The way I see it...

Potty Training, round two

As I wrote about in my March column, my son just turned two. You know what follows the second birthday? Yep, potty training!

My daughter was easy. Super-duper easy. She was 22 months old and I was due with my son right at her two year birthday and I was bound and determined to not have two kids in diapers at the same time (those darn things are expensive!). Anyway, I felt like my daughter was smart enough to do the potty-training thing. She was. We were stuck at home on a snowy weekend and she was potty-trained in two days. I was overjoyed! It really was that easy.

Then, we had a boy. People kept telling me how much harder boys were to train than girls and I kind of brushed it off, thinking I had done so well training my daughter. Ok, I absolutely get what they’re talking about now.

My son shows interest in the potty. When he uses it like a big boy, he gets excited and gives high fives. The problem is, I can ask him if he has to go every 15 minutes or so, he’ll say no and then he’ll go (I kid you not) 12 seconds later.

It’s so frustrating and I’m sure you parents out there have been in my shoes. You know they’re smart enough and yet....AH! I get two big ‘ol blue eyes looking at me with an ornery grin that says ‘mommy, I know exactly what I’m doing!’

Did you ever imagine before you had kids that you’d have to try and outsmart a toddler? I sure didn’t! Toddlers are smart, sneaky, ornery and did I happen to mention smart? I have decided that I’m not above bribery. I think that’s my next step in the potty-training process.

I know, I know, I shouldn’t push him. I just feel like he’s ready and he’s so interested in going. People always say that they’ll let you know when they’re ready and I guess maybe I’m being a tad impatient.

Oh well! It will happen someday, hopefully soon. In the meantime, I’ll continue to try to stay one step ahead of my two-year, which is always easier said than done, but that’s just the way I see it.

Rose Festival 2010

Rose Festival was held the third weekend in June. It's three days filled with lots to do and brings lots of people to State Center - including Grandma and Grandpa Burdorf! They came down Friday afternoon and stayed with us through Sunday.

Friday nite is our favorite because they have a BBQ cook-off that features ribs, chili and leg of lamb. It is so, so good! This year they had so many entries we couldn't even finish taste testing because we were so full! Here are Grandma, Grandpa, Aaron and Jenna taste-testing some ribs.



Friday nite/Saturday morning was not so great because Brody got pukey-fever sick. He was up a lot and was sort of on and off the rest of the weekend. I was grateful the Burdorfs were there to help so I could get pictures for the paper.

Saturday morning I (completely exhausted!) ran the 5k. It was ugly and that's about all I'll say about that, but I finished! That's always my goal.

The baseball team has a tournament the entire day, so that's where Aaron spent his time. We hung out there too, when it was the Trojans turn to play.

Coach B deep in concentration. :)

Saturday afternoon Jenna got to go up and ride some carnival rides. She loved it!


Sunday they had water fights and inflatables, so we headed up to that. It was so hot and humid! Brody was still feeling the effects of whatever bug he had and was crabby and a non-willing participant. This is how he was most comfortable:

He "thought" he wanted to go down the slide with daddy. Yeah, that wasn't so good either. He hung on for dear life to Aaron and cried the entire way!

Jenna was in heaven and didn't want to leave. Here she is coming out of the obstacle course.

It was a great weekend, but I'm glad it only comes once a year!

Boys will be boys!

My name is Brody. I'm an ornery two year old who likes to spend his summer nights at baseball games playing on all three of daddy's tractors. I also like to play in the sandbox and the dirtier I am at the end of the night the better!

Fun on the job

I've probably said this before, but one of the best things about my "side" job with Greg and his photography business is that he loves my children and they love "Uncle" Greg. The result: super-cute snapshots for me!!

It's little league season at the studio, so these photos were taken at one of our days of little leaguers. I love them!


Gotta get the light set right on the camera.


Watch out! Jenna with a clipboard looking like a mini-me!


I don't even tell her how to stand, she does these kind of poses completely on her own!


My little left-handed hitter (hopefully!)


More sassiness! Greg can't believe what a natural she is! :)


This was after eating skittles and I'm pretty sure some dirt!

