Great Friends!

Our great friends HEATHER AND SAM came home for the week. The trip was 3-fold for them. 1) It was Sam's parents anniversary (they surprised them at their party and they had no idea they were coming home!) 2) Jeff and Shelby (the driver Sam Crew Chief'd for out here) got married last Saturday and 3) THANKSGIVING! It has been about a year and half since they moved to North Carolina and they have done such amazing things. We are so proud of them and their huge accomplishments. Sam is working for Kevin Harvick Inc. as the truck chief for the #2 team. The team made huge improvements when Sam came on board and of course we KNOW it is because of his knowledge, dedication and hard work. We weren't able to see their amazing kids (which bummed us out!) but we hoping to go back and spend time with them in 2009. BECKY drove over from Monroe for the big welcome home party on Wednesday night. I had so much fun and Rick enjoyed seeing Sam and talking racing with many of our racing friends. I am so THANKFUL for great friends... the ones that make you tear up when you say good-bye (and yes Becky that means you too)!

Kaity's Class Feast

Kaitlyn's teacher asked Jamie and I (the room mom's) if we could help her prepare a full Thanksgiving Feast. On Monday Jamie and I went shopping and got all the fixings. On Tuesday the kids spent the afternoon measuring and preparing all the food (a GREAT math lesson). Jamie took everything home and cooked it PLUS made a fabulous turkey. Then on Wednesday morning we invited all the families (Kaitlyn had me, YaYa and Auntie Lori) plus the administration in to enjoy the feast plus a song and prayer the kids prepared. We had so much fun and the kids had a blast. It was a great class party!

Swimming Lessons...

The kids started swimming lessons at the Raquet Club on Tuesday's after school. The first lesson Trace was having NO part of. My poor dad took him and had to suffer though the lesson. This last week things went a lot better. Kaity is a pro. She just swims laps and laps and does great. She would love to do swim team but the times of it just don't work out right now. We'll see how that goes in the future though.

No this wasn't part of the instruction... she just loves doing hand stands and summersaults. They quickly taught her how to do the summersault/turn/push off the wall deal swimmers do. See how technical I am!!

Kart Banquet

The kiddos had their go-kart awards banquet on Saturday night. There was a great turn out and the club had a very nice dinner to finish a great season. Kaitlyn spent quite a while getting all dressed up. I don't think most of the boys even knew who she was :-)

It has always got to be one of them making a goofy face!

Bryce and Kaitlyn ~ all dressed up and so cute!

Trace and his buddy Seth...

I told the kids just ONE picture of me with them... yea pic with Trace was blurry (but cute!) and Kaity wouldn't do anything but make these silly faces. Maybe someday I'll get cute pics with my kids! Trace won a new gas can, he thought this was VERY cool. Kaity getting her 2nd place trophy!
Trace and his 6th place trophy!
The whole kid kart group

Easy bathroom remodel...

YEA RIGHT! When Rick started tearing into the walls he found an electrical nightmare. So everything came out. This is my master bedroom and what will be the master bathroom. Rick took down the wall and will be moving it 10 inches into the bedroom to be able to put in a neo-angled shower in the corner that will look nicer and be bigger. We won't be able to put in a full bath but it is going to look so nice with a big glass shower. The master will be getting new carpet... I'm ready for it to be done now :-)

A GREAT day for Football!

Prosser Mustangs 33
Othello Huskies 28

Washington State Cougs 16
University of Washington Huskies 13

Great day for the Mustangs and the Cougs...bad day if you are a Husky. Rick was bummed I am thrilled!

Results...Conference...Hair

Those were the 3 biggies of my day...

Results! Kristin began her National Boards for teaching at the beginning of the year. Today she got the results for the first section she did. The odds are against most teachers as the passing ratio is not that great. At 6:00 am she found out that.............SHE PASSED! Congrats Sis!!!

Conference... today was Miss Katy's first school conference of the year. Her teacher told us she as always, is quite the perfectionist. She actually lost points on her handwriting scores because she would erase and re-do so many times that the erasing took over. She had a great report card but she was devastated when she found out she did not get straight A's (yep they start a real grading scale in 1st grade at her school). Since she has homework nightly her scores were not much of a surprise but the letter grades attached were. She had a 94% in math. I would have thought that would be an A maybe an A-.... nope that would be a B+. Her reading was a 89.7% and that was a B-, talk about tough. She thought she did horrible, poor girl. We told her she was doing fantastic and that it was the stuff her teacher said that was more important to us. That 'stuff' was that she was so kind, such a great helper and just a joy to have in class. It is always nice to hear those things from other people, especially a teacher! I thought it was a success!

Hair... I ended my day in Tri-Cities with a cut and color, my favorite! I always love going to Kathy and having her fix me all up (wax, cut, color). She has just opened a 2nd salon in Tri-Cities for young girls called Crush.. it is fabulous and you should definitely check it out.

We have the kids race banquet tomorrow night. I think we will lay low tomorrow during the day. Kind of nice to not have to be any where. I might even bake. That was scary just to write but I have seriously baked something the last 3 weekends. Wow, crazy!

Kaity-Clothing-Update...

