Our Little Queen

Chris, the gal that I work with, was kind enough to watch the kids for me because I had a supper time interview last week. Her daughter was crowned "Rose Queen" in 2008, which is a VERY big deal in State Center.

Her daughter, Megan, was home and asked Jenna if she wanted to try on her crown and sash. She was SO excited about it and keeps asking when she can go back to Chris' house.

You can't be part of the Rose Queen pageant until the summer of your going to be a senior year, so we have a ways to go.


She loved the shoes too!

Stop and smell the roses...

Living in the "Rose Capital of Iowa" we broke down and bought a couple of rose bushes a couple of summers ago. The town just kind of sucks you in to the Rose Capital thing, so we decided to get some.

I'm so glad we did because they are just gorgeous! I noticed a few days ago we had a TON of rose buds, way more than we have ever had. With the warm weather and rain last nite a few opened up, so I had to take a couple pictures:

Best Helpers!

I have the best helpers I could ever ask for in the kitchen. Both Jenna and Brody love to help me cook and last nite they helped me with a new pasta recipe.

Brody's favorite thing to do is follow me around and say, "Help you. Help you Mama." It's adorable! He even got mad at me when I stirred the pasta sauce without him. :)

You have to watch this one...he's tricky!

Baseball season

Baseball season is officially underway! With baseball season comes one of Aaron's favorite things to do....design that season's hat! He loves it and we both agree this is the coolest hat that they've had in the five years that he's been here.

Daycare Bully

We've been dealing with a bit of an issue at our daycare lately. We take the kids to an in-home daycare just outside of State Center.

Lately, we've been dealing with one of the other kids basically beating up on Brody all the time. He's about six months older and is (according to our baby-sitter) a bully to all of the kids who are younger than him.

Our baby-sitter is really frustrated and feels so bad. A few months back, it was biting. Brody had bite marks a couple of times on his arm from the kid. Now, we've moved on to scratching. Brody had a scratch by his eye that had almost healed. Yesterday, I picked him up and his eye was puffy and kind of bruised with another huge scratch right under his eye.

Mommy-mode kind of kicked in and I got really mad. If it would have been a couple of times here and there, I can handle that, but it's getting a little ridiculous. I know that in a couple of months it could be my kid that's the bully, but it's very annoying and frustrating for me right now.

Brody and I had a little chat about him sticking up for himself and I told him to take the kid out wrestling style and maybe he'd get left alone. :) (Yes, I know that's probably not very good parenting to promote violence!)

First Daddy Haircut

My kids were both genetically blessed with thick hair. No way around it, since Aaron and I both have really thick hair. This isn't really a big deal with Jenna since she's a girl and you can let her hair go long. With Brody, on the other hand, it means A LOT of haircuts.

I've been asking Aaron for some time to try and cut Brody's hair. Aaron cuts his own, so we have the clippers set. Because Brody's hair was so long on Saturday, Aaron finally gave in.

I think he did a great job! Plus, it saves us $15 a haircut! Plus, Brody sits waaaay better for Aaron than he does for the ladies that usually cut his hair!


At the beginning, not doing too bad.


What are you looking at mom?

Ok, I don't really like this anymore, hurry up!

After a bath, all smiles!! :)

The way I see it...

Don't Litter!

Last Saturday was a beautiful day! My kids and I went for a walk and my daughter wanted to stop at the “library park” as she calls it, to play. We just had to continue enjoying the beautiful day, so we stopped.

When I walked up I couldn’t believe what I saw. Trash - everywhere! Pop cans and candy wrappers littered the playground area. It looked terrible, it really did. I engaged the help of my children and together we picked up almost a 12-pack worth of pop cans and candy and chip wrappers.

One of my pet peeves is littering. I can’t handle it. My parents hammered it into my head as a child to not litter and to this day I completely freak out when people litter!

My dad was the softball coach at our school and from the time I was old enough to walk my brother and I would tag along and help him do whatever needed to be done at the field - including picking up trash.

Do you know what it’s like to pick up other people’s trash? It makes you not want to leave your trash just laying around - EVER!

As you know, I spend a lot of my summer at baseball games. When I see people leave a game and leave their pop bottles or nacho containers just laying there, it annoys me and I feel the need to pick it up because it just makes everything look so, I don’t know, crappy. What the heck is so hard about walking ten feet to a garbage can to throw your trash away? A lot of times you walk right by the garbage can on the way out of the field anyway.

Needless to say, I used Saturday’s moment as a teaching moment. I lectured my daughter (she got the wrath of an upset me) about not littering and how you should always throw your stuff away.

All I’m saying is, throw your litter in a trash can. It takes ten extra seconds and just makes everything look so much nicer, but that’s just the way I see it.

Deadlines!

I love my job at the newspaper, I really do. I get to do a variety of things and meet people in the area that I never would have gotten to meet, if not for the paper.

That being said, my job is killing me right now! Ok, not literally, but it's been a hectic two weeks. We did a freebie paper to around 1,000 extra households last week in hopes of trying to bump up our subscriptions even more and that one was a 14 pager (normally I'm around a 10 pager). This week, I have a 12 page regular paper, plus an 8 page graduation insert.

