Closing of 2008

Dunno why I chose that title, but 2008 is just about gone and we are going to be spending the rest of the year with my sister and her family....go figure. I am so grateful for my family and friends and I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! See you in 2009.......oh how wierd that sounds. That means Chris and I have been together 20 years (do not laugh) and it also means I have been out of high school for 20 years (yes I know I am old).

Everyone have a safe New Year's Eve and have a Happy New Year!

Lost it........

Do you ever wonder how we get through the day and remember what we did, how we did it or what we did with it. Well, Bree asked if she could use my triffle bowl from Pampered Chef. I went looking for it and remembered that I had loaned it out to someone and I cannot remember who that someonewas.

So if anyone out there has an extra triffle bowl and they are willing to return it I would be very grateful. If they want to they can also fill it with something yummy:)

Thanks and I very much appreciate it!

8 years ago....

Rachel was coming into this world.....I was in shock.......Chris just was not sure what to do! I was doing flips on the bed from my hands and knees to my back. The nurse just could not figure out how I was doing that......go figure.......you do anything you need to do to be comfortable!

Chris's dad had just had a 5 bypass surgery 5 days before and him and Lorene were in Columbia along with Chris's sister and my niece. My mom and sister (Kathy) were at the hospital with Chris and I.

When we arrived at the hospital at 8:30 a.m. it was 50 degrees, after we had Rachel it was about 20 degrees (you know how it was this Sunday)!

Rachel Kathyrn (named after my sister Kathy) decided to enter this world at 11:43 a.m. I was not sure about having a baby a month early, but we welcomed her with open arms and now look at how much she has grown!

Calling Santa

You know when you have had it for the day and you have to use that phrase "do you want me to call Santa?" Well I had to use that last night as the girls and I were getting ready for bed. Laying in bed Haley was still crying after getting in trouble saying in a hurtful way that she was happy her cousin Samantha was leaving (you would think those two were sisters the way they bicker between themselves) and then crying because she had to take a bath (you know that relaxing thing I would love to do every night) and crying more because she was going to bed (7:30 p.m., yes my kids were going to bed early)! Mind you this was 45 minutes of crying and I had had enough!

Rachel on the other hand likes to be the big mother-type figure and cause problems between the younger ones. She does not like it when Samantha and Haley are playing just fine and not including Rachel. Then there is Zachary and he will follow Rachel around like a puppy just doing what she is doing, so there is always a screaming child because of this or that.

I begin to wonder who the mother is in the house between Rachel and I......pretty bad when you have to compete between an 8-year-old and myself. I am always telling her that there is an adult in the house and it is not her.

Okay back to my story. We were laying in bed and Haley was still fussing and Rachel and I were talking about her actions with the kids and not listening to me or Kathy. We were talking about Santa and how he was watching them and how he was not happy with their actions or their listening ears. I said that I would have to call Santa and that one of his elves answered the phone for him and would give him the message that he needed to check his list again for our house. Well Rachel being the smarty pants that she is wanted to know how I knew Santa's phone number. I stated that being a mom we knew these things. That was not good enough for Rachel, so she asked me what his phone number was. I had to think of a good come back on that one and so his new phone number is 1-800-Santa......Yes I know it is short a little bit, but she did not pick up on that.

So both the girls told me that they would be double good this week so I would not have to call Santa. They are suppose to be on their best behavior, we will have to see how they do. I have also told them that Santa will be taking presents away if they cannot behave, so hopefully I have scared them enough that they will shape up a little bit.

Oh what we have to do as parents to get a little bit of sanity....... Happy Holidays!

Do we have to.......

That is what I heard when I asked the girls to put on their Christmas dresses and and act like they like getting their picture taken.... They finally got dressed and found the santa hats that I had forgot about (could not resist the hats, even though I did not plan on them having hats on, but they are cute). They put on these smiles that I cannot resist, after I stuffed them under the tree to get this pose! Yes they did not think it was the greatest idea, but decided it would be okay. They hammed it up for the camera just fine for the first picture, but after that I had to work with them a bit.....oh well after all was said and done the first picture that I took was the best one! Whew it was hard work and I was sweating and a little frusturated after we were done, but you know how it is when you are looking for that perfect picture for the Christmas card, well this is what I got! Enjoy!

