Iowa vs. ISU

So...to make a long story short, Aaron decided to see if he could get a press pass to Iowa State football for the season.  West Marshall has four alumni that are on the team, so I told him a story had to come out of it!  

He met with one of his former baseball players who was on the ISU football team and then due to injury, is now part of the coaching staff. Kody is a really good kid and I think the story Aaron wrote really shows that!

The bonus of this pass? The Hawks happened to play at Jack Trice this season.  Aaron took a bunch of pictures (371 to be exact) and these are ten of his favorites:

 Story on this picture below: Aaron felt a tap on his shoulder, turned around and there stood Herky.  Aaron thought he wanted a picture taken, but no.  Herky wanted to take Aaron's picture.  Apparently with a mascot costume, it's hard to focus. ;)

It's a HAWKEYE state!

Aaron's Appointment

If you all remember in this post here we told you that Aaron had a few issues that would keep him from being Blake's donor.  Well, he had an appointment a couple of weeks ago that I didn't blog about where the surgeon he met with said he saw no reason that Aaron COULDN'T be Blake's donor.  I tried to tell myself to not get my hopes up too much, because if I have learned anything, it's that things can change quickly.

So, we spent a couple of weeks trying to get Blake's surgeon (who said Aaron couldn't be the donor) to communicate with Aaron's doctor (who said he could).  What happened was we got an email from the transplant coordinator saying that they had received his records from Mayo and that the doctor said Aaron's case was "more complicated" than originally thought.  Note to doctors out there: don't say something like that via email.  It causes worry.

Anyway, Aaron went down Friday and the doctor mainly discussed Aaron being Blake's donor.  Or not, as the case may be.  The golden rule of organ donation is that you would never do anything to put the donor in any harm.  For Aaron, a couple of his numbers are indicating he may have diabetes later in life, which could be trouble for his kidneys.  If he only had one, that is worrisome to the doctors.

Secondly, with this weird Castleman's Syndrome that he has, in about 10% of the cases the person may have hepatitis.  We are waiting for bloodwork to confirm that Aaron doesn't have it, but obviously, we wouldn't want that passed on to Blake.

At this point, Aaron and I have full accepted that he will not be the donor.  The doctor would like to have Aaron have his lymph node removed in July of 2014 as a precautionary measure.  Aaron and I are a team in this craziness that is our life and we just really need him to be as healthy as he can be.  For now, that's the priority.  So, we continue to search for a donor for Blake.  I have some more donor packets coming, so if anybody is at all interested, please let me know. 

Rough 24 hours

So, we had a rough 24 hours at our house. Monday afternoon at work I started to feel sick to my stomach. I came home after I finished the paper and sipped on some 7up. I felt like I was flu sick, but nothing ever happened.

The West Marshall girls made it to state and we played the late game (8:30 pm), so Aaron went down with Jay and the two of them were going to cover the game for the paper. Halfway through the Estherville-Hull game I got a text from Aaron saying he didn't feel well. Next thing you know I'm getting more texts about how he can't keep anything down. Awesome.

Meanwhile, back in State Center, Jenna would not leave the bathroom because her stomach hurt. Same deal. Emptying the stomach.

I felt so bad for Aaron, who had the sweats and then the chills. I felt really bad for Jay, who drove our van home at about 80 mph and still had to make two stops for Aaron. What a mess. Needless to say, those two did not attend school Tuesday. As for me, by some miracle, I avoided it, as did Brody and the twins (knock on wood).

Tuesday afternoon everybody started feeling better, so since we were all home, we stayed busy in the house. Jenna read books. She loves Mercer Mayer books and she is getting to be a very good reader.

Brody is just a goofball who likes to dress up. This time it was Aaron's hat and hunting gloves.

We did a craft with mini marshmallows. Dip one side in paint and the other in glue and the kids made a picture of whatever they wanted.

During craft time/naptime for daddy/exersaucer time for the twins, I made these 5-ingredient cookies. So good and so easy.

Here was Jenna's marshmallow pic - she made a "B" with a smiley face, sun and grass.

Blakers loves to give high fives. It's cute. He also loves to suck on fruit puffs and then spit them out. I guess he was saving this one for later?!

And then there's this guy. He loves to smile like this and then...

