The first week in August was the Wausau Fair. As many of you know, my mother and I submit baked goods in the fair to see who can walk away with more ribbons. In 2009, I did fairly well, bringing home a few blue ribbons. We invited my Grandma to participate in the fair this year as well so we had 3 generations of fairly competitive women competing for fair ribbons. I submitted 9 entries, in various categories, many of which were my first time for ever making that particular recipe. I wish I had pictures, but I had a major camera snaffoo this past weekend (I'll explain later!) Well, this year's judging goes to show how years of experience in baking really pays off. My Grandma placed in every single category that she entered, many of them being blues. She also received 2 honorable mentions (2nd to Best of Show) which is extremely rare, in and of itself, not to mention it was her first year competing. My mother, curse her, came home with tons of ribbons and 2 BEST OF SHOWS!!! We were both in the fudge category, which was quite the story (this story deserves a blog post for itself)...but I'll try to give a quick version:
My mom and I were both in the fudge category last year, the only category we BOTH entered. I made a cranberry nut white fudge and mom made a orange dreamsicle fudge. While the judge looked at the fudge, mine was in the 1st place slot, my mom in the 3rd. The judge looked at them for about 30 seconds and my mom stood in the background waving her arms at her and making dramatic witch-like sounds as if to send her a subliminal message to change her voting. Right after, the judge moved her fudge to 1st and mine to 3rd. 3RD! I couldn't believe it.
So this year, I told my mother that her witchery was not allowed during the judging. I made a butterscotch fudge that my husband and coworkers swear is to die for. Seriously, to die for. I made the mistake of sending a piece with my husband one day down to my mother to try. BIG MISTAKE. She now knew what her competition was. While I was expecting her to submit her peanut butter fudge that she had made a gazillion times over but never turned out quite right, she shows up at judging with a root beer float fudge. Not even kidding. Where does this woman find these recipes??!! Needless to say, her rootbeer float fudge took the blue and mine took the red. Boo.
Now that my dramatic fair stories are told, I can move on to the rest of the month:
Mason's therapies have continued as normal the past few months. He still receives PT and Speech weekly and OT biweekly. What's not so normal is the meeting I had with Birth to 3 last week. We had our first IEP "preparation" meeting. For those of you that do not know what an IEP is, it is an Individual Education Plan. They are plans that are put in place between school therapists, psychologists, parents, teachers, etc. for kids with special needs. They are mutually agreed upon to ensure that the parents voices are heard and ensure their child is receiving the care they are expecting. What can be difficult is that every parent is an advocate for their child but the services aren't always available like you'd want them to be. Creating this IEP over the next couple months has me freaking out. I feel that I've been a pretty level headed advocate up to this point, but during certain stressful situations, I become extremely passionate a.k.a. hot-headed. The idea of sending my child on a bus with complete strangers to a school of complete strangers has me extremely anxious. He's just a baby to me!!! My heart says "I want to stay at home with him forever, I can home school" while my brain tells me "Ya right Jen, are you nuts?" I know I'm not the stay at home type and I give a world of credit to those that can do it but it's just not me. However, sending my child off to spend time with others that might not be able to do as good a job as me has me worried. Freaked out, actually. I know they are professionals and I know that it will turn out fine but my sweet little Mason has a hard time getting used to new people. Some of his therapists have been a perfect fit for him and he gets used to them right away. Others still struggle at connecting with him and getting him to respond to them. I pray that his school therapists are the first type.
All that aside, we're taking this next step at sending our baby to school. This is a new opportunity for me to advocate and teach about VCFS. Speaking of which, it is 22q11 deletion awareness week. VCFS (or DiGeorge, or whatever other trillion names for it) affects 1 in 2,000 births. It's the 2nd most common chromosomal deletion syndrome. Knowledge is Hope people. If you want a blue arm band to wear and help me spread the word, let me know. I'll place an order.
Back to my post.
A few weekends ago we had a "corn" weekend at the Mrdutt farm. Katie and Ben planted over an acre of corn and it was all ready to harvest. The whole family pitched in and we bagged over 150 quarts bags of corn. What an experience that was...awesome family time.
Last week was my 27th birthday. Some days it feels like I'm 50. Other days I try to convince myself I'm 21 and I push myself too hard. It was a great birthday. My family bought me a sweet new camera that is more travel-compatible so I can snap random shots. I took great pictures last week that I'd share but then I accidentally deleted 90% of them over the weekend as I was trying to figure out how it worked. Oops.
We went up north last weekend to spend some time at Stu's. Stu is my brother-in-law Buck's dad, for those of you that don't know. What a GREAT weekend. The weather was awesome and so was the company. We took Mason swimming, his favorite summer activity. I tried skiing, the first time in 3 years, and got up the first time. I'm pretty proud of myself. However, my body is again reminding me that I am 27, not a teenager.
This week I'm heading to the Packer game with my friend Dorothy. I am very excited, this is only my 3rd Packer game. It's preseason, but tickets are so hard to come by that I really don't care. Being there is cool. Chris likes when I leave occasionally, as he really enjoys the father-son nights. Mason loves one on one time and Chris and I both like the "breaks" for our sanity.
For house news...no news is....no news. Tonight we were on a walk around the town (as we do most nights...Mason sleeps better the more time he gets outside *knock on wood*). We were coming around the corner back to the house when a white SUV stopped in the intersection and started backing up, almost running us over. They then took a quick right and stopped in front of our house. A lady jumped out and ran over to our for sale sign to grab a flyer. Talk about AWKWARD! Not only because we were right there, but because we were out of flyers! Chris yelled out "We may have more in the house!" As Chris ran in, she walked over to me to ask me some questions. She asked why we were moving. I gave my standard "for our son and a 1 story house" response. She asked a few more questions and I mentioned to her that we are considering taking the house off the market in September. Chris and I have gone back and forth on this many times, as it hasn't been that much of a hassle to have the sign up, but I just want a peaceful fall and winter without the drivebys, the calls and the showings. If the house comes off the market, we'll refinance and keep this place another 3 years. It will allow us to save some money to pay off the land and other never-ending debt. Or, at least that's the plan.
That's pretty much it. I'm sure I've missed many post worthy news and I'm sure my family and friends will remind me of that. What can I say? My life is so fulfilling that sometimes I forget stuff!
Sorry that this blog is a little lacking for pictures. I need to figure out the new camera and I promise more pics next time.
Glad to hear you and the family are doing well! We will have to get together when our new addition arrives in the next few weeks, I'd love to see the boys and the new camera!
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