Instagram Friday Catch-up

It's FRIDAY!  And, since it's Friday and I need to catch you all up on what we've been up to, I thought I would post some pictures for Instagram Friday.  Also, I have to confess that when I was looking through my photos I don't have a ton taken with my real camera.  I guess I better get that thing out and use it a little more in the upcoming weeks!

In November, our friend Scott hooked us up with four tickets to the Iowa State vs. Minnesota State Men's basketball game.  My dad and Linda watched the twins for us, so it was a nice afternoon with Jenna and Brody.

Although we may root for the team in Iowa City (Go Hawks!), we did have a fun afternoon.  And, we had to get a couple of Clone Cones when we were at Hilton.  That is some good soft serve ice cream right there.

  

 We had a small bout of the flu hit our house. Somehow, this mom was the only one who managed to avoid it.  We're praying we have a healthy holiday season!

Aaron had his birthday!  This year, it fell on Black Friday, so on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving I baked him some treats to share with the staff at the middle school.  He's a pretty lucky guy like that!  Haha!

 We went to Minnesota for Thanksgiving for the first time in YEARS!  It was so awesome.  We got to see people we hadn't seen forever and got to catch-up.  I had always wanted to do a run on Thanksgiving morning and Hastings actually held one.  Over 3,000 runners competed in the 8K and 2K runs.  The weather was so perfect and now I can say I did my first Thanksgiving run and my first 8K! Gobble, gobble...

 We stayed in Minnesota until Saturday morning and when we got home Aaron decided we should do a little holiday baking.  His favorite is always fudge.  For the first time in five years, our fudge actually turned out!

 Mr. Blake had a blow-out at daycare and ended up being pantless.  He just looked too cute...

 Bowen is still being his ornery self.  This was taken a Saturday morning when we were just hanging out.

 

Aaron and I have been busy taking sports photos at the middle and high school.  It's been keeping me busy during the early mornings, naptimes and after the kiddos go to bed.  This was the wrestling poster I was working on...

 For the first time ever, I put the boys in bibs.  I was dying over how stinkin' cute these little monkeys were!

 Brody keeps me on my toes in the mornings when we are at home together.  I laughed when I turned around while making breakfast and saw him lounging in the high chair. He looks so much like his daddy it is freaking me out!

 Jenna had her Christmas concert a couple of weeks ago.  She was so excited to be sparkly!  I love that girl.  We even put hot rollers in her hair and she looked way too grown up for my liking.

 We got our first snow!  Ok, it was only like an inch, but it was so beautiful last Sunday.  Jenna and Brody ran outside to play in it and were throwing snowballs at each other almost instantly.

 The weather has been insanely nice for December!  I haven't been running as much as I want because I've been busy and it gets dark so ridiculously early, but  on this day I took the twins with me.  That definitely makes for a good workout!

 I will leave you with this gorgeous Iowa sunset I snapped on our way to Ames one night...

That's just a quick look at what we've been up to.  I PROMISE to try to do a better job keeping up with the blog.  I have another post in mind that I will try to get up over the weekend.

This weekend is going to involve some Christmas shopping, basketball reffing and a church Christmas concert among other things.  It should be busy!  Have a great weekend everybody!! :)

I'm still here.

Never fear, I'm still here.  It's been almost three weeks since I've written on the old blog.  It's not on purpose.  I've just felt really, really busy and really, really overwhelmed.  With everything.  Life.

I have things to blog about, but it seems that other things have taken precedence over blogging.  I hate that.  Believe it or not, I consider blogging a sort of stress reliever for me.

So, it's been the paper.  And picture taking.  And photo processing. And Christmas card making.  And laundry folding.  And toddler chasing.  And basketball games.  And Aaron reffing.  And family visiting.  And concerts.  And...well...you get the idea. 

I am going to try really, really hard to get up a post, complete with lots of photos this week.  *Fingers crossed.*  Thanks for bearing with me and checking back day after day. :)

Brody's Turkey Tale

The four year old preschoolers told their teacher, Mrs. Randall, all about Thanksgiving!  Their tales are hilarious and Brody's just cracked me up, so I thought I would share it with you.  We have quite the storyteller on our hands...

I'm going to Grandpa Larry's  for Thanksgiving.  Grandma and Grandpa will be there.  So will Uncle Adam, Daddy's grandpa and grandma, Aubrey and Addie will be there.  Aubrey and Addie's mom is having another baby but we don't know if it will be a boy or girl.  Jenna always  wants it to be a girl!  

Grandpa Larry's house is a long, long ways away.  We'll take our car there.  We have new tires! It probably takes four hours to get there.  First we have to go to Sioux City  There's a piano there for Jenna.  And she'll probably do swimming lessons while we're there. 

 Our Thanksgiving food will be pie, peach pie and pumpkin pie!  The ingredients are sugar, chocolate chips, flour, fluffy stuff, eggs and milk  We might eat apples, cut up ones.  Our meat will be turkey.  It has to be giant, like 10 feet long.  I can carry it because I have big muscles.  Mom is going to make our turkey, like last year.  We went hunting for it and daddy shooted it, not by himself, but Grandpa Larry and Uncle Adam helped grill to cook it.  It takes five minutes to cook it.  Dad will cut it open with a sharp knife and fork.  Grandma and Grandpa have video games for me while they hunt  Grandpa's birthday is at Thanksgiving too.  The deer and turkey will be for dessert and ice cream  will be for supper!  I'm thankful for deer this year!

