11 months old!

Seriously Mom put the camera away, I am tired of the stupid pictures
Watch out Dad here I come!

Riley turned 11 months old yesterday! We are already planning the big 1st birthday party and I can hardly believe it. She is pretty much off all baby food and has just skipped on to be a toddler. She eats just about everything we eat, she loves her fruit and does a pretty good job at veggies as well. She is getting very good at walking, she goes farther and farther each day. She can now stand up from a sitting position and is into EVERYTHING :) Her and Chase have became great friends, for some reason he seems to be gaining some weight, I wonder why? :) She says all sorts of words, Dada (everyone is Dada), doggie, hi, bye bye, bubba, Momma (only when I bribe her). Ron is taking her in tomorrow for a weight check so keep your fingers crossed she has gained weight!

:Warning disclaimer I did get my wisdom teeth removed today so I take no responsibility in anything I wrote in this post, I am drugged up and my dad says I have been talking a mile a minute :) I don't believe him:

Allstate 400 and some kart racing...

I have to say the Allstate 400 is my favorite event as a race fan but as an employee it has to be the longest weekend of my life. I think a lot of it has to do with the week of the race being so crazy. Between Tony coming home, the Riley Race, and the JdByrider 100 there just seems to be so much going on. It is three very long days, between 15-18 hours and not a lot of time to sleep. This year it was one of my favorite ones I have worked at. We just had fun this event. I don't know why it was so different, a lot of might of been because we were so well prepared that wasn't that much to do other than enjoy it. The whole family came out Saturday, my parents, Ron's parents, Grandma Petersen, and of course Ron and the kids. They enjoyed qualifying after the lovely thunderstorms that rolled through that morning. Race day just my parents came out, Ron and Tony had to race. It was a ok race, not to happy with the winner, Jimmy Johnson, but at least we didn't have the tire fiasco we had last year.

The boys did pretty good at New Castle, Ron finished 2nd in the Stock Moto and 8th in the Tag race. Tony finished 3rd and 9th in the Jr Sportsman races. Not to bad of a weekend. They have a double header this weekend and I am getting my wisdom teeth out, should be an interesting weekend...

JDBYRIDER 100

Thursday night we all went to the JDByrider 100 out at ORP. They had the karts out on display and Steve made up some autograph cards for Tony to hand out. Never in a million years would I think I would see Tony surround by a bunch of googly eyed girls and him be ok with it :) When Ron and I got there Tony Stewart was in Steve and Terri's motor home signing autographs. When he came out he wanted Riley, didn't see that one coming :) He seemed to take quite the liking to her, we all thought it was pretty cool. But, Thursday was Tony's night. He signed 129 autographs (yes, he was counting) Then he got invited out onto the track to say "lets go racing". The cool part was our friend Pat was the announcer doing the opening ceremonies. It was quite a night for all of us and I don't think any of us will forget it. Tony says it was his best night ever :) I am so glad Tony can look back on this day and I knows he knows how lucky of a kid he is. What a great memory!

Race for Riley Children's Hospital

Yesterday was the Race for Riley out at New Castle Motorsports Park. This is a a charity race hosted by John Andretti and I guess a pretty fun event. I don't think I have ever made it out to this event because it doesn't work to well with my work schedule being the week of the 400 :) It rained all day yesterday so it wasn't the best day for racing. Ron finished 1st in the Shifter class and 4th in the Tag class. Tony finished 9th in this class.

Check out the video! Tony is going to be famous :) The first kart you see, the 77, is Colton who is Ron and Tony's team mate. At about the one minute mark you see Tony Stewart talking to TONY!! I would love to know what they were talking about. Enjoy the video and hopefully I will have some pictures to update soon.

http://www.indysportsnation.com/isn-072209-andretti-riley-race,0,7992060.story

Zoo again!

Feeding the donkeys while it was pouring down rain.

Tony thought this elephant was hilarious with his food on his head, just like Tony some days!

