Eden - 23 Months

I HATE that I was facing the sun when I took this picture and the coloring is all yucky.  I moved the chair after this and got some pictures with good lighting, but ultimately I HAD to choose this one because I couldn't pass up that grin! 

This is my last time to take a monthly picture of Eden in her little pink chair as I'm going to do something different when she turns two.  Which I cannot believe is only a month away.  I know people ALWAYS say that.  But really - I CANNOT BELIEVE IT.  Like, I think I must be dreaming because I KNOW it has not been almost two years since she was born.  Nope.  Not possible. 

Y'all, she is so big.  Today she told me to put on my seat belt.  Okay, maybe she didn't say the words, "Mom, put on your seat belt", but I was driving home from my dad's house, and since I was on a dirt road, I didn't put it on, and she kept yelling at me, "BELT, BELT, BELT".  I said, "Do you want me to put on my seat belt?", and she said, "Yeah!".  So there you go.  Big.

Since this is my last time to give a little monthly update on Eden, I'm going to be even more obnoxious than usual as I go on and on about how wonderful and perfect my child is.  But really, she is.

Look at that!  A bow!  She has enough hair for a bow now!  Maybe not... but I've started sticking one on her head anyway.  Now if I don't put a bow in her hair, she gets upset with me and starts yelling "BOW, BOW, BOW" at me.  So I put a bow in her hair, and then she rips it out five minutes later.

I study her a lot.  Usually when she's asleep.  I just stare and stare and memorize her features.  And y'all, she really is perfect.  I LOVE her strawberry blond hair.  It is adorable.  She already has nice, thick eyebrows.  And did she ever luck out with her eyes.  She got my blue eyes, but Dustin's lonnnggg, thick eyelashes.  Perfection.  I'm so jealous of their eyelashes.  She has the cutest little upturned nose, chubby little cheeks and rosy-colored lips.  SHE IS BEAUTIFUL.

As her little personality continues to blossom, it's so fun to see traits that are me and traits that are Dustin.  But the best are the traits that don't seem to come from either of us - the ones that are just Eden.  She is headstrong.  She is adventurous.  She is not afraid of much at all.  Dustin is so proud that he can shoot a gun, and she has no reaction to the loud noise.  She's attached to me, but she is fine if I'm gone.  My mom watched her the other day, and she told me later that it doesn't bother Eden when I leave, and she's fine the whole time I'm gone, but boy does she get excited when I come back!  Awww.  She is happy.  Oh, so very happy.  She is sweet and still comes up to me for hugs and kisses throughout the day.  She is girlie.  She is outdoorsy.  She is the perfect combination of princess and warrior. 

She loves Mickey Mouse, bananas, books, stickers, animals, coloring, stacking random objects, rare steak, her baby doll, running in circles, taking baths, bugs, brushing her teeth, balls and covering her face with a blanket and then running until she hits something.  Kids are adorable.  And kinda weird. 

I don't know what Dustin and I did before her!  We surely didn't laugh as often.  She is our entertainment.  So many evenings are spent with us just sitting on the couch watching her... watching her twirl and run and play and dance and laugh. 

She likes to copy whatever I'm doing.  She goes and gets her little broom and sweeps the floor when I sweep.  But really all she does is mess up the piles that I've already swept up.  When I wash my face in the mornings, she stands on her step-stool and splashes water all over her face too.  The other night I was laughing at something so hard that I covered my face with my hands.  I looked up and she was covering her face with her hands too!

Sometimes she does the most random things, and I would love to know what she was thinking!  Just now, she told my camera "night-night" and covered it with a blanket. 