Casey......the soldier

This is Casey Thompson, my nephew that was deployed yesterday. I just needed to add his picture so everyone could see who I was talking about. When Chris and I started dating years ago (that would be almost 20 years ago) Casey was 3 months old. By the time he was 6 months old we called him the Michelin Man cuz he had so many chub rolls.......oh my gosh did he have the chub.....so funny. Now he is all grown up and not so chubby!

The call......

So I finished my work for the morning getting ready for lunch and my dear husband told me that his nephew Casey had called and was getting ready to load on a plane to head for Baghdad, Iraq. He is in the Military Police so he will be down in the thick of everything. I kind of freaked out and tried to call him and it went to his answering machine....I gave him a quick I love you and be careful and call or email when you can.

Well I went to get some food and in the meantime he had left a message to call back quick as they would be loading in 10 minutes. I frantically called him back and he was in the middle of taking the platoon picture (group picture) so he called me back and we had a quick chat. He sounded a little excited, nervous, ugh I am so not looking forward to this next year, but hopefully it will go as quick as his brother's did (Derek just came home last Tuesday, November 25, 2008).

I love our freedom, but dang it I wish we did not have to fight for it like we are now! God Bless the USA and God bless all the men and women serving for our country!

Shopping...

Well I did not brave Black Friday as some did......I am not patient enough for the rudeness of some of the shoppers.......Kathy and I went to Des Moines on Saturday for our shopping. We were suppose to leave Ottumwa at 8:30 a.m., I arrived at 8:45 (yes late, go figure) and her mother-in-law was not there yet.....ugh frusturating. Anyway we finally got out of town at 10 a.m. which put us an hour and a half behind on shopping! We started our shopping spree at 11 a.m. when the snow started falling......yes tis that time of the year.....ugh not while I am 2 hours away from home driving a boat that is only 2-wheel drive! Well we shopped and shopped and ate and shopped and came home with a load full of stuff, tell me what I do not know but the suburban was full of bags:)

We had a little bit of a show down with a snowplow and the suburban and I was afraid the burb was going to lose, but low and behold we came out ahead (after I about freaked out and tried not to hit the brakes on a ice/snow covered road at 9 p.m.)! We figured the snowplow hit a patch of slush and floated way over on our side of the road as we were trying to go around him as he was running maybe 20 mph (yes I know follow the snowplow, but it would have been 2 a.m. before we got home if we did that)!

So I made it home safely and after lots of hugs and loves from the girls the next morning we had to go play in the snow (like I was not for playing in the snow either)! The girls pulled out the saucer sleds and I pulled out the massive yellow beast, a.k.a. the 4-wheeler, I pulled the girls around the yard loving it as I am not the work horse like I have been in the past. After a few dumps and getting ran over by Rachel, Haley decided to ride on the 4-wheeler with me. Rachel did not want to give up, so we pulled her around more and went a little faster, oh the squeals of joy!

We are back to our usual routine this morning, but the bus was 10 minutes late which put the rest of us behind and then the car had to be warmed up and scraped off as the garage is full of stained doors (yes doors that have been hung undone for 6 years). We are trying to finish up those undone projects that keep hanging over us.......

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving and a wonderful Monday!

Can you believe it!

Can you believe that gas prices have dropped like they have? I just put gas in my truck at $1.86 a gallon and it dropped to $1.85 right after that. Yes is all I can say. It sure beats $4 a gallon and $160 to fill my truck!

I forgot......

And I forgot to include that I helped paint at Andrea's house on Saturday. It is so exciting to see someones home come together. I stopped by Andrea's house last night to see how the paint looked after drying and all the touch ups turned out and for all that were involved with the painting pat yourselves on your back......awsome job guys! The flooring that Vance and Jared are going to put down is very neat.......okay can I redo my whole house........you know to make it seem new again.....LOL!