Meeting Miss Aubrey

We (sorta) recently headed to Omaha to (finally!) meet our new niece/cousin Aubrey. I had to take photos in the morning, but we headed out Saturday afternoon and got to Omaha about suppertime.

After a delicious meal we did absolutely nothing!! And, it was so nice. The three older kids played in Addy's room and with the exception of settling a few squabbles over sharing, we adults got to just hang out and catch up.

Aubrey was great! She loved snuggling with Aunt Jamie and that was fine by me. :) Here are a few pictures of the trip:


Mama Jill and Aubrey...notice the spit up on Jill's shirt. She had some issues with that ! :)


Jenna loved Aubrey. It was cute because if one kid had to hold Aubrey they all did!

Popcorn and a movie Saturday night kept the kids entertained. How cute are they in their jammies?!

All in all, a great trip that was too darn short!

Waaaaaay behind

I just wanted to apologize for being a really bad blogger lately! I've been super-duper busy at work and just haven't had time, but I'm hoping I can catch up this week. There are definitely things I need to catch you up on, like our trip to Omaha and the 2010 Rose Festival. More to come this week... (fingers crossed!!).

Just me and the kids...

It was just the kids and me road trippin' this past weekend. As I said, Aaron was super-busy and I didn't want to sit at home by myself all weekend, so Jess suggested we come up. I was so glad we did! We had a great time and I wish we all lived closer.



We got there Friday night and mom had supper waiting. Jess and Mitch were there and we had a couple drinks and then Justin came later. We spent the night talking and catching up.


Miss Jenna got into Grandma Jo's closet. A little mini-Jo!

It was also the weekend of the Cherokee PRCA Rodeo. That really meant nothing to us except that we went to the parade Saturday afternoon. Luckily, the rain was done with by the time the parade started and the kids got a ton of candy!

Some bank gave us all beads, we now have a ton of beads!

Sunday morning we headed to Spring Lake Park. I love that place! We sat on the dock and put our feet in.

They had canoes you could rent, but we weren't able to rent them. The kids just climbed in anyway and splashed in the water.

Grandma Jo and the kiddos

The kids and I, showing off our "muscles!"

Wedding Dresses Galore!

Over the weekend, the kids and I road-tripped by ourselves to Cherokee. Aaron was busy with baseball and reffing at the Iowa Games, so we thought we'd head to northwest Iowa for some quality time with the family.

Saturday morning my mom, Jess, Jenna and I went to Sequins in Cherokee to look at flower girl, bridesmaid, and wedding dresses for Jess and Mitch's wedding next May.

No final decisions were made, but we got ideas of what we liked. Don't worry! Jess' dress isn't any of these. We spent a few hours trying stuff on and we were dead tired afterwards!

Jenna got to go first and my girly-girl was in HEAVEN! She loved dressing up.

I thought this one was cute, but Jess thought it was too short.

Jess' favorite dress of the day!

My sassy, sassy child! :)

My name is Jamie, but I go by PASTY! YIKES! I need some major tan-age before next May!

We all liked this one!

I felt bad for Jess. Her and my mom had tried on dresses and the place was supposed to write down her faves. She asked them for the list so she could show me and...they didn't have it! Nobody wrote them down, so we were back at square one.

Apparently, not one of Jess' faves.

We really like the wrap-style on Jess, but just about everything looks amazing on her! I thought this one was pretty and think it's funny that Jenna wanted to be in the pic too.

Four Generations Together

I'm a little slow at getting these posted, but we had four generations together at Frontenac over Memorial Day weekend.


The entire gang!


Four generations of Hunecke's. As Justin said, you can tell which generation got the looks! :)


Great Grandma and Grandpa Hunecke with their three great-grandbabies.

The way I see it...

Famous in a Small Town
It's hard to be famous. I'm not talking movie star or rock star famous. I'm talking about living in a small town and being in the public eye. City council members. The mayor. Teachers. Principals. Newspaper editor. None of it is easy.

My experience with this started at a very early age. My parents were both varsity coaches. Can you imagine? For the most part, it was fine and I have good memories of being at the gym or on the softball diamond. However, as I got older, there were times when it did (for lack of a better word) suck.