We have had several days of easy dressing around here. Kaitlyn has turned a corner (for this moment anyways!). Wanna know what did the trick...... just a little plain old fashion $GREEN$ (And silver in this case!)

My mom told Kaitlyn that for every day she was good and got dressed without debate she would put 50 cents in a jar and she can use the money at DisneyWorld. It has worked wonderfully. Every night she calls Yaya to check in and so far every night she has gotten a few coins dropped into her jar. Thanks for all the ideas!!

Rick and I both came down with rotten colds late this week. I started feeling bad last weekend and thought by Tuesday I was going to re-bound but no such luck. I have a horrible cough. Rick came home from work on Thursday feeling horrible. He slept all afternoon and pretty much all day Friday. So much for a big progress weekend on the bathroom.

So today we are both feeling ok, better than the last few days for sure! I have spent the day being lazy and I hope you are all sitting down... BAKING. I had to test out the NUMMY MUFFINS that Amy shared on her blog. I didn't make them muffins though, I made the mini loafs and they are delish! Then I made a batch of white chocolate chip cookies. I think I am trying to get motivated to do holiday baking. I haven't done any the last few years and I have big intentions to get after it this year. We'll see how that works out :-)

Rick and I sorted out some electrical in this old house this morning. We have converted it from baseboard heaters to central heat and air and have one messy panel. The plan is to do a panel swap sometime soon (when its warm out!) but in the mean time we needed to figure out the power in the bathroom since we will be adding some new lights. We actually got a ton of it sorted out and have come to find out we have a lot more power than we had thought ~ so that was great news!!

Right now Rick and Trace are ripping out the carpet in the master bedroom so that Rick can start to bring in his tools and use the master as his workspace for bathroom. We moved all of our bedroom stuff down to the living room in the basement, which makes using the bathroom down there a lot more convenient.

Well off to get ready to head to dinner at Gustafsons. We get to meet Dobie, their new Min Pin.... the kids are so excited! We have lots of deserts to take!!

Hope everyone has had a great weekend!

8-a-tude!

We have been fighting with Kaitlyn for the past few weeks, ok months, about her clothing. She has to wear pink as often as possible but the child hates pants, shorts, skirts. She says, "that just isn't me." WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?? She has one pair of dark jeans and a pair of Levis that she loves BUT jeans on PE days doesn't work well. She a dresser and a closet full of skirts, leggings, jeans, work out pants.... we have tried taking away her 'privilege' to pick her own outfits (which of course is just tears), we have tried giving her 3 options, we have tried letting her pick all on her own. I make sure to point out every cute outfit I see on kids her age and nothing will get through to her. Do we have the only crazy stubborn EIGHT YEAR OLD and are we in soooo much trouble down the road? Any other suggestions?? I'm losing my mind trying to come up with options that will keep us all happy (and CALM).

Who knew parenting would be so difficult for something so silly.

A Weekend Off...

I had my first weekend off in... I don't know how long :-) On Friday morning I got up and took Kaitlyn to school. I was there forever chatting with the other moms in the parking lot. It was cold but fun knowing I didn't have to be any where! I drove back to Prosser and got home just as Rick and Trace were heading out to do a little shooting. I picked up house and really didn't do anything else. We all went up to get Kaitlyn from school at 3 and then went to see the new Madagascar movie. We all enjoyed it, Trace just didn't want to sit because, "HIS BUTT WAS TIRED" but for the most part he did pretty well. We went and had dinner at Applebees and then Rick met up with a guy he works with and his brother to chat about hunting on Saturday.

Saturday and Sunday were the first 2 days in a row that I didn't leave Prosser in months. Rick went hunting both morning but was home early enough to demo our master bathroom. By last night it was nothing but ply-wood floor and studs. Tonight he is going to go get the shower pan and the sheetrock and cement board to start putting it back together. That little bathroom is a 3/4 bath with a stand-up shower. We decided rather than putting one of those shower kits back in we will tile it but do the pan floor. He is going to add can lights and while reading tips on how to make your bathroom LOOK high end on a LOW END budget, I found where you take crown molding and attach rope lighting just above it and run a switch so you can have just the rope lights on at the ceiling for a night light. I think we will do that also. This morning I went to Home Depot and Lowes to check on sheet rock pricing and wondered over to look at the vanities at Lowes. The manager was back there and said to check out a pile of stuff he had at the end of the isle and if I was interested to come and get him and he would make me a deal. Well they had a dark cherry wood vanity with the porcelain sink top sitting there with a medicine cabinet next to it. He told me he would sell me the vanity/sink for $80 and the cabinet for $10!! I snagged all of that and now won't feel so guilty when I put in the faucet that I am in love with (oil brushed bronze).

Kathie took the kids to her health club yesterday to swim and then out to dinner with Peggy. Rick and I enjoyed the quiet time. Back to work for all of us today but I get to stay home with the kiddos tomorrow.

I took some pics of the bathroom demo but I forgot my camera cord today so I'll post them tonight. I hope all of you had a nice relaxing weekend!!