We headed to the Indianapolis Zoo Sunday afternoon to meet our friend Rosie with her two boys Logan and Austin. We had a blast until it started raining. Ron and I both blame Dexter who told us we should be fine as we got there, oh and thanks Dexter for the fun day! Riley was much more excited about the animals this time than just a few months ago. Tony had a blast with Logan and Austin so it was a great day even though we left soaking wet and freezing, who would of though that at the end of July in Indiana!

Need I say more...

Christmas pajamas and baby swing..........

Yep Tony is home!!!

Weekend Project!

With Tony gone Ron and I have found some spare time during nap time and early bedtime to do some home improvement! Two weekends ago Ron and I were sitting around watching HGTV, ok I was watching HGTV, it gave us some motivation to change the look of our front yard. So we went down the road to the Nature's Choice store and bought some river rock and some retaining wall blocks We dug up all the mulch in our front yard and moved it to the back yard. We moved some plants around and put most of the river rock down. The front of our house looks completely different. We had some left over rock and decided we wanted to make a rock pond. We already had a "pond" in our backyard that we hated to take care of so we got creative. We were going to do this as our anniversary gift because we figured it would cost a ton of money but, we spent less than $100.00 total and that was for the front and the backyard. We made a cute little fountain that will require no upkeep and I don't have to worry about Riley falling in it or mosquito's taking up residence in our backyard. Look out Martha Stewart here comes the Petersen's!!

USA Swimming

Ron, Riley, my Mom, and I headed down to the Natatorium Saturday late afternoon for the USA Swimming Championship. Main reason we were going was to see Micheal Phelps but he withdrew from his races because of an injury. It was still pretty neat, I followed the swimming during the Olympics so seeing them race in person was pretty cool. We did see a few American records broke and a world record broke! Aaron Peirsol broke the world record in the 200m backstroke, he shattered the record by almost a full second! Have to give a shout out to my friend Megan who gave us the tickets :) Thanks Megan we all had a blast!

5th of July

This little monkey avoids the camera now!

See I told you she is blocking her face :)

Our fireworks got rained out on the 4th of July and we had every intention of going to see them on the 5th. Ron raced Saturday and Sunday, which he finished 2nd in the Stock Moto and 4th in the Tag. Our neighbors had a party on the 4th and kept us up kind of late so we were both very tired. We got Riley all dressed up and the decided she needed a nap before we left since she was going to be so late. Bad decision the next thing I know it is 9:45 and Ron and I both had fell asleep since we didn't have Riley to chase around and keep us awake. I didn't bother to wake anyone, we slept through it all! Riley missed her first 4th of July, we know there will be so many more to come and can't wait for sparklers next year :)

These feet are made for walking!

Riley has a new trick!

On my goodness, where did my baby go?!?

Happy Birthday America!

Hopefully everyone has a safe 4th of July! You don't have to worry about us, it is pouring down rain and the Brownsburg fireworks have been rescheduled until tomorrow. So, Riley is asleep and as soon as I finish this up that is where I am headed as well. Ron raced today and we didn't get much sleep last night. Hopefully all the fireworks the neighbors are shooting off don't keep us up! Ron and I use to spend so much money on this holiday it was insane. It is kind of weird not to even have sparklers but I know the time will come when Riley will be wanting sparklers and I am in no hurry for that!

Ron had a good day today at the track, he finished 6th in the Tag race and 2nd in the Stock Moto race. The Stock Moto race was run in the rain, I think Ron is really good in the rain and it is a lot of fun to watch. We celebrated our freedom at our favorite place to be, the racetrack :) We will get up early tomorrow and head back to New Castle for day two of the double header. After tomorrow the next Race will be the Riley Race the Wednesday before the 400 and Tony will be HOME for that race! Not that we aren't excited or anything but only two more weeks before our house gets back to normal.

Random Riley

We were playing around time with Riley and took some pictures :) Her hair in now long enough for a small ponytail, bring on the bows!!! Just so you know it is impossible to photograph a 10 month old! Holy cow it took forever to get any pictures with her in them, she moves way to fast.