Slowed down

Yes I am still here or I should say we are still around. Soccer season is finished! Rachel made two goals the last game. Haley was hit in the face with the soccer ball, but then went out and chased the ball and felt better about getting angry at that ball that hit her in the face.

We had parent/teacher conferences last week and Rachel is cruising along in her different subjects. She has an A- in math and that is because she flew through one of her tests and missed 12 problems because she was trying to be the first one done.........well it hurt her grade a little, but she learned her lesson!

Rachel had Future Cheerleading Camp last week and cheered at the game last Friday. She definitely showed her spirit........go Rachel! Haley received her own pom-poms and showed her spirit too. When I asked her if she wanted to be a cheerleader she smiled and said "definitely."

Both girls are growing out of everything. Shoes, clothes, socks, coats..........ah and Haley cannot wear Rachel's hand-me-downs as Haley is almost as big as Rachel.........so much for saving Rachel's clothes for Haley.......Rachel will be wearing Haley's hand-me-downs before long! So we did a shopping trip to Ottumwa last night and bought new tennis shoes (after mom has learned to buy the girls what I like to wear, cuz the cute shoes are not feasible when it comes to walking and playing in them cuz the girls are too darn clumsy and trip and fall in the cutesy shoes.......lesson learned by mom)!

I am wanting to change out the hardware in my kitchen as the handles we have like to reach out and grab you and I have torn a few pants from those handles and I am tired of it. BUT my husband is too opinionated about things and does not like what I have picked out, so it is the battle of two hard headed people to figure out what we will settle on for new hardware............he likes the handles that you can just reach straight down and pull out and I like the handles that have the curved arch and covered in pulls (I will take pics and show you what I mean later). Whatever we settle on it will be better than what we have!

So the races are over too! We were rained out Friday night and Saturday we had 162 cars and the races were over by 1 a.m. Too late, but a lot of cars and a lot of crazy drivers. We had a few roll overs, but all drivers were okay. It was fun this time and it was nice to have the extra help! That took a lot of stress off of Chris and I both. I told him though that I did not want to promote any race tracks next year, it is not and will not be my cup of tea but you know me I will do what my husband needs me to do!

So as I type this bit of my life that has happened over the last three weeks I am waiting to start my day of work. We have no work for me to do (which is freaking frustrating) and I can do some housework that needs to be done (do not really want to but should). The house is quiet (until I turn on Carrie Underwood) and I am going to enjoy my little bit of time alone! Hope everyone has a wonderful week and Happy Halloween! I will post pics of the girls outfits (when I figure out how to post pics)!

Made it through the weekend!

We made it through the weekend with the help of friends, family and others that were asked to help. Definately was a busy weekend. It started off Friday with Chris, his dad and I all going to the race track to touch up the mowing and weedeating and Chris working on the track. By dark I had enough weedeating, the mosquitos had come out (the size of I dunno what but they were freaking huge) and Chris had started watering the track with the help of Kevin (they call him tiny, but he is one tall dude). Jim and I finally left and left Chris at the track, Trent (a friend) went to get him later on (about midnight).

Saturday brought us to the girls soccer game. Haley was chasing the ball around, got a good kick and put it in the goal (huge smile on her face). Then she was the goalie and she stopped the ball from getting in. Yeah Haley!

Rachel's game was on the other field (Emma (Haley's friend) told me to keep one eye on Haley and one eye on Rachel, hate to tell her I am not that coordinated:) Rachel did good getting the ball when she finally caught up with it, but pooped out from running. They put her in the goal box and she let a ball slip by her (darn).

Then off to the house for lunch and waiting for Julia (my built in babysitter) to come watch the girls and Kathy's kids so we could head to the race track. Kathy was running late and we did not get to the track until 2:30 when the pits open at 3 p.m. Chris was calling and stressing me out cuz there were race cars there already and Kathy was grouchy cuz she was behind, not a way to start.

