The strangest day...

I had the strangest day today. Seriously, the person I met was unlike any person I have ever met before. The willingness he showed to share things with himself was crazy to me. Now, I consider myself an open person, but I realized today that I do indeed have a tolerance for how much information people should share with me.

Sometimes I feel as though I wear a sign that says, "Share all your stories with Jamie!" Honest to goodness, sometimes people just say things to me and I just shake my head...

I'm sure this post makes no sense to you all, but I just had to write down my feelings after the weird day I had. Thanks for bearing with me. And remember, there is such a thing as too much information!!

The way I see it...

Weddings

I hope I never ever ever have to plan another wedding for myself! Besides the fact that I have a husband (whom I adore), I just really don’t think I could do it.

I got reaquainted with all the wedding “stuff” last weekend with a trip to see my family in Cherokee. My sister is getting married in May and she had some final decisions to make about dresses and it seemed like the perfect time to get things finalized with her matron of honor being there.

We went to a place in Cherokee that I had already been to with my sister and we were there for two or three hours. I honestly don’t know how long, but it felt like forever and time seemed to just go on and on and on forever.

Dresses for the bride, dresses for the bridesmaids, dresses for the flower girl (my daughter). We looked at dresses. We tried on dresses. We looked at veils. We looked at tiaras. I’m exhausted all over again just thinking about it! For those of you that haven’t had to help a bride try on dresses lately, let me fill you in on a secret....those things are heavy. Like really heavy, especially depending on the type of fabric that you get. Anyway, I’m happy to announce that we made final decisions on all the dresses.

My wedding was just seven years ago, but I don’t remember the planning being so daunting. Maybe I have selective memory or maybe I’m just getting old, I don’t know.

I was not a high-maintenance bride. You see these shows on television that show crazy brides that have to spend $80,000 or some outrageous amount on their weddings. That just wasn’t me. It’s not my personality.

I realize the symbol of the wedding and what takes place that day is important, but at the same time, it’s still only one day. The marriage is all the great/hard/fun stuff that comes after the wedding day, but that’s just the way I see it.

Busy Jenna

Miss Jenna has been keeping busy lately with preschool four days a week and a tumbling class two nights a week.


She adores preschool! She always want it to be a school day and I know she loves to go and learn new things. The teacher said she's doing great and is always thinking of ways to "challenge Jenna." I'm definitely a proud mom!


After the summer tumbling class, we decided to sign Jenna up for a class this fall. She goes Monday and Thursday nights for an hour. Jenna seems to be doing well, but I can never watch her because she's always in the back room, so that kind of sucks. :( You pay for the class monthly and can stop it at anytime, so we'll see how it goes. I'm thinking I'm not going to want to be driving to Marshalltown in the winter, but I guess time will tell.

Brody's Vocabulary

Brody and I got to hang out yesterday (just the two of us, a rarity) and the kid amazed me not once, but twice.

Instance number one: We were reading a Dora the Explorer book about careers and there were things you had to find on every page. We got to the animal rescuer page and I told him to find the cheetah. He looked at me and said, "Mommy, that's not a cheetah." I asked him what it was and he said, "It's a jaguar." I couldn't believe that a two-year-old knew what a jaguar was, but I was impressed.

Instance number two: I was making some chicken spaghetti for supper and Brody was eating a few leftover pieces out of the bowl. I didn't want it to ruin his supper, so I told him to get out of the bowl. He turned at me with big blue eyes and food all over his face and said, "But mommy...it's dewishous (delicious)." I just love that boy! He cracks me up and is on his way to a very extensive vocabulary I think. :)

5 Question Friday

1. What is the first nightmare you remember?
Hmmm...I have no idea.
2. Even if you're not a sports fan, what's your favorite sport to play/watch?
My favorite sport to play would have to be (maybe it's because I'm older now) volleyball. I've played in leagues both in Sioux City and in Marshalltown and I LOVED it!
To watch...as a whole I'm a baseball girl. I just love baseball. I know people find it slow and boring, but I don't. When the Twins are on, life is good! Nothing better to do at our house then watch the Twinkies! Hawkeye football is a very close second.
3. If you could pull off one piece of trendy fashion, what would you want it to be (jeggings, hats, thigh high boots, etc.)?
Thigh high boots or skinny jeans would be fun! Unfortunately, I'm just not built for either one, but it would be cool if I could. :)
4. Did you make good grades in school?
Pretty good. I always made the honor roll and all that good stuff.
5. What magazines do you subscribe to?
Everyday with Rachael Ray and technically I don't subscribe to it, my grandma gets it for me for Christmas every year. I love it! The gift that keeps on giving. :)

It's a Hawkeye State!

