Blogging Goals!

Alright friends, I've been thinking about this blogging thing.  I genuinely miss blogging, but haven't (obviously) been making it a priority.  My goal is two times a week to post something on here.  

It's so funny because one of my favorite things to do is go back and look at the blogs I've posted and lately, well I just can't do that.  Makes me sad I don't have my "electronic scrapbook" up to date.  

We headed to my dad's for Easter.  It was a nice, low-key day that involved all the good stuff: family, the Easter Bunny, church, card games, picking-up poop in Grandpa's yard (scouts honor the boys thought that was fun), basketball on tv, pie, ham, deviled eggs and all that yumminess.  

Here's a picture we snapped after church.  Don't mind the awkwardly leaning, tired looking mom.  Why does nobody ever tell me to stand up straight?! Ha.  Next time, I guess.    

I hope your Easter was as great as ours!  See you back here sometime this week. :)

A Superhero Halloween!

After last year's awesomeness at Halloween, I was feeling some pressure to do something great again this year.  I felt like as long as the kids were cooperative with having a theme, I should just go with it.  We decided and had everybody agree upon being a superhero.  Without further ado, I give you the Burdorf Halloween costumes for 2014!

 The Hulk....a.k.a. Bowen

Batman...a.k.a. Blake

 Spiderman...a.k.a. Brody

 Superwoman...a.k.a. Jenna (she thought she should fly!)

 And...I thought Aaron and I should be festive as well.  Aaron was super excited about it. ;)  We told him he couldn't be a fun-hater, so he agreed!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

4th of July Weekend!

On Thursday afternoon we headed to Cherokee to spend the long 4th of July weekend with my sister, brother, mom and families.  It was a fairly uneventful trip on the way up, minus some road side stops.  The joy of having boys!  Or a mom that can pop-a-squat about anywhere. ;)

Thursday night was pretty relaxed.  We ordered pizza, had a crazy dodge ball fight in the basement, which somebody declared the worst idea ever and Justin said it was, "the best idea ever!"  It was crazy with balls flying everywhere, but hilarious and nobody got hurt, so always a good thing.

  

Friday we got the troops out the door and headed to Storm Lake for their parade.  If you grow up in Armstrong, Iowa, you HAVE to go to a parade on the 4th of July.  It just feels incredibly wrong if you don't.  It's my favorite of all 4th of July traditions.  A nice lady sitting next to us offered to take this group photo. 

Team sparkle: Aunt Mandy and Jenna

There were so many people at the parade!  We had a hard time snagging a good spot.  The boys waited pretty (im)patiently.  On a sidenote:  if anyone would like to purchase Mandy or myself any of those old, beautiful houses by the lake, we'd take you up on that. ;)  We had so much fun walking through the houses and picking out our faves. 

 

Mr. McCoy, proudly waving his flag during the parade. 

On our way out of town we had to stop at Walgreens for some Blake supplies.  Aaron spotted a kid selling sweet corn.  The conversation went like this:

Aaron:  Is that sweet corn for sale over there?

Me: Um...it looks like it.

Aaron:  We have to go buy some.  It is un-American to not buy sweet corn on the 4th of July if sweet corn is available.  

Me: Ok, then. :)

The guys (Aaron, Justin, Mitch) went to Quimby for some golfing on Thursday afternoon while we held down the fort with the kids.  Brody on the slip 'n slide.

 

Maddox liked it too.  That face...haha.

 

 We were outside pretty much the whole entire weekend.  Jess and Mitch have this rope in their tree and Mitch was doing flips.

Then Justin gave it a try.  Jess, Mandy and I all did too.  Although we couldn't do it.  UGH.  I will spare you the pictures of that!!

How about this kid?  Blakers has had his abdominal muscles cut through about 152 times and look at him working the abs!  Amazing. 

 

Fireworks to end the 4th...

 

 Saturday it was the girls' turn (Mandy, Jess, Jenna and me) to have a little time to themselves.  We hit up Cherokee's Main Street for some shopping and breakfast.  Have you ever been to Main Street in Cherokee?  They have some super cute shops!  We had to stop at a bakery.  I love that smell of a bakery, there's just nothing like it!