Well we started letting cars in the pits and at 5 p.m. we had 115 cars in the pits. That is a darn good count for the first time of putting on a show! We started racing at 6:15 and was done at 11:15 roughly. I do not know exactly what time it was, but that is what I have been told. I got to watch a total of 10 minutes of the races as both races were my brother-in-laws and he ended up second (yeah Mike).

Kathy, Heidi (Trent's wife) and I were in charge of counting the money and putting money in the envelopes to pay the racers for their finishing spots. Well at one time all three of us had the hottest pants in the joint.......lol. We had to put the cash somewhere:)

So the races were over, everyone had left and Chris and I finally made it to bed at 3 a.m. Sunday morning. The girls were up at 8 a.m. and I felt like I had the biggest hangover. We were dead tired all day long......UGH was it all worth it......I dunno but we are going to do it again Oct. 17 and 18th for a two day show..........are we crazy..........YES!!!

Thank goodness it is not an every weekend occurance. It has taken me until today to feel human again......old age........no sleep.......young kids do not work well.

Anyway this week has been a run fest still with my nephew coming through on Tuesday for a quick sleep over before he left for his parents house in Kansas. Casey will be leaving for Iraq like I stated before and it was nice to see him again before he left.

It has been cool this week and trying to find pants to fit Rachel has not been a good experience. Tuesday morning I finally found a pair of pants that would fit. Wednesday morning we missed the bus because I could not find anything. She would try something on and then on to the next pair. Six pairs later she found something that would fit. Guess I really need to go through her drawers again. She must have went through a growth spurt or something.......UGH! So Old Navy.com to the rescue and I have ordered two pairs of pants for $12.50 a piece, and me a shirt too.....

So it is Thursday and we have soccer tonight, soccer game saturday, Chris is gone all day saturday for a junk/swap sale in Cedar Rapids and then Sunday is going to the pumpkin patch/corn maze in LaPlata for Girl Scouts and then Monday........does anyone know where the weekends go? I wonder that a lot!

Busy!

This is an understatement....It has been a busy 2 weeks! We have been running to soccer practice twice a week and last weekend had a garage sale which I earned a whopping $150 which I have spent already on groceries and gas......UGH! I think I have traumatized the girls as they keep asking me if I am going to garage sale this toy or that toy....maybe I had better keep them out of the decision making of what toy goes next.

We finished up with the garage sale at about 2 p.m., cleaned up and headed to the race track in Memphis to see what my dad and Chris had accomplished on the track. Dad has not ran a maintainer (sp?) for 27 years, but Chris gave him the confidence to try and so therefore dad was in heaven. It took him about 15 minutes to remember how (you know when you have not rode a bike forever and then get back on)! When we arrived at the track (mom, Kathy and her kids, me and my kids) dad was just finishing up on the track work. You talk about the biggest grin I had seen on my dad's face. That was the reward of the day!

The kids, mom, dad, Kathy, Chris and I walked around the track trying to find treasures (LOL) and anything that did not need to be on the track (i.e. rocks, pieces off race cars, etc.) I found a wratchet (Snap-On...yeah for me or I mean Chris). We all found all kinds of stuff that had to be thrown off. Rachel found a string and a piece of metal and had to make a pull rope. She was tickled and that kept her busy! Kathy and I then took the weedeater and mower and trimmed and mowed around the inside of the race track in turns 1 and 2. Talk about sore the next morning, we are wimps!


So to this week we have had Girl Scouts sign up, my nephew was in town for a couple of days (he is in the Army, 82nd Airborne and is leaving for Iraq in October..SCARRY...his brother is already in Iraq...UGH). The girls had soccer practice on Tuesday, oh that is Rachel practiced and Haley practice her whining! She states she was thinking about practicing, but then told grandma that I told her she could not practice (think she has an issue?)! She ended up really frustrating me so we headed to the suburban early to wait for Rachel to finish practice. The crying started to get louder and louder as we head to the truck. She had everyone looking and wondering what was going on, it is awful to be in trouble! I hate making them cry, but enough is enough!