We live in Iowa State Cyclone country down here in State Center. It isn't easy being a Hawkeye when you're outnumbered 10 to 1, but it sure makes life easier when the Hawks (AGAIN!) this year destroyed the Clones. :)

One of the things about being a Hawkeye fan down here is you get to know a lot of Cyclones. Our friend Jay is one of them. The week of the game, we like to trash talk and occasionally little things happen - like our Hawkeye flag somehow got stolen and in its place was an Iowa State flag. Hmmmm...

Anyway, I showed up to work one day with an ugly bird on my chair, along with pictures of my kids (gasp!) playing with it at Jay's house. The thing is, you need to be careful about what you give to people. You might not like the results. During the game, the ugly bird decided he wanted to be a winner, so the kiddos and I dressed him up in our Hawkeye finest and took a picture that we had to send to Jay. Cy has officially jumped ship!

The way I see it...

Being a Parent

I know I’ve said this before, but it’s hard being a parent! There are lessons you want to teach your kids and then there’s this fuzzy area when you have to deal with other people’s kids. Let me explain what happened.

We took the kids to a playground when we were in Sioux City and this older kid (maybe 7 or 8) was walking UP the slide (that is a huge pet peeve of mine, for the record) while my two-year-old son was just getting ready to go down. The other kid got to the top before Brody started to go down and told my son to, “Watch out!” My husband and I immediately both reacted about how to correctly use a slide.

You may be thinking this isn’t a big deal and maybe it’s not. Here’s the thing though: I harp on my kids about the correct way to use things like a slide or a swing. When they see other kids doing it the wrong way, they wonder why they can’t do what they’re doing. AH! Plus, isn’t an 8-year-old old enough to know better? I think so.

I had the same sort of incident happen here in State Center with a younger child. I politely told him he couldn’t walk up right then because my son was trying to go down. He (maybe 4) told me I was not the boss of him and I couldn’t tell him what to do! Wonderful. How in the world am I supposed to react to that? You know what I did? I bit my lip and just walked away, unsure of what to do.

Parenting doesn’t come with a manual and you just have to do what you feel is the right thing to do at that moment. I’ll just try to keep teaching my kids to do the right things and hope that it rubs off on those around them, but that’s just the way I see it.

Catching up - Labor Day

First of all, Grandma and Grandpa Burdorf, I'm so very sorry it has taken me so long to post these photos from our trip to Sioux City.

Ok, Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, we loaded up the van and made the trip to Sioux City to see not only the Burdorfs, but some of our friends from college as well! Now, I like to go to Sioux City, I really do, but I LOATHE the drive. Three and a half hours of BORING! It was quite the interesting drive with Brody potty-training because we had to make several pit-stops on gravel roads, but he did really well.

When we got to town we drove out to our friend Gabe's new house. Him and his fiance just had an offer accepted on a house in the country. We were very jealous of their almost three acres. It's the perfect house to start having babies in. :) After that we headed to another college friends house for lunch and the rest of the Hawkeye game. It was so good to catch-up!

This is what we did a lot of at the Burdorfs:

Hung out outside! It was a beautiful weekend and we just sat in the backyard and played and played and played. It was nice and relaxing.


Grandma Linda hit the outdoor toy section at Target and grabbed a tee to do a little baseball practice on. I swear, Brody could hit off of a tee for hours if we let him.


She also got this game which is like croquet, but only kick-ball style. Jenna and Aaron loved it!

All in all, a great, but too short weekend. Thanks everyone!

West Marshall Football Poster

For a couple of years now, we started doing special posters with the schedule for each team at West Marshall (through the photography business). They are very popular and the teams like to come up with different themes and sayings. Sometimes I make the posters and sometimes I don't.

