My favorite thing...

My favorite thing in the whole word to take pictures of is my kiddos.  Obviously.  I'm a bias mama who thinks she has cute kids!  What mama would say otherwise?!  To go a step further, I love to photograph my kiddos in their element.  No posing, just doing what they do.  

I was messing around with my favorite lens for our camera (55-200) the other night just following the kids around.  Here are some of my favorites. :)

 Clearly...Blake was having quite the day.  Pouting.  Whining.  Not getting his way.

 Anybody else loving the World Cup right now?!  I have never considered myself a huge soccer fan, but we're kind of addicted at our house. 

 Sneak peek at Blaker's belly.  It's looking so, so good!!

 Remember the birthday post?  Best smile goes to...Brode.  Hands down.

 Bowen was very determined.  He actually made a few and was so excited.  Giving high fives and the whole deal.

 

Dirty legs are surely a sign of a successful summer day, wouldn't you say?

 

Here's to more days like this during the summer.  

 *THE BEST!*

Three years ago at Rose Festival...

Our small town celebration, the Rose Festival, always makes me emotional.  If you are new to our blog, here's why.  It was the day we got to bring Blake home from the hospital!!  Yep, after a 70 day stay at UIHC, the Friday of Rose Festival he got to come home.  We wasted no time showing him off to the public as we took him out and about with the rest of the family. 

It's amazing to see how much the twins have changed.  Here they are in 2011.  They really do like TWINS!!

Bowen is on the left; Blake on the right

 

And in a rainy 2012:  

Bowen on the left; Blake on the right

And in 2013.  Look at that long hair on Mr. Blake.  

Blake on the left; Bowen on the right.

 So, last weekend marked the fourth Rose Festival (3 year anniversary) of our family all being together under the same roof since the twins were born!  Happy, happy day. :)

My monkeys in 2014.  Uncooperative.  Not in the mood for pictures.  And don't mind the crazy sun. ;)

Blake is on the left; Bowen on the right.

 Blake and Bowen we love you!  You complete our family, orneriness and all!!! :)

        

Since the last time I blogged...

We have been very busy, as I said, around our house the past month or so. I decided to do a quick "what we've been up to" to get you all caught up.

1. Red Shoe Run:  Once again this year we did the 5K for a place near and dear to our hearts, the Ronald McDonald House in Iowa City.  It was another great turnout and I plan to (fingers crossed) do a separate post about this because it was such a great day!  Blakers and Steph posed for a picture at the end of the day.

 

2. "Frozen": Do you want to build a snowman?!  Just kidding.  Iowa State showed "Frozen" at Jack Trice one Saturday night in May.  It. Was. Awesome.  We sat with a bunch of other Dance Marathon families and watched it on the big screen.  Everybody brought blankets and filled up the field and then had to move to the chairs.  The place was ridiculously packed.  Such a great, family fun night.  We can't wait to see what they show next year!

3.  Track and Field Day:  The end of the school year meant elementary track and field day.  It's one of my favorite days of the year.  I spent the morning on a field trip to a farm with Brody and the afternoon watching the kids at track and field day.  

 This was my first year having two kids participating and I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off!  Plus, I was trying to get pictures for the paper at the same time. 

 The kiddos had a good day!  Brody got first place ribbons in kick-the-shoe (above) and in the long jump.  Jenna got first in the softball throw. 

4.  Little League:  May also brought the start of Little League games for Jenna.  This week, we start tournaments, so we'll see how many more games she has left.  This is the first year that Jenna has pitched. 

 

I have to admit I get a little teary looking at these pictures of her pitching.  She looks so grown-up and so determined.  Jenna says she really likes to pitch, so we'll see how this goes.  

5. Summer sports photos:  It seems that everything happened at the same time, as it does every year.  We have been so busy (which is awesome!) with little league teams from different towns, middle school and high school baseball/softball pictures.  In-between teams, these monkeys wanted their turn...

 

  

6.  Six and seventh month kidney-versaries:  Blake is doing so well right now. *knock on wood*.  People ask me, "How long have you been home?"

I respond, "We don't talk about it.  We don't count days.  We just say we've had a good stint at home."  

