards in the feature, so it was a nice change to actually move forward (or hold about the same position)!! It is good to make progress!!

Friday night he finished 4th with the mwm, 8th with the super, and 10th with the A-mod.  Saturday he finished 2nd with the mwm, 3rd in the super, and 11th with the A-mod. 

Mason and Braelyn both like helping on the cars now!!  Mason puts the axel caps back on, and Brae's favorite thing to do is to put lug-nuts in her mouth & play in the tire grinding dust...both YUCK! 

This week we will be going to Huron, SD for the Wissota 100.  It's always a good time, but not too excited for the 5 hour drive...Oh, wait!.. a 5 hour nap...I can handle that!! The kids will be staying with my parents and sisters, because late nights and B's 7 o'clock wake up call make for a long day!  It's not unusual for racing to go from 5pm til midnight, and my kids don't even like watching the races.  They love to go with (play in the dirt & run around on the wheeler), but watching...not so much. Braelyn hates her earmuffs and won't leave them on, and Mason is always "boorrreedd" and wants to go back to the trailer!

On another note, Brae had tubes put in her ears a couple weeks ago, and as we IMPATIENTLY waited in our room, I decided to walk the halls (hoping to get her mind off of wanting a bottle/food, since you can't have anything after midnight).  As we were walking back I noticed what room we were in.......

Kinda funny!!

Mighty Axe Weekend

Sorry I forgot to do an update last week, kind-of slipped my mind, I guess! Yesterday would've been a good day to sit down and write, but we all sort-of slept the day away...T'was a long weekend of late nights! Friday we drove to Grand Rapids, MN for a special they had (my first time there since the short tracker days!).  Shane finished 2nd in the mwm, won with the super, and 14th with the A-mod.  We spent the night there and headed to Brainerd in the morning for their Mighty Axe Nationals.  Saturday, we won the feature in all three classes (mwm, super, and mod) and took home 3 axes (instead of the typical trophy, they give golden axes)! Sunday he ended up winning two of the features (mwm & super) and took 2nd in the A-mod! It turned out to be more than we ever expected, and we can't thank everyone who helped out enough!!  Thank you to all our crew! From changing trannys, drawing such good starting positions (which is half the battle), and getting the cars ready to go, you all are appreciated! 

 Mason won the pace car ride on Sunday night!

This was well after the races, but as you can see, the dirt particles are everywhere and pretty much ruins all the pics!

And the best part of the weekend was coming home and picking up Braelyn from my sister, and seeing that she had learned to walk! She was doing 5-6 steps before the weekend, but now she is walking the whole length of the house.  Mason was about the exact same age when he started walking (10 months), and hasn't been able to sit still since.  Let's hope she is a tad more mellow than him, but so far, no such luck!  (Not sure if the video will load)