And Just Like That....Its OVER

Well the signs are coming down, we can actually watch TV without hearing and seeing ads telling us all that is wrong with 'the opponent' and we can click on MSN without being inundated with election details...sorry, I was in a daydream there for a minute.

Major Gripe Of The Day: Like we have not been living this for the last 2 years. Yes we remember every detail, how could we forget any of it! Is is really necessary for every media outlet to reply the 'defining' moments of this election????????????

The Good: Terry Bergeson is O.U.T. which I am praying means the WASL is next. Having Kaitlyn in private school means we don't WASL. But if for that reason alone, private schooling would be a serious consideration for me (a child/sister/sister-in-law of PUBLIC school teachers) because I hate that teachers are being forced to teach to a test. Well Randy Dorn, make your mark! And please don't do it with a 'test'!

The Bad: I think the Presidential race in general was bad but since I am openly a Republican, conservative, a small business owner, wife of a gun-loving hunter and Pro-Life the end result was not what I had hoped for and honestly I'm worried. ***Sigh***

The Ugly: Christine Gregoire re-elected??? I can't get past the fact that she cost our community thousands of jobs and that under her leadership our state is going more and more in debt. And if we end up with a state income tax.... ohhhh this is one I shouldn't even get started on.

George Bush has created a mess.... there is no debating that. And the Democrats have been all about how they can change things. So here's the chance. Democratic President - CHECK, Democratic House - CHECK, Democratic Governorship - CHECK. I know that my beliefs are MY BELIEFS and I know that if our country thrives economically that is to ALL OF OUR benefit. I know that if there is a way for more Americans to get affordable healthcare, that is to ALL OF OUR benefit. I know how lucky I am to be able to vote and how lucky I am to be able to freely state my opinions. I hope on the issues that this country so desperately needs healing on (jobs, healthcare, taxes , war) I hope he will be able to start working toward that promised change. The rest of it...all we can do is pray.

And just like that, 2 years in the making, over a billion dollars in campaigning....its over. Funny though, you know who I predict the real winner in all this is, Sarah Palin. She went from Governor to Celebrity. I don't think we have seen the last of her.... but will it be politics or Hollywood??? Time will tell, on so many important issues, time will tell.

Lolli for Tagged me just to see how random and weird I am... I don't do so well on these things but somehow I don't think that is because I am not random or weird. And I'm sure there are about 7 things many of you could have EASILY put on this list:

1. I had no hair until I was 3 years old... I mean NONE. My parents always joke that they had to put fertilizer on my head to get anything to grow. I still have no hair and that is why I love the invention of hair extensions! It was my biggest fear when I had Kaitlyn that she would have no hair. Thankfully she did and it in no way resembles mine. Rick thought I was crazy when she was 4 and cut her bangs that I cried for hours. I just could not imagine having to cut her hair short because I live my hair dreams through her hair. Ok, no comments on that one since she has looked like cousin IT for the last few weeks!

2. I have a huge dent in the top of my head... which I'm sure was oh so cute when I was little with no hair! We actually think it happened after falling off the slide at McDonalds when I was little because no one ever noticed the big indentation before. I'm sure for some of you, a lot about me makes sense now, haha.

3. I am pretty much obsessed with celebrity gossip. Not sure what the appeal is but the first websites I read every day are People and Perez (in that order!). I think secretly I like knowing that even the people that 'have it all' have major issues.

4. I never, ever wanted to stay home growing up in fact staying home was about impossible for me to do. I could easily go sit at a friends house but being in my house, ummm wasn't happening. Now when I leave work on a Saturday night I long for going straight home and being able to stay home all day on Sunday. It rarely happens but those days it does, its like heaven!

5. My freshman year of college I lived in Drunkin' Fun (I.E. Duncan Dunn). Dita and Kim lived on the 2nd floor and we spent many a night ordering pizza, drinking diet coke and FORGETTING ALL ABOUT HOMEWORK. The kicker, the pizza was always cheese less with Canadian bacon and pineapple. We somehow convinced ourselves that leaving the cheese off made it healthy.... apparently we didn't worry to much about the healthy when we ordered breadsticks with it OR went out drinking on Friday and Saturday....wait...Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.... just kidding mom! ;-)

6. I met Rick at the car races... my sister met Scott at the car races... Rick's brother Steve met Michelle at the car races... Rick's sister Amee met Mitch at... you guessed it, the car races. My kids are so staying away from the car races.

7. I hate laundry WITH A PASSION. I will get everything in our house clean but I can not get it all folded OR I will get it all folded and it will sit in random places around the house in laundry baskets. Currently I have 2 baskets of clean clothes in the kitchen, 2 in the dining room, 1 in my bedroom and 1 in Trace's room. Maybe one day I will get that all put away but I doubt it because there will be more that needs to be washed. My dream house includes a washer and dryer in each bedroom!

Thanks Lolli for the fun!

I'm tagging: **Becca - Becky - Heather - Tiffani - Michelle - Stephanie - Holli**

Get Your Vote On!

I hope everyone is as happy as I am that today is election day and we can finally be done with all this campaigning. Of course all eyes are on the presidental election but I am actually much more into WA State's Governor race. I will be glued to the TV and net tonight watching as the results role in.