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!!

The way I see it...

Tears

Do you ever have one of those weeks? Those weeks where you just find yourself crying a lot. I’m having one of those weeks, but I’m not really sad, just emotional. I had two incidents that happened this past weekend that made me break down.

First, on Sunday evening my husband and daughter went to the Father-Daughter dance that was held at the St. Paul Lutheran Church. It was so nice! What a great event for dads and daughters. Jenna was excited for a couple of weeks in advance and didn’t stop asking how long it was until the dance until she and Aaron left for the dance.

This year, the group that puts it on asked if our family would be the recepients of the free will offering they have. We said we would and I (along with the rest of my family) were so touched by the generosity that was shown. Honestly, it was just another thing that brought me to tears.

While at the dance, a little something was said about our family and Blake and everything we’ve gone through since finding out we were expecting twins. It was strange, I have to tell you. When you’re used to telling people about your situation and then you have to actually hear everything you’ve been through, it’s a different feeling. Enter me tearing up, yet again. Hearing it out loud made me think, “Wow, this sounds really bad. Twins...a baby in Iowa City for ten weeks...kidney failure...nightly dialysis...transplant.” I know I’m not explaining it right, but it was like an out of body experience or something to hear somebody talk about your life in such a way.

Incident number two: I checked our family’s blog over the weekend and noticed a new comment on one of the posts I had written. What I found made me speechless and reinforce my belief in fate.

The comment was from a gal in California who found our blog via Google (I have no idea how) and on the day, THE EXACT DAY, that Blake got to go home she welcomed a son seven weeks early. Her son suffered from posterior urethral valves (what caused this mess for Blake) his kidneys are working at about 15%, they have started the same dialysis that Blake is on, they are talking about a G-tube and he had just had a hernia repaired.

Does that sound familiar? Yeah, it did to me to. I just stared at the computer and read the comment two more times. I teared up. I am thankful she found us. If nothing else for a place to go just to realize that somebody else has been in your shoes. I always feel like everything in your life happens for a reason. Things like this don’t just happen. It just gives me goosebumps that she had her son the same day we took Blake home. What in the world are the odds of that happening?

I have this feeling in my gut that it was just meant to be that she found us. It couldn’t have been easy because my husband tried googling to find us and he couldn’t do it. I got her email address because she wants to talk to me. I am definitely emailing her, if nothing else just to let her know that we have been there and we’re making it and things are going to be ok. What I learned after this week is that sometimes, you just need to let go and cry, but that’s just the way I see it.

Sponge Balls

I got this idea from a friend (thanks Chris!) to make these sponge balls for the kids to play with. With as hot as it's been, I decided it would be a perfect time to make these with the kids. You need three sponges for each sponge ball. The kids liked to mix and match the colors.

Start by cutting a sponge in half and then in half again.

Line up the sponges in any pattern you want.

Gather them together like this and then use a rubber band to secure them in the middle. The result looks like this:

Cute, huh?!

The kids and I had a lot of fun playing in the backyard with them. I even got in a pretty good dual with Jenna. Brody was my little helper and stole all the sponge balls from Jenna. :)

This picture of Brody freaks me out. I have a vision of him at about 17 pitching for his high school team. Daddy was pretty proud of his form.

Jenna had pretty good aim. She even nailed Brody in the forehead, which she found hilarious and Brody...not so much!

Rollin'...rollin'....rollin'

Those Burdorf boys are rolling! Actually they have been for a couple weeks now, but I'm just getting around to blogging about it.

The week of Blake's one-month check-up we were at Aaron's baseball game and Bowen rolled over. Kinda. Sorta. With a little help from a little slope of the hill. I got excited and everybody sitting around me agreed we could count it as the first time he rolled over. But, he really and truly rolled over at home the next day.

With Blakers being in the hospital so long, we figured he might lag behind physically, just because he was laying around more. Exactly one week later Aaron texted me at work to tell me that Blake had just rolled over. I couldn't believe it!