She learned how to get out of her crib at the end of November.  I heard her fussing one evening after I had already put her to bed, so I went upstairs to see what was wrong.  I opened her bedroom door and there she was, right on the other side of the door.  My granny always tells us stories about how my dad used to climb out of his crib with his toes.  I put Eden back in her crib to see how she got out.  Up that little monkey went, using her toes to climb.  My grandma said that she used to put socks on my dad, and then he couldn't do it anymore.  That doesn't work with Eden.... she pulls socks right off, and she has even managed to take off footie pajamas in the night.  We decided it was time to get her a big girl bed before she broke an arm, but the bed I want isn't available until February, so for the time being we just took the side railing off of her crib, and she has a little toddler bed.  It was hell for a few nights trying to get her to STAY IN BED as she did not understand the concept of staying in bed when there was nothing stopping her from getting out.  But she eventually caught on (because I kept yelling at her), and now I love that the railing is gone because when I put her to bed, I curl up in it too and read books and sing songs, and it's so sweet, even though it makes me sad that we haven't used the rocking chair in a month.  By the way, my dad was thrilled to hear that Eden got his crib-crawling-out genes.  Most nights she ends up coming to our room around two or three a.m. and finishes the night in our bed.  I would love that a lot more if she wasn't such a restless sleeper - Dustin and I spend the early morning hours getting kicked and punched.

But then she wakes up and looks like this, and it's the most adorable thing ever so I don't really care that I just got kicked for three hours straight.

I call her mine.  All the time.  But she's not, is she?  She belongs to God.  I feel so blessed that God gave me her to raise and that she gets to be my daughter for this short, little time that we are on Earth.  As she's hitting two and starting to understand more and more and trying to figure out what kind of place this world is, my prayer these days usually includes, "Dear God, please don't let me screw this up!"

SIX DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!  I'm so flippin' excited about Christmas this year, I can hardly stand it.  We have some good stuff planned for our little Princess Warrior!

Kickin' Off the Christmas Season

Last week, my dad sent me the sweetest text message telling me that Rudolph was going to be on TV the next night and asking if Eden could come and watch it with him.  For some silly reason, that actually brought tears to my eyes.  Growing up, the first viewing of Rudolph each year was a big deal in our family, and I thought it was so cute that my dad wanted Eden's very first time watching it to be with him.  So the next night, Dustin, Eden and I headed over to my dad and Susie's house to eat dinner, let Eden take her bath in my dad and Susie's giant tub (she LOVES, LOVES, LOVES taking baths in their bathtub... it's much better than our tiny one) and watch Rudolph.  They even had a little red nose for Eden, but this is the best picture I managed to get of her wearing it.

 

Eden's attention span didn't quite last the full hour, but it was still so special to me to have us all watch Rudolph together.  I told Dustin when we were leaving that it was one of the best nights I'd had in a long time.  Her first Rudolph experience.  IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS, PEOPLE!

So that was our very first Christmas-y thing to do this year.

When we saw my mom on Thanksgiving, she gave Eden a little Christmas package with a reindeer book, a Christmas CD, some Christmas stickers and some window clings.  The window clings have been a HUGE hit.

Then we spent this past weekend in San Antonio.  On Saturday we took Eden to the zoo where she got to see Santa Claus.

She didn't cry this year, but she definitely didn't smile and she was very careful to not make eye contact or look directly at him.

Eden and I dressed Christmas-y.  Dustin never participates.

Every time we would walk away from an animal, Eden would shout, "MORE, MORE!"  "You wanna see more animals?"  "YEAH!"  Then she would run ahead of us, and we had to work hard to teach her to obey "stay with Mama and Daddy".  She was just so dang excited.

We stayed on the Riverwalk, and while Eden napped on Saturday afternoon, Dustin and I sat on our balcony overlooking the river drinking margaritas and listening to a mariachi band play "Feliz Navidad" a thousand times.  I freaking love San Antonio.

On Saturday night, we took a boat ride down the river to see all of the Christmas lights.  I think Eden liked it.

Just a little bit.  Maybe.

On Sunday we took Eden to SeaWorld's Christmas Celebration.

Attempt to take Eden's picture in front of the giant poinsettia tree:

 take 1

 take 2

 

 take 3

 

take 4 (and she stole part of the tree)

 

Okay, so I never got a good shot.  We had soooo much fun though.  Eden got to feed the sea lions.

 

She played at the park.

 

 

We watched all of the shows.

