Maryland weather, gotta love it.  Last week it was all shorts and short sleeves and on the weekend we were in pants with long sleeve shirts and the kids were wearing winter hats and gloves in the morning to go to breakfast!

 

It was a nice day on Saturday, so we did what any other family would think about doing with their three young kids - we took them to the racetrack.  They were having a family day there with face painting and different stunt shows between races, but it was still the track and there was betting going on.  However, I am THRILLED with the new electronic betting system there, something I've never used.  I was able to feed cash into a machine, get a voucher, and I spent the rest of our time there just feeding the voucher or my winning tickets back into the betting machines for more bets.  We only stayed for 5 races, betting on the last four and the kids even got to pick horses to play.  Noelle was upset she didn't win any races, Frank got a trifecta box win on one race (but all the horses were low odds and on a minimum bet they didn't pay out too much) and Nicolas won 2 of the 4 races where he picked horses.  He told us he'd take us out to Red Lobster with his winnings, but on a $2 bet to show on a low odds horse, he didn't clear too much over his bet.  If he wasn't so hot in the clubhouse area and the kids weren't tired we would have stayed a little longer, but we still had a good time.

 

The remainder of our weekend involved working around the house.  We cleaned up the garage a little more and organized it.  We're trying to clean it up enough that we can once again park two cars there now that Frank has a nice car that he wants to keep safe and sound.

 

Frank did more work on the basement.  We're just about ready to paint the bathroom now and we purchased the bathroom flooring already too. 

 

There was tons of laundry to do as well of course.

 

The kids spent a lot of time playing outside.  Noah is a pro at riding the tricycle now.  The three kids spend a lot of time going up and down the front sidewalks on trikes, motorized jeep, scooters, pushing vehicles or just running.  It's good to see them getting out more.

 

Noelle and I did some major shopping too, after I realized that the boys needed a few more things for the colder weather now.  Plus I HAD COUPONS so they needed to be used.  We hit two malls and a few other stores in the course of a few hours.  I think we were both tired when it was all said and done and we still didn't find everything we needed.

 

I think I'll stick on online shopping.  That's so much easier and I'm not nearly as exhausted when I do it!