After lunch, it was time to hit up the Cherokee Aquatic Center.  I didn't bring my good camera and am totally kicking myself about it.  I took a couple photos with my phone.

 

Bowen is an absolute fish and loves the water!  Jenna conquered her fears of going down the big slide.  And...so did her mom, along with going off the high dive (10 feet, but STILL).  I'm not sure who had more fun...the kids or the adults?!

Mitch smoked some pork tenderloin for supper in his smoker that was amazing!!!  Seriously, the best I've ever had.  We ate our sweet corn too.  Soooo...yummy.

If you know our family, you know we love our music.  Specifically...country music.  We were listening to Classic Country on Pandora.  Waylon Jennings.  Willy Nelson.  Conway Twitty.  The best.  Justin and I said it reminded us of being in Grandma and Grandpa Beadle's kitchen back-in-the day.  Grandma and Carter dancing.

And...Justin and Mitch.  We don't ask... ;)

Group photo time:

 

And, a goofy one because why not?!

We opted to hold off on the sparklers on the 4th because it was so late, so we did them on Saturday night.

 

We wanted to do a cool photo where you spell words out.  I looked up how to set your camera, Aaron read through it and figured it out.  Here's what we got:

How cool are these?!

Every night ended up with us by the fire pit.  We played the game heads-up (from the Ellen Show).  Look it up.  It's a blast!

Saying our good-byes on Sunday.

It was such a good weekend full of lots of fUn and FaMiLy!!  We can't remember the last time all three of us kids stayed under the same roof and got to see each other for longer than about 36 hours.  It was awesome. :) 

Low-Key Easter

We had a Happy Easter at the Burdorfs!  It was the first holiday we've been out of the hospital and all together since Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving.  Crazy, right?!  To say we were happy to be at home and together is probably the biggest understatement ever.

A few days before Easter we planted some jelly beans along our fence in the front yard.  Do you know what grows when you plant jelly beans?  The kids didn't either, so we had to find out.

Yes, they were trying to dig a hole with a plastic snow shovel - ha!

After seeing what the Easter Bunny brought us, we headed to church and I was able to snap a few pics of my favorite four.  I got these two cute ones after Bowen decided he was going to quit throwing his fit. ;)

 They were saying, "Easter!!!"

 Jenna and I had to get a picture together since we had kind of dressed a like for church. 

 

 And this is what the jelly beans grew!  Suckers.  The kids were trying to figure out how this happened and in the end determined it was the work of the Easter Bunny.

 We are still in "we can't go far from Iowa City at this point in time mode" for anything, so we headed to my dad's in Knoxville for lunch.  It was such a nice day we played outside pretty much the entire time. 

 The Easter Bunny brought the two oldest new gloves, so we had to try them out with some batting practice and a little catch. 

 Concentrating.

Peas in a pod, Bowen and Brody.

 We tried fish-tailing Jenna's hair for the first time ever for church.  It looked pretty cute and better than this picture shows after church and playing outside.

Grandpa Larry has a cement circle in his backyard and the kids loved riding their two tractors and tricycle around and around and around...

 Hanging out in the cool basement with Grandpa. 

 I wanted to try to find my copy of, "Charlotte's Web," I had as a kid for Jenna and I to read together.  When ended up also finding all of my Baby-sitter's Club Books!  Apparently, I had a few of them...;)  They were the BEST books.  Jenna and I took home an entire box of the BSC books - regular books, mysteries, super specials.  I'd say we have enough to keep her busy reading for awhile.

 When we got home, we couldn't just sit inside you know.  We had to play outside some more!  The twins got these little dirt bikes for their birthdays, so they kept riding up and down the driveway. 

 These two. :)

 

Overall, it was a great weekend together.  I love that word!  Lots of time together.  Playing outside together.  Quality time together.  Woo-hoo for being all TOGETHER!!!