Close his eyes and laugh like you are the funniest person on the face of the planet. Hilarious. He has the best laugh.

Everybody is back in school. Last day of school is tomorrow and Aaron has conferences tomorrow nite. No school Friday. Ahhh...wishing for the weekend!

10K

The 10K! In Mankato! Our first! Good news is...we survived! I was a nervous wreck starting Friday night. I don't really know why, but I was. Scott and Lisa Nelsen - our awesome friends - ran with us and it was their first 10Ks as well. For the record, Lisa was nervous about the run too.

Saturday morning we left the hotel about 6:30 AM and headed to downtown Mankato to get on a bus that would take us to the starting line, which was on MSU's campus. Here are all four of us in the hotel, getting ready to leave:

My super-smart hubby had the idea that we should have these shirts made that match our #keepfightingblake bracelets. In addition to wearing the shirts, Scott raised money for the Ronald McDonald House in Iowa City that is very near and dear to our hearts. Last I knew, he had raised over $500. Wow!!!

Jenna and Brody LOVE Scott and Lisa! A sleepy pic with Scott.

And Lisa too!

It was kind of weird because it was dark out when they dropped us off. It was a very "balmy" 36 degrees at the start of the race. It actually turned out to be the perfect temperature. The picture above was taken right before our run. Sorry for the bluriness, but it was with my phone.

THE RACE:

Aaron - he said he didn't feel like he ran very well. He even had the nerve to tell me after the race that he thought he was running so slow that he feared that he would look over his shoulder during the run and I would be right on his heels. LOL. Real nice, huh?! Aaron finished in under an hour, which was his goal.

Me - My lungs felt great the entire race! I never felt out of breath. I had been having some issues with pain in my left knee. The Sunday before I ran about 6.8 miles and I was in major pain that night and the next day. I took the entire week off in hopes to not injure it more.

Around mile 2, I could feel the pain start to creep. At about 4.5 miles my knee buckled and I literally almost fell. I kept going though. It sounds weird, but all I could picture was little Blaker's face that day he was poked four times. I thought to myself, this is just your knee. Look what Blake goes through every single day. Suck it up and keep running. And I did! I crossed the finish line in 1:07, beating my goal by about 8 minutes. I could barely walk the rest of the weekend, but it was worth it. :)

Scott and Lisa: They both ROCKED IT!! Lisa beat her goal and Scott did his as well. I am so very proud of both of them and it was extra special that we all did it together.

Aaron said he doesn't want to run any farther than a 10K, but plans to run some 5Ks in the future. I said I might want to try something farther. Maybe. We will see what happens, but it was definitely a great accomplishment!!

Father-Daughter Dance

There's a group of gals in State Center that started a Father-Daughter Dance five years ago. This was Aaron and Jenna's first year attending and Jenna was so excited for it. She kept asking how many days away it was until the day of and then it was how many hours. Aaron was so great about it too! He suggested Jenna wear her flower girl dress and get a ribbon to match one of his shirts. They were the best looking duo there in my very bias opinion. :)

In addition, this year they asked our family to be the recipients of the free-will donation that is taken. We feel blessed that they thought of our family. We are truly grateful for their donations.

The fathers and their daughters got to be announced in a promenade and afterwards they got to dance. Jenna informed me they did the hokey-pokey twice and also got to limbo.

This was taken right after the promenade. There's just something special about being a daddy's girl. :)

I'm "sew" embarrassed

Here's my embarrassing confession: we have lived in our house for 3.5 years and I have no curtains in my living room and toy room. White, white, white. Finally, I snapped last week. I told Aaron we were getting curtains and getting them soon! So, last Friday when we were in Target I found some I really liked for the four windows that were needing them. Aaron had other ideas. Our conversation went like this:

Me: I really like these curtains!

Aaron: You are not spending that much on curtains. I can make you curtains for half that price.

Me: Yeah right.

Aaron: Yes, Jame, I can.

Me: Fine. I bet you $5 (big better, aren't I?!) that you can't make curtains.

Aaron: Let's go to Hobby Lobby.

Fast forward to us being home. Long story short, a few years ago I was able to get a nice sewing machine for free. Well, it was finally time to use the machine and do you think we could find the darn pedal anywhere? Of course not! Luckily, our good friend Mary let us borrow her sewing machine and Aaron got to work.

