Monthly Archives: September 2010

Mommy help her!!!!!

Miss “sass-a-frass” has come full circle, and although still in its early phases, I see great potential for a very lippy girl!

Lately its just been incessant whining, and I can’t stand whining. Its like nails on a chalkboard. My dogs a whiner too… I know…. i’m the common denominator right? No… the dog whines for no reason, and Kirra gets so emotional over the smallest things!
Tonight for example, it started out just fine. We came home, let Tyler out, and then put Dora on and had a snack. While watching Dora she wants to know where her baby is… so I said, my room, on my bed… so she walks in the room and was like, waaaa where’s my baby? I said, Its on my bed… she goes back in, and cries she’s not in your bed… and starts to whine… i want my baby….. so I go in my room and plain as day, baby is on my bed….. we go back to the couch where she gathers her “baby supplies”.
She started hyperventilating because she was so distraught about something with her baby. She swaddled her baby doll (which mind you somehow she actually swaddles her baby right, and could probably go head to head with any L&D nurse…I digress)
…and then all the sudden started bawling her eyes out and crying, “help her, help her”. It sounded like a mother who was desperate to get her baby some help… so I said what do you want me to do? And she just starts screaming…. maaaaaammmmaaaaaa, do something… Now she is just sobbing……So i un-swaddle the baby, and Kirra sobs, noooooo she’s going to get cold… so then I start laughing because now she’s just funny…. but then I realize she’s so upset…. she starts to hyperventilate….. so I put the blanket back on the baby, and she just flips out… and says noooooooooo……. now i’m getting irritated so I picked Kirra up and brought her to her room with the baby, and told her she can come out later if she wants…. I went back to the living room and was like, OMG, this is my life…
So I turned on Days of our Lives…. and hung out by myself with my cats… who are not emotionally crazy….
About 10 minutes later she came out and said she was sorry and that she wants to be a good girl. And that was about that…. the rest of the night was just fine.
…..And these are the days of my life….

Operation Tango November

Went to dinner last night with Jason and my co-workers… We went to a very tasty Greek restaurant, and we both enjoyed our dinners very very much. Jason and I decided that we’re going to start exploring little mom and pop shop eateries and expand our culinary horizons.
I took Kirra to gymnastics today. Kirra did ok, but didn’t really want to participate with the group, she wanted to do her own thing…She wouldn’t sit in the circle, or line up so that was frustrating on my end, while everyone else’s angelic children behaved perfectly. Then there is this one girl in Kirra’s class who practically IS Shannon Miller, and I think she is younger than Kirra.
I’m guessing she’s done the class before. I polled the other moms and it appears that Kirra is the only one in her class who has never done gymnastics before, and the other kids have been doing it since they were 16 months old. It kind of gave me a complex… but i must not fear, or get too worried that Kirra isn’t doing perfect “starfish” on trampoline, or seat drops. Its just sometimes hard not to compare when its screaming in your face.
Well I will get my revenge this weekend when Kirra wins her age group in the toddler trot. We’ve been practicing year ’round, and cross training too. She WILL be the next Kara Goucher! (if she wants to) but in all reality, she really IS a good runner, and loves to run.
I hosted our small group tonight and it was great to see everyone. I was frustrated at myself for not having the house picked up more, but when you burn the candle at both ends of the stick there isn’t much of a wick to light at the end… which amazingly was the topic in a way…
Lots of last minute preparations are going on at work right now with OPERATIONS beginning on Thursday. Every year my old co-worker [he has since retired] and I would ‘name’ the Race Weekend an operational name since we were both military veterans. We use the phonetic alphabet which common, just sounds cool! Gosh I miss him… I will need to come up with an operational name on my own this year… hmmmm……..
Well for now (after literally 15 minutes of brainstorming with myself) i’ve come up with Tango November… Operation Tango November.… will get underway come Thursday. You can try to figure out what it means… but I can only tell Julliet Alpha… And yes… you can call me a dork!
Tomorrow is great! I have nothing going on after work so I can just relax!

Ren Fest!

Well today we saw a whole new side of Kirra…. a BRAVE Kirra! She wasn’t scared to do anything. We went out to the Renaissance Festival where she jumped really high on a trampoline, rode a horse, went down a HUGE slide by herself, and went on a swing ride!!!!
I even bought her some Fairy wings. They were too cute to pass up, and now she can wear them for other things too! (Like Halloween)
For lunch Kirra had Corn on the Cob, Jason had a turkey leg and I had Fajitas. We snacked on some other stuff too. It was really fun
I ended up buying a bath bomb for me, and a whale shaped luffa!
Enjoy the photos..
Getting her face painted….