At the last two check-ups with Dr. Jetton she pretty much says, "I don't really have much to say...Blake's just doing so well and looks so great!"  Fine by me. ;)

We have made major progress in the meds department.  At it's worst, I think he was taking 22 or 23 meds a day and at seven or eight times a day.  Right now we have gotten that number down to 9!!! meds and he only gets meds at 8 AM and 8 PM.  I cannot explain to you how gosh darn amazing that is!!!! :) 

 

7. School is out!  We finally got out of school the Thursday after Memorial Day.  It was really late this year.  The kids were excited, obviously!  

 

8.  Middle School Staff Golf Outing:  We couples golfed with the Middle School staff one Sunday afternoon.  I am so bad, but it was a kid-free activity with friends, so hey!  It was a good time!

9. Outdoors, all the time:  We busted out the sprinkler this past weekend because it was finally warm enough.  Look at Bowen's face.  That is the face of the child who will give us more gray hair than all the other combined, I'm quite certain of that!

 The light was perfect.  I have a bunch of other fun pics to share with you too.

 I'm not kidding when I say the first thing the twins say when they get up is, "Go outside?!"  All day everyday if they could. 

10. Father's Day:  Today we didn't really do anything super special for Dad's Day.  We ate donuts.  Played ball.  I grilled.  Watched college baseball.  We let Aaron sleep in and let him put his feet up and watch sports on t.v. 

 I'm pretty lucky to have this guy as the father of my kiddos.  This last year we have been through some incredibly hard times with everything going on and he showed me yet again what an amazing guy he is!

Ok, so that's just a small look at everything we've been up to!  I promise I won't go a month until my next post.  I need to learn something from my friend, Mary, and post something weekly. 

Have a great week!  We are gearing up for the Rose Festival!

We're still here...!

Hey all....Long time, no blog, eh?!  I just realized it's been over a month since I posted anything on here.  Sorry about that, but we have super duper busy living this crazy life.

Just know we are all doing well and that I don't have super huge plans for the weekend, BUT updating the blog is on the list.  Promise.  Pinky-swear.  Scout's honor.

I'm sure you're all up for some pictures of the kiddos and seeing what we've been doing lately.  Plus, I have a long list of back-logged blogs I need to catch-up on (Burdorf Birthday Bash 2014, anyone?!). 

Anyway, thanks for your patience and please check back.  I will post something over the weekend.  Yes, I will, yes I will, yes I will... :) 

10 on 10

I haven't done 10 on 10 for awhile (10 pictures from your day taken on the 10th of the month).  Since it was a Saturday, I decided to do it.  Here is our 10 on 10 for May...

SNUGGLING... with Bowen first thing in the morning.  Everybody else slept in.  I love moments like this with just one-on-one time with my kiddos.

WATCHING..."Downton Abbey" while cleaning my kitchen.  1. I'm obsessed with this British drama, it's so addicting.  2. It makes cleaning up my kitchen not as horrible. 

 RUNNING...while Aaron took the kids to get a few special things (wink, wink!).  It's been a struggle to get back at it after so much time off and I am easily frustrated with how out of shape the hospital made me.  However, this was my first run with sub-10 minute pace, which is PROGRESS! :)

 MELTING...over this paper that Brody filled out at me about school.  I said, "Brody, you think I'm 22?"  He said, "Yeah mom, I really had to guess on that one!"  Love that kindergartener!

 REPLACING... our roses bushes.  After six years, our rose bushes were dead.  No green whatsoever.  People, we live in the Rose Capitol of Iowa and we need rose bushes that actually produce beautiful roses!  Our neighbor, Jon, let Aaron borrow his tractor to get them out. 

PLANTING...the gorgeous new flowers that Aaron and the kids picked out for me for Mother's Day.  Love them.  Plus, I got a new bird feeder.  We love watching the birds on our bird feeder and already had two gold finches on them this morning.

  OBSESSING...over strawberries at our house right now.  I can't buy enough of them.  The kids inhale them, which is a good thing.

 JUMPING...on the trampoline because it was such a nice day!

 READING...I'm trying to do more of it because I enjoy it so much!  This is my third book in a pretty short amount of time.  I feel like I'm the last one to the party, but I'm hopping on the bandwagon and reading, "Divergent." I'm about 100 pages in and so far I like it.

 CELEBRATING...our family contact for Dance Marathon, Alexandra's, graduation from Iowa State!  She was nice enough to invite us over for her party.  It was really nice to meet her family and friends.   The good news is that she has a year of grad school, so we get her again next year!