Fast forward to me in high school and my dad going from a teacher to the high school principal. Nothing like having mean teenagers take out crap on you. My thought was always, my dad wasn't the one that broke the rules, you were, he's just here to enforce them.

Maybe it was just meant to be that I have the job that I do, I don't know. Even though I realize that everyone is entitled to their opinion, sometimes it just gets downright annoying. And frustrating.

While you may disagree with a story I write, a referee's call at a basketball game, or a principal's punishment, you still need to realize one thing: people don't mess up things or do things to make people mad on purpose. 99% of the people in the world aren't mean-spirited, they try to do what they think it best.

Would I get to go out to a farm and tell a farmer how to do their job? What if I headed over to the bank and told them how to run the bank? The thought of that seems a little ridiculous, doesn't it? And yet, there are people who think they are experts everywhere for the jobs that I have mentioned in this article. If those people think they are so good at it, why don't they become a coach, prinicipal, ref, or newspaper editor? There is a lot more to these jobs than you think there is.

You know what's funny? In all of my almost-30 years, I have never, ever met anyone that's perfect. I know I'm far from it. I think people tend to get on their high-horses and forget that simple fact...nobody is perfect. Another thing I think they forget is that the people they are ragging on and complaining about are people too. People with families (just like them) and feelings (just like them). I wish people would remember that the next time they go and run their mouth.

All I'm asking is this. The next time you feel the need to say something negative about somebody and the job their doing, put yourself in their shoes before you do so, it might just make you rethink what you were about to say, but that's just the way I see it.

Frontenac

We headed to Frontenac on Saturday and stayed there until Sunday afternoon. It has been awhile (like I think only once since Jenna's been born), since we've been up there.

I love it up there! It's so peaceful and calming and the view is gorgeous. Anyway, the kids stayed there while we went to the game and then we got back and had some fun Saturday nite/Sunday.


The kids thought it would be "fun" to have mom push them around in the wheelbarrow.


Saturday nite we had a bonfire and made smores! Yummy.


Sunday we headed down to Lake Pepin and just walked along the beach. Aaron kept trying to skip rocks. He got up to four skips, but there were a lot of waves, so I think it made it kind of tough.

Brody-Boy trying to find some rocks or something...I don't know.

There was a nice view for a photo, so we set the timer on the camera and it turned out not too bad.

Grandpa Larry and Great-Grandpa Don decided the kids needed a swing, so they made one for them. According to Jenna, it was her favorite part.

Daddy and Brody in Lake City along the water.

We walked through the marina at Lake City...I loved all the boats.

The only crazy thing that happened while in Frontenac was when Brody, Maddox and I went for a walk and we were about two blocks from the house and I saw a skunk walking at us! I calmly told Brody we had to turn around and booked it back to the house!

Target Field!

Saturday of Memorial Day weekend we headed up to Minnesota. Aaron purchased tickets a long time ago for a Twins game because we were both pretty darn excited to get to Target Field. My dad and Mandy (especially Aunt Mandy! We love you!) watched the kiddos for us so we could go, just the two of us. It was beyond amazing! I heart outdoor baseball! Check out some of our photos below.

These are some we took around the outside:

Every light pole has a different player on it. I told Aaron to choose somebody and of course he chose the manager Gardy. Typical coach!


Me posing with one of my two faves - Michael Cuddyer. In the background you can see baseball cards of past Twins, I thought they were very cool.


Our first view walking through the gates. AWESTRUCK! My baseball coach husband has rubbed off on me...that grass was like carpet! WOW!


We were in right field and then looked by first base. Aaron goes, "There's Justin Morneau signing autographs." It took me about 30 seconds to ditch Aaron to go and get a photo! Very fan friendly that they let you get so close to the players.


Closer Jon Rauch. The guy is GINORMOUS! And, I think he's staring right at me.


A photo op from our seats down the right field line.


Our game had the highest attendance of any at Target Field (so far, of course). You can see all the fans. We were in the shade the entire game, thanks to my smart hubby who planned it that way!


The jumbo-tron, emphasis on JUMBO, that thing is huge and we had the perfect seats to stare right at it.