So now it is Thursday and I forgot I had a hair appointment (not good when you look like a hairy ape) and we have soccer practice tonight which Haley has stated she is going to participate tonight (I think the walk to the truck did her good, thanks Andrea for the confidence talk with the library incidence as Haley knew exactly what was coming when I started to leave the field on Tuesday)!

Chris has been running all week trying to get sponsors for a race that he is having in October. He is heading to the race track tomorrow to help get it ready for Saturday. I will go over after Rachel gets home from school tomorrow to finish weedeating and mowing what I want mowed to make it look better (since I am a little picky when it comes to making the grass look good.....go ahead and say I am off my rocker, but.....).

Saturday is the race that Chris has been working toward happening and seeing how this race goes so he knows what to expect for the race in October. The anticipation is killing me and Chris said his nerves are on end, but I think all in all things will be fine. I am excited to see what kind of support Chris has for this race (there is always a butt in a group of people that will say/stir up something, but it will be okay)!

Enough rambling. I will update you next week on the race events and see if I can figure out how to post some pics of things happenings in our lives. Have a wonderful weekend! Smile, the sun is shining and it is a beautiful day!

Well.........

It is another Wednesday, the sun is shining, the neighbor is mowing, I am finishing up my day with work still trying to figure out what to cook for supper and waiting for Chris to come home, other than that nothing much on the home front.

Rachel has learned her lesson about taking things into her own hands, school is going good for her and she is ready for soccer to start!

Haley is excited about soccer, but keeps questioning when they are going to go....LOL! Guess she does not realize that this crazy weather has screwed up a lot!

The race that Chris has been planning for this weekend probably will not happen. The rain has taken care of that. It is suppose to rain for the next three days, so that means we will be trying to get the race scheduled on September 27th which is also my sister's (Kathy) B-day. We will have to sing happy birthday to her over the intercom and have a cake for her........she will love me for that....

Hopefully we will get to have soccer practice and the game on Saturday, I have my fingers and toes crossed as I do enjoy watching the kids learning how to do the different things and their competitiveness.

Okay off to figure out what to do for supper......everyone have a wonderful evening!

Hump Day

Well it is hump day and I am sitting here trying to be good and do my work. It is raining and cold and it is just not thrilling me!

Well so far this week we spent most of the weekend with Kathy and her kids. Kathy took my kids home with her Sunday night and the girls really enjoyed that. Haley has never stayed at Aunt Kathy's and she was thrilled to do it. Kathy said she had a visitor in her bed at about 4 a.m., but that is usual for Haley.

I had to work and Chris had to work on his things for the race.

Monday we spent the morning working and then went to Ottumwa to pick up the girls.

Tuesday was trying to get back into routine, but who knows what routine is. Rachel on the other hand decided that she wanted a friend to come over. I had told her numerous times "NO" and I meant no. Well she decided to call this friend and make arrangements for her to come over without me knowing. Her friend showed up at 4:50 p.m., yes that is way too late for a school night. Me not knowing what to say to the mother told her that I would have her child home at 6. Well yes I should have scolded Rachel right then and there, but I was in denial that she had disobeyed my orders. I did not know at that time that Rachel had made the phone call. Anyway after a call to a mother/teacher (yes thank you Andrea) I decided that she would be punished with no TV and no ice cream because those are our things we usually do after supper. Well I had a meeting to go to for 2nd grade parents/teachers so we could see what the kids are doing in class and what they expect from the students/parents. Anyway Chris was on the phone with race stuff, I cooked supper and had to leave. I had no time to tell Chris what had happened.

Needless to say when I got home after the meeting they were watching TV and having ice cream. Rachel was in the middle of her's and I promptly asked Chris to turn the TV off and Rachel had to give me her ice cream. Her eyes were huge when she had to explain to her dad what she did. He was a little bit surprised at her knowing what the telephone number was to call her friend (thank you to caller ID showing up on the TV)! She had to go take a bath, finish her homework and to bed she went. She was upset about the ice cream, not too bad about the TV, but frustrated she had to go right to bed.