This year, after hearing Kenny Chesney's song, "Boys of Fall," I just KNEW that that had to be the theme and I had a vision for the poster at about 5:30 AM one morning while laying in bed. Sounds weird, I know, but it just kind of hit me.

Here is the final product. It is one of the best ones I think I've ever done and I love it. Just wanted to share with you all!

Brody Potty-training update

This past week we have really made the push to get Brody potty-trained. Any parent who has had to potty-train knows it's like a roller-coaster, some days are better than others. He had a few dry days last week and a couple with a few accidents.

When we headed to Sioux City on Saturday that was a really bad day, but I'm chalking that up to an unfamiliar place. Ever since then we haven't had any accidents. Yay! It was kind of funny because Brody thought it was great to get to pee on a gravel road during our trip to and from Sioux City (a huge plus to having a boy is that you can do that!) The thought of not having to buy so many diapers is SO EXCITING! :) I'm hoping he continues to do well.

The way I see it...

A Labor Day Trip Westward

We were lucky enough to get out of town for a few days over the Labor Day weekend. The Burdorfs traveled west to Sioux City to see my husband’s parents and a few friends while we were in town.

My husband and I both attended college in Sioux City and lived there for a few years after we got married before moving here to State Center. Because of that fact, we still have some friends that live there and we were able to hook-up with them and catch-up for awhile.

One of our friends just bought a house and another has a little boy about our son’s age (who we had never seen). Isn’t it fun to go and see your friends that you haven’t seen in way too long? We knew them at the point in our lives when we were all carefree college students who didn’t have a ton of responsiblity. Fast forward seven years and we’re having kids, buying a house or getting married. It’s kind of fun to see each other as “grown-ups.”

I always enjoy going back to Sioux City to see how much the town (ok, I know it’s called a city, but I think of it as a town) has changed. It’s amazing! Even though there are probably 75-80,000 people that lived there, it never felt that big. You could go to the movie theatre or to a game and see somebody you knew or at least recognized.

Although it was a great six years in my life and I do like it over there and miss so many friends, I just couldn’t live in the “city.” I’m a small town girl. That’s how I grew up and after a brief stint in Sioux City, I’m back to small town life. Sure, it’s not always the most convenient. It would be nice just be able to run to Target if you needed to and be there and home again in half an hour.

That’s just a small thing compared to all the wonderful things about small towns - knowing your neighbors, feeling safe with your kids, the great caring people and no stoplights! I was honestly annoyed at how long it took us to get places over the weekend. I’m just used to getting across town in five minutes and that’s the way I like it.

Small town living seems to be the life for me, but that’s just the way I see it.

5 Question Friday

1. What do you do when you have time to yourself?
Well, this rarely happens due to the age of my kids, but I like to read, watch a chick flick or cook.
2. When you look out your kitchen window, what do you see?
My neighbor Jon's house and usually him, sitting outside, smoking and drinking an Old Mil.
3. Who/What would you want to be reincarnated as?
Hmmm...um...let me think on that one.
4. What is your biggest pet peeve about other people's kids?
When they're mean to my kids - pushing them down to get them out of their way, budging in line to get down the slide first and when they don't want my kids to play with them and exclude them on purpose. Ok, I guess I just don't like mean kids!
5. Regular or Diet soda?
When I drink pop I choose regular. If I'm going to drink it I may as well like the way it tastes! However, I've cut down on my pop consumption and upped my water consumption, so I only have maybe one pop a week at the most.

Preschool in full swing

Jenna started week two of Trojan Tots preschool this week. The kid just loves it! She's at the point where she really needs a challenge and she was getting bored with summer. The teacher warned us this year would be very academic and Jenna might even be reading a little bit by the end of the year. She's four! I would be very impressed if she was.

Jenna - being a "B" last name was the first one to bring the snack bucket to school and provide snacks for everybody. Popcorn and apple juice! She was very excited about that. However, she's very upset that two of her classmates have brought carrots because she HATES carrots. :)

Jenna goes four days a week from 12:15-3:15 PM and let me just tell you, she is beat at night. 8:15 PM and she is in bed. No fighting us or anything and she typically doesn't get up until about 7:30 AM.

Here's my lovebug on her first day of school. Doesn't she look way to grown-up? Oh, and I didn't tell her to stand like that, she just did it...