AAAAHHHHH! We decided to do the grad insert all in color - which includes color ads. The gal in the office sold 40 ads for the insert and the creator of all ads is? You guessed it! Me! In addition, we have two more pages in the regular paper for a neighboring school that was 25 more color ads. So, I have been the Ad Queen this past week, putting in a lot of extra hours.

It's Monday and I haven't even really looked at the normal part of my paper because I've been busy with that darn insert. This week, I'm hating that I have to work on a deadline. I don't get the luxury of saying, oh, I'll get to that in a few days or next week. Nope. I don't get this thing to press on time and I'm going to have some angry old folks calling me up wanting to know where there paper is. On the flip side, it's nice to know that they love the paper that much that they panic when it doesn't arrive at its regularly scheduled time.

Just breathe! That's what I told myself last Monday and it will be my motto again today. The paper will get done. It always does. And, it's going to look amazing (fingers crossed!).

Thanks for letting me vent. Happier thoughts to come later in the week! I promise! :)

Imagine My Surprise

Friday morning I had an email from Aaron that said, "Don't plan anything for tomorrow nite. I have something planned." I respond, "Okaaaay." It is very un-Aaron like to plan something without checking things out with me first. I'm the planner in the family and set up things like baby-sitters.

Fast-forward to Saturday. The kids' favorite baby-sitter, McKenna, came over and we headed out. He still wouldn't tell me where we were going. Next thing I know we pulled into the movie theatre. Let me throw this out there: I love movies! I don't get to go to them very much, but I would if I could and had more time. Aaron, not a big fan of movies. He goes if I drag him. :)

So, he knew that I would love it and we went to the movie, "Date Night." It was super-funny and we love Tina Fey and Steve Carrell. Afterwards, we headed to Applebee's for a quick bite before heading home. A meal that didn't involve cutting up someone's food or having someone mooch off of my plate equaled HEAVEN to me!!

It was such a treat that Aaron planned a little date nite for the two of us! I'm working on a surprise date for him in the future. Hmmmm... :)

"Muffins for Moms"

Thursday I got the honor of accompanying Miss Jenna to preschool for her "Muffins for Moms" day. All of the moms were invited and we did special things during preschool. The "muffins" part came at snack time when the kids got to be our waiters/waitresses and ask us what we wanted to drink and what kind of muffin we would like.

We sang goofy songs together, made a picture frame for the picture we had taken together, read books, the kids sang us a song and gave us a gift. One at a time the teacher called the kids' name to go and get their gifts for their mom. Jenna was walking over to me with a big smile on her face and I had to blink back a few tears. Not because of the gift, but because she's so big and is growing up so fast.

All in all, I had a great time! It was fun to have one-on-one time with Jenna during play time, since I hardly ever get that anymore. And, it was fun to be around the other moms too!

Little Miss Muffin :)

Singing, "Mommy Loves Me"

Jenna and Mommy with her gift.

Garden - Take One!

Well, the Burdorf household has decided to try and have a mini-garden this summer. I am so excited! I have wanted to have a garden since we got married, but it never really worked out. Oddly enough, we were in some store in February and Aaron found a tomato and pepper starter kit and decided we should give it a try. We had to spade up a small portion of our backyard, but I'm hoping it's worth it.

We planted our seeds in late February/early March and have loved watching them grow. I think Aaron and I are just as excited as the kids! So, in addition to the tomato and pepper plants I scored us some strawberry plants. I had to interview a guy about the State Center Farmer's Market, he mentioned that he was thinning out his strawberry plants, offered to just give me some, and now we have strawberry plants! I TRIED to plant some spinach/lettuce, but the Brody MONSTER has pretty much messed that up, so I doubt anything will grow.

Jenna is in charge of watering the plants in front of the house.

Strawberry plants - with blossoms!

Tomatoes

Brody DROWING the strawberries! :)

I can't wait to see what grows (hopefully SOMETHING does) throughout the summer. I'll keep you posted!

The way I see it...

Mother's Day

Psssst...don’t forget what Sunday is. It’s Mother’s Day! The day where we recognize our mothers/moms/mamas for all they have done for us and remind them just how much we love them.

I don’t think I ever fully appreciated everything my mom did for me until I became a mom myself. Pre-children you are obviously still grateful for everything your mom has done for you, but when you actually have to do everything for your children that your mom did for you, there’s definitely a newfound appreciation. The list of jobs you do as a mom is endless...playing, cooking, cleaning, driving, setting up appointments, etc., etc. etc.

I never realized how much I would love being a mom. Sure, it’s hard sometimes. Frustrating. Makes you want to pull your hair out. But, that is completely overshadowed by things like hugs, kisses, smiles, giggles, cuddles, first words, first steps and well, you get the point.

It’s like you never knew your heart could be so full of love (I know that sounds sort of cheesey, but you moms out there know what I’m talking about). I remember when I was pregnant with my second baby and I was so worried I couldn’t possibly feel the same way about my second as I did was my first born. That was complete and utter crazy talk! Those feelings went away the second I laid eyes on my blond-haired, blue-eyed baby boy.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you moms out there! Kick-back and enjoy your special day. I have this quote (yes, I know I always share quotes with you, but forgive me because I really like them) that I will end this column with. It goes like this, “The most important thing she’d learned over the years was that there was no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one,” but that’s just the way I see it.