Chris wants me to make her miss soccer practice Thursday, but I on the other hand think the point was made. Any thoughts on that one?

So today is Wednesday and we will see what today brings. Hope everyone has a wonderful hump day!!

Ahhhh It's The Weekend

Well Saturday is finally here and I am more tired then I have been all week. Yes I stayed up too late last night and it is going to haunt me the rest of the weekend. I dunno if that is the sign of I am getting TOO OLD to stay up late or what, but like I said it WILL haunt me...

Chris was planning on going to the races at Bloomfield to talk to people about the race that he is promoting at Memphis that he is going to run with the help of his loving family and friends that have volunteered to help him. My sister Kathy called and wanted to know if the girls and I were going to come watch, because it was the last night and it was the season championship and Kathy's husband Mike was leading the points in his class. Well I went back and forth with the decision of whether I wanted to torture myself with two girls that do not really enjoy the races, but love to see their cousins (Kathy's two kids) so I finally decided to go...........ah it probably was not the smartest thing to do as the girls were a little on the wild side, Haley wanted to do what Samantha wanted to do, but Samantha was not wanting to sit still. Rachel had to keep going to the under side of the bleachers to get things that were dropped and both my girls were tired. Finally after the races dragging on forever, Mike finished his race second but won the points for his division. Congrats to him as it is the first year in a modified for him! Needless to say I got my but chewed out by a fan in the stands that had to be only like 17 because I was cheering for Mike as he was leading the race and their car spun out (which was the car chasing Mike for the points) and she was under the impression I was cheering that her brother spun out. I was sooooo pissed and I just wanted to jump down her neck, but all I said was I have a right to cheer for Mike. I finally figured out why she was pissed and went and talked to her mom who was sitting above this girl and explained that to her. She understood and said she had already given her daughter a butt chewing. I was still frusturated the rest of the night as I was enjoying the race and then that happened..........Ugh immature people in the grandstands, gotta love it!

Anyway Chris and this race he is putting on/promoting has kept him busy and on the phone. It is scheduled for September 13th and you would think that there would not be as much hassel as there is with doing this. He is worse than a woman on the phone now as he never gets off of it! The phone is constantly ringing, but I guess that is good as that means more cars and more people to where we/he will not lose money in this endeavor that he is taking on. I really am kind of excited about it, but scared too. It is hard to find people to work different areas and be able to trust them with the money that they will be handling. We are finding out about people that have worked at tracks and how they have had problems with dipping into the funds.......ugh it is frusturating! He has/is putting Kathy and I in charge of the money and counting it out and getting it ready for the payouts for the race cars at the end of the night. Kathy said she has been dreaming about being in charge of the money and how to keep it safe, well I have too....kind of scary trying to keep a hold of a lot of money and not having anyone get an idea of taking it!

My husband had asked me at the beginning what job I wanted and I so kindly told him I wanted to be the B***H on the 4-wheeler and laughed. He did not think that was too funny. I told him I was only kidding and that I would happily ride the 4-wheeler around with a big smile on my face......but I still do not think I will get to do that either:)

So this weekend Chris is planning on going to the racetrack at Memphis and check everything out and see what needs to be fixed in the grandstands, what the track looks like after the tractor pull from the Antique Fair Memphis had last week. I would like to take the girls and help him, but i do not know how long they last to help. But since the girls are always competative maybe they could take their bikes and race on the racetrack........now that would be a site to see!!

So needless to say it will be a busy weekend. Work has already called and asked that we put in extra time, so I am now getting ready to sit down to work for a couple of hours and it is already 8 a.m. and I wanted to already have my 2 hours in by now but since I stayed up late it is not happening.

Okay enough with the ramble, just had to share! So if anyone wants to come and watch this race and see some good races and see now my husband does the first night of promoting a race, come and watch at Memphis on September 13th at 6 p.m.

Beginner

Well I now officially have a blog spot! I will fix my settings, my layout, my everything later when I have time.......uhm I do not know when that is, but I will find it! Okay more to come later!