It was a good day.  Sunday, Mother's Day, has been a really good day too. I feel like the luckiest person out there that God chose to bless me with these four incredible kids!  I always share this quote on Mother's Day, because there is so much truth in it...

"There is no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one."

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!

The kids' actual birthday days!

I'm only like, two months behind here, but since it's my blog and I can do what I want, I'm going to! ;)  I felt like all of the kids' birthdays were extra, extra special this year and since this is my journal, I wanted to be able to have memories of what we did.  And, this is probably going to be long.  So here we go...

JENNA - MARCH 14TH - 8 is great!

Blake was in the hospital for Jenna's birthday.  I knew at the beginning of the week it wasn't looking good for us to be home.  I was about ready to have a meltdown about it to be honest with you.  Our friend, Jay, called and asked if he could do anything.  I asked if he would be willing to bring Jenna to Iowa City and then hang out with Blake while we went out for lunch.  He agreed!

After some Child Life activity in the morning, we headed out for lunch.  Lunch was Steak 'n Shake, Jenna's choice.  Burgers, fries and shakes...need I say more?  After that we hit up the mall for a new birthday outfit and got some stuff for the root beer floats she was having for her class treat on the following Monday (since she skipped school to hang out with mom!).  What was nice was that I could just talk to Jenna with no interruptions.  After the crazy months prior, we didn't get a lot of quality time together.  On her birthday, we did.

 When we got back to the hospital, the art therapist stopped by, so Blake and Jenna made this monster together.  I love the bond these two share!

 I made Jenna pose for pictures before she left me.  I can't believe how grown-up she is.  I can't believe my first born is eight.  Eight!  Happy Birthday Jenna, you are one-of-a-kind!

 

BRODY - MARCH 28TH - Super 6!

Brody was very concerned about whether or not I was going to be home for his birthday.  One night when we were talking on the phone while at the hospital he asked me.  Broke my heart.  I hate that my kids should even have to worry about this.  It turns out we weren't in the hospital - yay!

Friday was Brody's big day and I surprised him by having lunch with him at school.  He saw me and said, "Mom, what are you doing here?!" *biggest smile ever*

 On Saturday, I thought it was only fair that Brody get a special few hours with mom, just like Jenna did.  My plan was to go to Sky Zone in Des Moines and then to lunch.  Well, Sky Zone was sold out for like three hours! Ugh...fail. 

It's always good to have a plan B!  I asked Brody if he wanted to go to Perfect Games (bowling, arcade games) in Ames or to Bass Pro Shop.  He picked Bass Pro Shop. I mean, that place is pretty awesome... :)

 We literally were there for an hour and a half.  Looking at fish and animals, checking out some Duck Dynasty stuff, picking out which 4-wheeler and boat we wanted :) and playing some hunting games.  We played hunting games forever and I'm sure we could have stayed there longer. 

 Did I mention we tried on hats?  Yes, I would pick the dorkiest one I could find... ha!  We then headed to Ames to eat at Brody's favorite - Texas Roadhouse.  After way too much food, we headed home to bring the leftovers to the rest of the gang.
Happy Birthday Brody!  I love the way your mind is always working and you have, hands-down, the best smile ever!! :)

BLAKE AND BOWEN- APRIL 8TH - TERRIFIC 3 (times 2!)

For the second Burdorf Birthday in a row, we were blessed to be home!!  HOME. One of my favorite words ever.  With everybody at school all day, it was just Blake and Bowen and me hanging out at home. 

 

They got this gator for their birthday and they are smitten with it.  They can think of nothing else when going outside except this gator. This looks like trouble...!

 

 This picture, it's so them.  I love how they are alike, but so different.  How they function so well together, but can make it a part.  I guess it's a twin thing.

 I cannot have a birthday pass without getting teary-eyed.  Especially this year.  I thought about, briefly, on their birthday, about the scary day and what might have been.  I had so many prayers of thanks April 8th, I just can't even tell you. 

This is a crazy, hard, emotional, but oh-so-worth it, journey we are on.  I wouldn't trade it.  I wouldn't trade these twins for anything in the whole wide world.  They are who they are and that's what makes them great. 

 

I say it every year and I'll say it again...Blake and Bowen, you are the best things I never knew I wanted!  I love you both, you are the best!