 
Getting all suited up for jumping!

We thought she would be scared, but
instead… she went really really high!

Time to feed some goats!

Ridding a pony! Remember back in April, she wouldn’t
even pet a pony let alone ride one!

 
She thought it was just the best thing ever! I think now
she is going to want to ride pony’s a lot more!

Here she is on the swings! She picked out the blue one
all by herself!

Shannon Miller…

Well ok, Kirra’s not quite to the Shannon Miller level with Gymnastics [yet], but she did so much better this week than last week. I think it started better because she was in a great mood when I picked her up from Tally’s [the sitter], and was in a cheerful mood until we left.
She listened this time and for the most part stayed put where she was supposed to. She also was willing to try out each station a little better this time which made me happy! She’s starting to get the hang of it. She did really good on the parallel bars, forward rolls and the ladder, but still needs help not being so scared on the balance beam. She’ll get there though! She loves wearing her Leotard, and has made a new friend Avery (who appears to be younger than Kirra, but by the way really could be Shannon Miller with her skills. She’s really good, so maybe Kirra will watch her and follow by example).
Obviously there is no pressure, and we’re just having fun with all of it! Our teacher is really great too!

Worship and birthday party…

Well we woke up early this morning to go to Home Depot to pick out tile for the basement and carpet. We picked out a tile, and thankfully it was on sale, so we bought all that we needed for our basement.

On the way home it was only 10 a.m. so I decided to go to Lino Lakes church with Kirra and the service was amazing! One of the worship songs was so touching, especially with 2000 + people singing all at once. It actually brought tears to my eyes, and before I knew it I had lots of tears!
After church was over Kirra and I came home for lunch, and then took naps. Kirra had other ideas, but I definitely took a nap. Once we [Jason and I] woke up it was time to head over to my folks house for Missy’s Birthday!
Thinking of a really good wish…..

Blowing out her candles

Um… yeah… I’m 38…..

Gran was with us in spirit, since this would have
been her 95th birthday!

Brother and sisters……

Kirra looking cute as usual….

Jason and I

 

Wine Review

Jason and I had my parents over for dinner tonight and I got to try two new wines that I bought. I went to the liquor store and like every other Saturday they had the wine tasting, which is unfortunate and good because I always end up buying more wine than I ‘need” .But these two deserve a little review…The first one we opened was a Tempranillo called RIVAREY which might just be my new favorite red. I’m just getting into reds, but I discovered tonight I like a spicy red wine and definitely not a sweet wine. When asked I always told people I enjoyed a sweet red, and was always disappointed in the taste. Well the wine taster explained the different “characteristics” and I now know what I like…

The tannins were very smooth, with notes of raspberry, plum, kiwi and spice. I thoroughly enjoyed it. My dad informed my mom and I after one glass that we had to move onto the white wine because he really liked the red and he wanted to finish off the bottle… I’ll have to pick up another bottle on Monday!!!

The next wine we opened with desert was called Vouvray. I know I’m buying wines that sound like each other, but not on purpose and no the two aren’t related… This white is a mid priced Chenin Blanc, which is a grape I had never heard of before tonight, but ended up being very very fantastic! Its definitely a full bodied white with notes of honey, nuts, and ginger which is relatively dry. It was seductively delicious, and although its mid-priced I’ll definitely be buying this one again too!

What a fun week!

Monday:
Kirra started Gymnastics today. She was in a mood ever since we had picked her up from daycare, so going in to her class she wasn’t in top-notch mood. Once there she didn’t want to stay with her class and tried to run off on to equipment that she wasn’t allowed to go on quite yet… It became a tantrum throwing battle until Daddy stepped onto the floor and got Kirra focused… after that she did better. I think after a few weeks she will be fine, especially if she goes to a class in a better mood! We’ll see what next Monday brings…. After gymnastics I had to high tail it down to Barnes & Noble to meet up with my small group to pick out a new book, and meet our newest member, who actually found the book we’re going to do.

Tuesday:
Things have gone from 60mph to 160mph in our office at the marathon. We’re in crunch time with just two weeks before race weekend. After work I had to get Kirra from daycare since Jason was working late, and then head over to the Nissan dealership to get my oil changed (for free thanks to Amillie and Jeff) and hang out with Amillie while it got done. They even washed my car for free too! They’re so great over there!!!

Wednesday:
Jason had picked up some knotty pine for the ceiling in the basement and then Jason, Kirra and I went to Lowes and picked out paint, carpet, and tile. I’m very excited about our “den” for when its finished. It will be a nice cozy living room where we can watch TV, and relax.

