Brae is getting so big!

Braelyn can now sit by herself without us helping her!  She definitely isn't as much of a "Go-Getter" as her brother was at this age, but that's fine by me! We try to prop her up on all four, but she just rocks back and forth til she does a face-plant! :)

Mason went to say goodnight and came out telling me he covered her up!  I don't know if he thought she was cold, but he piled 5 blankets on top of her! :)  --She has always loved sleeping on her tummy (most kids do), but I don't recommend it (you should put Baby to sleep on their back).  We have a SIDS monitor that alarms if no movement is detected, and that eases my mind some.

One of the few days that it was actually nice out this Spring...

--Hoping we can ditch the snowsuit one of these days! :)

 We've started solid foods (not sure why they call them solids, when they're as runny/messy as ever! She loves to grab all of our food and put it in her mouth, but will lock her lips shut when baby food comes near her! I trick her with a piece of puffcorn to get food in :)  I've been dehydrating venison jerky the past couple days, so she's been gnawing on that as well.

Poor girl has a blue nukie in her crib, a blue carseat/stroller and blue highchair... No wonder people make comments, like "he's so cute!" or "how old is he?"   Whoops!! :)

Car Pics

I think I have pics of the A-mod somewhere on here, but here's a look at the others....

Midwest Mod

 Superstock

A-mod

Today is the first race of the year (at Elko Speedway).  Shane, DJ & Jared are on their way now and it's currently like 38* and raining there.  Perfect for opener racing...NOT! I think with the rising fuel cost, we need to reevaluate this traveling deal when the radar looks iffy :/

Coupon addiction?

This is a wierd/random post - I know! But I thought it would help hold me accountable for what I intend to do.... Not buy another grocery item (except produce and dairy) until both freezers and the pantry are emptied (or at least have some room in them)!

 I starting using coupons at the beginning of the year, because a friend had a new years resolution to only buy items that were on sale or had a coupon.  She recently started a blog (that I have yet to read, but will later today).   You can check it out by clicking HERE for money saving tips!  Last night I saved $84 with grocery coupons!!!! It has made me so much more aware of the value of $1.50.....for instance, once I got home and realized I had a $1.50 coupon that I forgot to give the cashier, and I actually debated going back with my receipt and coupon (another day I was in town-not to waste gas).  Shane said "you're worked up over $1.50? I'll give you a damn $1.50 if that helps!" LOL :)  But saving money just has a good feel to it!!

 Back to my post though.... I have managed to take it a little out of hand by buying too much! It is all things we will eat (eventually), but I now have food stored in my laundry room because my pantry isn't big enough.  The other 'downfall' is most coupons are for not-so-healthy foods. This isn't a big problem being that I need to purchase food for daycare kids, but I don't always have the will power to choose my 3 egg whites for breakfast over an Eggo waffle with lots of syrup or bowl of sugary cereal :/   I thought about going healthy and organic in our entire house, to win the battle of unhealthy urges, but my checkbook can't afford to do that for 12 people. 

The other thing with coupons, is sometimes knowing I'm getting a good deal makes me buy things I normally wouldn't buy--like pop.  I haven't bought pop or juice in months but it was super cheap with coupons, so I stocked up.  So saving money actually cost me money because I wouldn't have normally purchased it.  However, the other day DJ said "what happened to the good ole days when I could open the fridge and grab a pop :)?!" Lately his choices are water or milk, so with racing season around the corner, maybe it's not a bad idea to stock up for the trailer cooler!!  (and me and Mason used to have a nightly tradition of Root beer freezes....now we can make it a weekly treat)!

Other news:

•  Braelyn turned 5 months old last week.  Nothing real new with her. 
• Mason is no longer 'addicted' to Mario Bros on the wii, and he actually rode 4-wheeler for hours on Sunday. 
• The race cars are coming along...although it's fine that they have been pushed back a week to allow more time.
• I put in an order for racing T-shirts this year, will let you know when they come in (early May is my guess).

~Have a wonderful rest of the week!

Day off

Today I had a glimpse of the 'good life'...a day off during the week! (FYI: My life is the 'good life'...today was just a bit better!) I've been having 8 kids everyday full time now, but today, most were not scheduled to come, so I took Mason & Sky to their great grandma's & I took Braelyn to the doctor for stupid thrush & ran some errands. The weather was beautiful and I just wanted to drive around all day with the sun shining [my new car has 2 sunroofs ;)] and radio playing! And the baby never fussed in the car at all (she typically hates her carseat!)  I've realized a couple downfalls of not taking her to daycare/working out of the home.....1) she's not a good traveler since we don't do it regularily, & 2) she doesn't like new people.  She freaks out at the sight & voice of new people-It takes her a while to warm up.  I think if she went to a different daycare she would adapt better... Unfortunately, she has no choice :)  The plus side of not bringing her (& Mason) to daycare....Every Friday I envinsion my paycheck to be $225 higher, because money saved is money earned, right??!!

She's had a couple 'milestones' this past week... She learned how to roll. Right off the couch. She first did this last Sunday when I was gone, and Shane texted me that she did it but he caught her with his foot. Then, I made the mistake of putting her there while I made lunch for the kids, and Mason yelled that she rolled off again. Right onto her face...Ouch. I have yet to SEE her roll, but everytime I go in her room in the morning, she's not the way I put her. Nor is she in the same spot! The next wasn't a milestone, just another major mishap. We took a walk last night (her first time in the stroller) and when we got home I had her waiting by the door while Shane & I chopped the ice dam so water would flow off the driveway. Well, I didn't lock the brake so Mason had her pushed off the steps and upside down. Thankfully, they put 5 point harnesses in strollers nowadays! She never made a peep, and seemed content with the blood rushing to her head!