My cousin, Ken, helped Aaron pin the material.

And away Aaron went! I was shocked he still remembered how to sew. I'm embarrassed that I can't sew because it's something I wish I could do, but I'm also impressed that Aaron can.

After watching for a while, I decided I wanted to give it a try. Me, a person who couldn't even thread the dang sewing machine in junior high. Me, a person who opted to take shop over home ec in high school so I could avoid sewing again.

Aaron was trying to give me the run down. I actually did ok, until...

I pricked my finger with a pin! Oh well, I can say I sewed two sides of one of the four curtains Aaron made, right?! :)

Drumroll...the final product....

He was so proud!!

100!!!

I'm behind blogging! I have 4th of July pics to put up and a bunch of other stuff, but I'm going to go out of order because I feel like it's the thing to do in this case.

Thursday night, in the last regular game of the baseball season, Aaron got his 100th career win! It didn't come easy, that's for sure. It was a back-and-forth game that came down to our #4 hitter hitting a 3-run walk off home run in the bottom of the 10th inning! Whew. I'm sure Aaron won't forget that game anytime soon.

He came home emotionally exhausted, but he was happy about the accomplishment. He's been the head coach at West Marshall for just six years, so I would say that's pretty impressive how fast he got to #100 and I'm so proud of him!

District play starts on Saturday. Each game from now on could be the last for him (did I blog on here that he resigned effective at the end of this season? Hmmm....I can't remember if I did or not). Anyway, between Blake & family stuff, taking master's classes in the summer, it's just a lot. I don't want to think about life after baseball because it is our life in the summer, so for now we'll just keep cheering on the boys and hope they continue to win.

Date Night

Saturday nite a couple of friends of ours were nice enough to volunteer to watch the kids for us so we could have one last nite out before the babies get here.

We are so un-exciting. We went to Legends, watched basketball and had supper. The thing is, it was really nice! No interruptions just us. Ahhhhh....

After that we shopped for a few last minute baby things and found they had some good deals going on. For example, we got the twins two winter coats and hats for a total of $12!!! I was pretty excited about that. :)

Our last nite out for awhile. Now we just sit and wait for the arrival of our new babies...

Keeping busy

Even though Aaron's no longer the assistant girls basketball coach at West Marshall, don't think he's just sitting around enjoying a winter off. He has been keeping very busy with reffing basketball.

Middle school tournaments on the weekends in the Des Moines area and junior varsity and varsity games during the week have filled up his calendar. Since it's not every night, we (the kids and I) like it a lot better than when he was coaching. We get to see him more!

He almost always has a story or two from every game. Aaron will definitely tell you that the middle school tournaments are the WORST! The stories he tells about how out of control 5th and 6th grade parents can be is insane! Seriously, it's 5th grade! He would rather do high school games any day.

*These pictures came from our friend Jay, who went to a game at Colo-NESCO and snapped them. Doesn't Aaron look so professional and stuff? :)

All-Star Series

As I said before, Aaron was selected to coach in the Senior All-Stars Series in Cedar Rapids for the Small Schools East team. He left early Thursday morning. It was four games in four days for every team (there were four total).

The girls and I (thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law) got to go down minus Jenna and Brody. It was nice to have a little break and get to relax. We got to stay at the Mariott in CR, which was really nice. In the time not spent at baseball games, we went school shopping for the girls and went swimming.

They kept the boys and coaches pretty busy too! Playing games, all-state meetings, poker tournament, cosmic bowling and the olympics were all on the agenda. Aaron had to stay up later than he was used to! Needless to say, I was thankful the Kasea and Ken were there because I would have been spending a lot of time by myself.


Thursday and Friday the teams played at Kernels Stadium and Saturday and Sunday at Kirkwood Community College.


It was really fun to watch really GREAT baseball. Those guys made everything look so easy. The defensive plays they made were amazing! The only tough thing about it was the small schools played the large schools (Class 4A) and the pitching was so dominating by the 4A squad. You just don't see that kind of pitching in 1A and 2A. For example, the kid that pitched against us on Sunday got drafted by the Phillies! Kind of crazy.