Thursday:
Jason took today and tomorrow off since he’ll be working a lot this weekend and next, so he worked on the basement! It looks super great so far. The ceiling is almost done!!!

Fall Kickoff

What a great kick off to fall. I know its not officially the first day of autumn, but it sure felt like it this weekend, with the crisp cool mornings, warm afternoon, bees, and the smell of fall in the air.

The events went really well this weekend. Thank God for the amazing volunteers that showed up! We never could have put on the races without them. Saturday I woke up at 4:30 and finally got out of bed at 4:45. I threw on my ‘event’ clothes, and filled up my coffee and took off for Square Lake. Once the race was over I headed over to my in-laws where Jason and Kirra were helping Phil and my in-laws make a stone footpath from their driveway to their door. After I laid Kirra down for a nap I tried to lay down in the spare bedroom with her, but she was making too much noise and they had the radio on in the living room… so I headed outside and went down to the trampoline where I took a 3 hour nap in the nice fall sun on a black surface. It was great, and very very comfortable. When I woke up Theo asked if I could go and get Pam and bring her over, and i happily obliged. Pam and I had a nice ride back to my in-laws.

While we were all sitting around Jason asked his dad if he had the 12 gauge shotgun so I could practice shooting it. I made Jason fire off the first round so I could see how loud it was and BOY was it loud. It was quite a reach for me, so I didn’t feel comfortable shooting it for fun, unless I absolutely had to in a certain situation. So Jason and his dad went back to the house and presented me with a .22, and a 410 shotgun (my father-in-law’s grandpas gun).

Again I made Jason fire off the 410 shotgun first, and realized it was just as loud as the 12 gauge, kind of scary and powerful sounding. So I held it and it was much shorter for me, so I toughened up like a good little girl scout and fired off a shot… and regardless of the fact that my ears went instantly ringing, and muted it was great! I shot the ‘bucket” every time with both the bird shot, and the slug! The coolest part was when you opened the barrel to take out the shell the barrel was smoking. It made me feel kind of like Clint Eastwood. Definitely made me want to go small game hunting.

Then I got to fire off the .22. It was loud too, but no recoil. I thought the 410 shotgun was definitely more fun!

We locked the guns back up, and then built a bonfire,and then it was dinner.

After dinner, and some bonfire time, we again laid Kirra down in my in-laws spare bedroom about 8:30pm and Jason took a nap on the lazy boy while I was hot-tubbing. About 9:45 I realized I had to wake up early on Sunday to help out with the long course as the Volunteer Coordinator again. So I went inside to wake up Jason, but we decided since Kirra was sleeping, Tyler our dog was with us, Jason and I were super tired, and we were SO close to Square Lake we decided we would just sleep over night at my in-laws. So we did, and the shorter drive in the morning was so awesome!

I had a long morning with coordinating yet another set of amazing volunteers. Once I was done I had a church function I had to get to, and finally got home at 7:40pm. It was WONDERFUL to be home. In the evenings this week I now get to coordinate volunteers for another duathlon we have next weekend, and also get ready for the Twin Cities Marathon with the “Packet Stuffing Party” on Friday and Saturday. We’re busy-busy-busy with all of our events!!!!

Tomorrow is Kirra’s first class of gymnastics!!! She is so excited. We’ll try to take pictures.

Ta-Ta for now.

Count Down

This is absolutely my favorite time of year. If every day was in the 50s and 60s and once in a while got to the mid 70s i’d be in heaven!!! The scent of drying leaves, fresh apples, cool air splashing on my face, and lots of delicious goodness… Apple season and more….

Well its just a mere 20 days to the marathon and we’re definitely feeling it around our office. Things are in full swing with lots of meetings and events that lead up to the marathon weekend. Similarily at this time of year I have two HUGE triathlons to put on with my co-workers of my part time job Vacation Sports. Its the Square Lake Triathlon. I’ll be going to bed shortly actually because I have to be over there at 5:45am tomorrow, and on Sunday. No sleeping in for this girl… but these are my favorite events with Vacation Sports, so i’m looking forward to it as well. I just hope all of my volunteers show up!

Jason is helping Phil install a sidewalk at my in-laws tomorrow, and Kirra can hang out at Grandma & Grandpas, and enjoy a nice fall day. Once I get done with the triathlon which is just a few miles from my in-laws i’ll head over there, and depending what their apple tree looks like, maybe pick some apples, or perhaps Kirra and I can go to the park near their house (Big Marine) or maybe even Pine Tree Apple Orchard with Pam & Theo!