Last weekend we spent the night at the waterpark with Shane's family.  Last year Mason wasn't brave enough to go down the BIG slides, but this year he was.  He had a blast and was proud that he tried it!  Braelyn isn't much of a swimmer, yet!

Racing is just 3 weeks away...Gosh, I'm not sure if I'm ready for the madness to begin.  I am ready for the warm spring weather & not being so bored on weekends though, I guess! 

Frustrating....

This post is accidental and out of pure frustration! Remember several weeks back I wanted to smash this bleepin computer? Well, I took it back and she did a clean-up on it (although why should a new computer require clean-up? It's new for cripes sake) Nobody remodels or repairs a new house a week after being built!  But anyway, since then, I haven't been able view music videos (or any video) on youtube, which I got by without, until this morning when I'd like to load pics onto snapfish & craigslist and realized I couldn't do that either.  So I thought I'd see if blogger would upload pics.  Well, of course the one thing that is not on my 'to do list' today, works! Oh joy.... :( In all my anger, I am at least thankful that today is Monday. Because the computer place that I bought this from is open late on Mondays (they usually close at 5pm & I can't make it)! Hooray for me! Sorry for her!

So here's a few things that make me smile....

(her dimples) :)

 (her wide open smile)

 This makes her teeth happy...her little chew toy!

Speaking of her teeth... Braelyn was a bear on Friday.  She wouldn't eat very well, and wouldn't sleep either.  She'd lay down, sleep for 5 mins and wake up screaming in pain.  I decided to take her to express care (which I rarely do), thinking she must have an ear infection that's causing her to scream.  NOPE! The doc said her ears were beautiful and her throat looked fine.  So all he could think was maybe her teeth hurting her.  Who knows?..she was fine from that night on. I even told her to not wake up until after 9am, cause momma was going to sleep in, & she listened! (of course we were up at 5am for a quick 15 min visit)

My boys building a snow fort!

Ok, I'm better now!!! :)

Snowmobiling

I mentioned earlier that Shane was doing a vintage snowmobile race.  He finished 6th out of 50 sleds in his class, and was awarded an "iron man" trophy for ridin out all 100 miles himself. He couldn't walk the next day, but it was fun!  Thanks to DJ, Neil, Bubba, Keith & Greg for all their help on raceday and getting it ready!

To my suprise, the snowmobile held up...my early prediction was it would only make a few laps and was bound to break!

Unfortunately, Bubba's did not hold up..... :( 

 And they're off...(well, waiting for the first group to take off)

Last weekend we took a snowmobiling trip to Tower, MN.  The cabin is out on island of Lake Vermillion, so we had to pull our luggage/food behind a snowmobile to get there.  In the summer they use boat, and to build it they had the materials hauled out by barge.  Kinda neat.  The cabin itself and the view were spectacular!  We had some great riding, and great relaxing! Definitely didn't want to come home (other than to see my kiddos)!  Thanks Butch for the hospitality!!

 Enjoying the fireplace and some drinks!

Pics of the babe....

She is trying her hardest to roll over, but just can't get there.  She tried so hard she fell asleep in this position!

And as big as he is, he's never too big to fall asleep on dad! I put Braelyn to bed last night and came out to them sound asleep!

No photos

Because this started out as a racing updates blog, I suppose I should of updated how racing in Arizona went (over a week ago)! Well, not the greatest, that's for sure.  The first night Shane wrecked...to the point of unfixable. (Well, fixable, but not something you can fix at the racetrack in your trailer).  So they offered him to drive another car that they had down there.  Pretty trusting people to give ya a second chance after you just demolished the first one :)  A guy in front of Shane blew up his engine, so Shane slowed up and a car behind him got into the back of him and he hit wall pretty good.  He made the feature the first 2 nights and on the 3rd night, had issues with handling and something leaking (IDK)....so they parked the car for the remainder of the weekend.  On the up-side.....the weather was beautiful (or so they say)!! Sunny & Warm with not a cloud in sight!! A tad chilly when the sun went down though.  Now if only I can find a way to get more vacation time out of my job! :)

I bought a new laptop, and being I know NOTHING about computers, I took the advice of the saleswomen at a family owned company and bought one for $650.  She said it had "x" amount of ram, GB, yada, yada, etc. and it was quite a bit more than my $400 pile that crashed.  Well, wouldn't ya know it, I liked my cheaper one better.  Not to mention, this thing I'm currently on is SLOW and often says "internet explorer cannot display the webpage".  Frustrating to the point that I sometimes want to smash it with a hammer (like mid purchase of online shopping) :)  Anyway, I will be returning this one, or exchanging it or something, so I won't be uploading any pics to this computer. Sorry!

Braelyn is growing so fast... She is turning into a little chunker with legs like her momma (short and chubby ;)  Although I do have to add that I'm pretty proud of myself for sticking to my workout routine and staying away from fast food (except Subway).  We used to eat McDonalds at least 3 times a week, and just not eating there, and doing a half-hour workout a day has helped me drop the baby fat.  Shane and I have both dropped 10 pounds since December, but now I just have to figure out a way to lose the extra skin :/

Mason is currently addicted to Super Mario Bros, both on the Wii and his DS.  We have a rule that he cannot play during daycare hours, but he would definitely choose to play ALL DAY if we let him. Hopefully it's just a phase, and he's not a permanent video game junkie. :) 

Shane's been working on a vintage snowmobile to race in Detroit Lakes the beginning of February.  We also have a weekend snowmobile trip planned for mid february.  Other than that, we haven't been up to a whole lot- just watching B (Braelyn) learn new things (like how to eat her whole fist, giggle when shes ready to cry, and starting to grab at things).  I know it sounds like the pettiest things, but if you have kids, you'll understand!  That's all for now!