The nurses figured that once Blake rolled over he wouldn't do it anymore because of his G-tube and PD catheter. Doesn't phase the kid a bit! In fact, he rolls over more during the day than Bowen.

Just like with Jenna and Brody, every little milestone is so exciting. The first year of life is such an amazing journey!

Project for the Twins' Room

Once in awhile I like to do something a little crafty and I knew I had to make some personalized for the twins' room. I did two different things for Jenna and Brody's room with their names on it, so I headed to Hobby Lobby (I SO love that store!) for some inspiration.

After walking through the aisles I found some wooden letters, a wooden backplate, paint and baseball scrapbook paper. That's it! Bonus: everything except the scrapbook paper was on sale! :)

Here's what the letters and backplate-thingy looked like to start:

My two best helpers! Kids just can't resist paint, can they?

Here's what I did. I wanted them each to be in different colors, so I decided Blake's would be blue and Bowen's red. I had the kids paint the letters and then I painted around the edge of the backplate. Once that dried, I traced the scrapbook paper around the backplate to fit perfectly. I then modge-podged on the scrapbook paper. After that dried I used wood glue to adhere the letters on.

The finished product:

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out! Super-easy and cheap! :)

Story Time!

Chances are, if you: 1. Have small children. 2. Live in Iowa. 3. Watch PBS - you know the guy pictured above. His name is Dan Wardell and he does all the kids things on Iowa Public Television.

During the summer, he travels around Iowa doing programs at libraries and he happened to be in Marshalltown, so I took Jenna and Brody over to see him.

I have to admit, when you see him on t.v. he appears a little on the dorky side (to an adult). In person, you realize that that's what makes him so awesome at his job! His program was so good! I told Aaron when I got home, you know if somebody does a good job if the kids never interrupt and keep their hands to themselves. Dan kept the kids so engaged at all times. I asked the kids what their favorite part was on the way home and Jenna said, "All of it!" Definitely a morning well spent. :)

Iowa City One Month Check

About a week and a half ago we were scheduled for Blake's one month check-up in Iowa City. We had to see the nephrologist (kidney doc/staff in dialysis unit) and urologist that worked with us while Blake was in the NICU.

The dialysis check-up went well. They put you in one big room and there's a lot of people in there (doctor, nurses, dietician, etc.) and they do vitals, look at his growth, ask us a ton of questions about how things are going and anything remotely related to him. Bowen went with us and they were so happy that the boys are about the same height/weight.

After we got home, the nurse contacted us and said Dr. Jetton (our main doctor for dialysis) wanted to change Blake's prescription for the dialysis stuff because his blood pressure was a little high. So, we had to increase his fills from 220mL to 240mL and he's now on it for 10.5 hours instead of just 10. He seems to be handling it just fine.

We had to meet with urology. As you remember, they didn't think Blake was going to be able to pee on his own because of all the damage sustained in utero. He does, which is great! Now, they aren't sure how he'll do when he get to potty-training time, if his muscles will be shot or what. We won't worry about that for now.

Here's what we did learn, courtesy of a really horrible test where they stuck tubes/hoses in every possible spot "down there." I had to hold him down and I wanted to cry for him... Anyway, his bladder can't hold a lot. The urologist, Dr. Kiernan, compared it to a hard suitcase. Once it's full, it's full and it isn't going to hold anymore, whereas Bowen's is like a soft suitcase, the more he gets in there, the more it expands.

Dr. Kiernan showed us pics they took of Blake's bladder/ureters when he first got to Iowa City. What a mess! It looked like a tornado and the doctor said she has never seen a case of posterior urethral valves so bad (that's what caused the kidney/bladder mess). Today, his bladder looks so much better. Dr. Kiernan said she couldn't ask for it to look any better! We will meet with her again in October for a check-up. She did say when Blake gets his transplant, she will use part of his ureter and make his bladder larger with that so he can hold more.

Blake continues to impress the doctors (and us!) with his fighting spirit and we hope he continues to do well!