That kid!  Love him to pieces!

I'm typing this as we are on our way to Minnesota.  We are going to spend the day with 58 relatives from the Hunecke side.  I'm so excited to see many people we haven't see in years.  It's going to be a crazy good time!

Happy Thanksgiving!! 

Monthly Check

Mr. Blake and I headed to Iowa City today for his monthly clinic visit.  As monthly visits go, this one was pretty easy.  We met with members of the nephrology team and that's it.  Woo-Hoo!

There's not too much to tell you.  They tweaked two of his meds.  We are starting a new formula that will give Blake more protein and iron (I think.  Blake was trying to escape out of the room, so I was trying to listen and chase him at the same time. :)).

The one downer of the day was that his exit site (where his dialysis catheter comes out of his body) is infected.  That means antibiotics.  As far as everything goes, it could be worse.  And, what's another med when you already take seven a day?!

I have to say that Blake's situation sucks and I would never wish what we're going through on my worst enemy.  That aside, I'm very thankful for the people I've gotten to meet and the amazing staff we get to work with at UIHC.

There's another kidney mom who has a little guy who has been having a rough go of things the last couple of months.  His latest admission has had him hospitalized for the past couple of weeks, so I emailed his mom, Sarah, and asked if I could do anything for her, knowing that I would be going insane.  We ended up having coffee and talking for an hour and a half!  I'm sure we could have talked much longer, but I needed to get home to pick up Bowen.

 It's nice to talk to someone who knows exactly what you're going through.  The best part?  She walked down to the dialysis unit with us and learned that they got to go home today.  Yay!  I hope they get to stay there for awhile. :)  (Thanks Sarah for sharing deliciously overpriced coffee and great conversation with me.)

The way I see it...

BUSY.

“If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. The more things you do, the more you can do.”  This is a Lucille Ball quote.  What do you think?  Is it true?

I have to admit, it caught my eye and made me think.  When you think about it, it would seem obvious to ask a person who doesn’t have a lot going on to do something, but it might not be the case.
Those people who constantly have things to do and tasks that they have to get done really know how to get things accomplished.  My verdict on that quote is that it could be one of my new favorites!

If my planner is any indication, I am a busy person.  I was just telling Aaron the other day that if I lost my planner I may have an anxiety attack.  I was only half kidding.  I feel like my whole entire life is in that thing.  Doctor’s appointments, snack days at the preschool, early outs, when I need to call and refill Blake’s prescriptions, birthdays, ordering of dialysis supplies, basketball games Jenna plays, basketball games Aaron refs, etc., etc., etc.

I literally must write it down or I forget.  Even if it is something completely insignificant like, “Eat a taco on Tuesday.”  If I didn’t write that down, I would not be eating a taco on Tuesday.

After I had Jenna my brain was ok, with Brody I started to see a little bit of a change and when I had the twins I feel like all of my brain cells took a permanent vacation.  Has anybody else experienced this with the birth of their children?!

I have a busy week in front of me.  I’m not complaining!  I like to stay busy, but sometimes I let the stressful part of busy overtake me.  I cope with coffee and chocolate.

The other day I was thinking to myself as I was trying to figure out an ad for the paper mid-afternoon during naptime, “I wonder how much coffee is considered too much in a day?”  I might need to look into that.  I don’t have problems sleeping and I still drink a lot of water and milk, so I’m going to say I’m still ok.

I’ll make it through another week just like I always do.  Just like busy people everywhere do.  It’s all about being efficient and having good time management skills don’t you think?  Oh!  Talking about my planner reminds me that I need to ask for a new one for Christmas.  I better go write that down before I forget, but that’s just the way I see it.

Basketball

Jenna is playing basketball.  Yeah.  It was a tough decision for us, believe it or not.  She's only in first grade and we never wanted to be those people who started their kid playing organized sports super early.

One of Jenna's friend's mom called and said they needed another player.  The program is run through a church and is very church-oriented.  The kids pray all together before the game.  A devotion is read for the parents at halftime.  No score is kept.  And I'm ok with that. 

 They play 6, six-minute continuous clock quarters.  They all rotate through all the positions, which I think is definitely a positive.  Oddly enough, I think Jenna likes to be the point guard. :)

 I'm very surprised at how timid she is.  She's not overly aggressive and is just too nice. Ha!  I told Aaron I wish we could get Brody out there because that would for sure light a fire underneath her.

 

Paul, the girls' coach, is great!  

 The really cool part is that I can already see a big difference in the girls from week one until week four.  The last game is the second week in December. 

 I don't know how Jenna got old enough to be able to start playing ball.  To me, she's still my baby girl. I just hope that she enjoys the sport as much as I did. :)

My 4 on the 4th

 This blog title is a lie.  Yeah...I remembered last nite after the kiddos were in bed that I was going to do the 4 on the 4th thing.  I tell you, if I don't write it down there is zero chance that this mom-of-four-brain will remember.  AHH!!

Anyway, please enjoy these pictures of our 4.  On the 11th.

The best one we got...from left: Jenna, Bowen, Blake and Brody.

 

And the funniest one we got...
No idea what Blakers is doing. :)