 

I was pretty amazed by the dolphins jumping in time to Christmas songs, but then we went and saw Shamu, and I was BLOWN AWAY!

 

I went to SeaWorld a few times as a child, and I don't remember Shamu being THIS amazing.  Either my memory isn't very good, or Shamu has stepped up his game.  He (she?) did a 360 degree flip!  I was seriously amazed!!!

 Eden really, REALLY liked when Shamu jumped up to hit the ball.

 

Eden LOVED it.  But she was NOT happy when Shamu was NOT jumping.  If he was just swimming or waving his tail or being fed fish, she would start yelling, "AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN" so loudly that people would turn around to look at us.  "You want Shamu to jump again?"  "YEAH!!!"  "Well we have to wait."  "AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN!!!!!!"

 

She was crushed when the show was over, and we told her it was time to go home.

 

So, so far our Christmas season is off to a pretty great start.  We still don't have a Christmas tree in our living room, but we did put a pink one up in Eden's room on Monday night, and she was VERY excited about it.  She hugged it.

According to my Facebook newsfeed, I'm the last person in America who doesn't have a tree up yet, but it's what we're doing tonight! 

Christmas is in 21 days, and for the first time ever, instead of wanting it to be here as quick as possible, I want these next 21 days to go by verrryyy slowllyyyy so we can continue doing all of these fun Christmas things with Eden!

I thought last year was great, but with her at this age, THIS year is going to be amazing.











Happy Thanksgiving!

Y'all, it's cold outside!  And has been for like... a week!  I cannot remember any other time in my life when it was this cold here this many days in a row.  Today was the coldest Thanksgiving here since 1984.  I was really excited about that.  I was telling everyone how that means this is the coldest Thanksgiving I've ever had!  Then Dustin reminded me that I went to Oklahoma with him one Thanksgiving, and there was ice.  Way to ruin it for me, Dustin!  Later, I remembered that my family was in Nebraska one Thanksgiving.  So just nevermind.  Whatever, I was still happy that I got to wear tights, boots and a jacket today.  I ACTUALLY WORE FALL CLOTHES ON THANKSGIVING!  In TEXAS!  Wow!

I have so much to be thankful for today and every day.  My husband.  My adorable little girl.  My mom and dad and Mark and Susie and my brother and my Granny and Pops and Grandma Jan and all the rest of my aunts, uncles, and cousins.  I fully believe that I do have THE best family on the planet.  I'm thankful for their health.  My health.  A great group of friends.  My warm, cozy house.  My dogs and cats.  The fact that I have food and a bed and a heater when so many people in this world do not.  The list goes on and on, but most importantly, I am thankful that Jesus died on that cross for me.

We had a wonderful day today.  We went to church in Houston with my grandma, aunt, mom, Mark and Jacob and then went to Dustin's parent's house and ate a TON!  Now I'm fixing to finish off my night by watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles.  It's my Thanksgiving night tradition!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Some November Stuff

When my long-term sub job ended a couple of weeks ago, I was a teensy bit sad.  I had really been enjoying myself, and from what the ladies at the preschool building told me everyday when I went to pick up Eden, she was too!  That twinge of sadness vanished the next morning when we woke up to cooler temperatures, and instead of having to get dressed and go to work, Eden and I curled up on heating pads and under blankets to watch Cinderella.  Now that's what I'm talkin' about!  As much as I enjoyed my time teaching again, I am truly happiest just being Eden's mom right now. 

On my last day, when I went to go pick Eden up, the lovely preschool ladies gave me this:

I LOVE IT SO MUCH!  The manger is obviously Eden's little footprint, but Jesus' body is Eden's two thumbprints, and His head is her fingerprint.  How cool is that?  They made them for all the kids to give to the parents for Christmas, and I think it is so unbelievably sweet that they took the time to do one for me and Eden.

My mom gave Eden tons and tons of STICKERS for Halloween, and she has been making beautiful masterpieces.  Then I put them on the fridge and take pictures.

she's so cute!

 

We went to the Children's Museum one day, and I love comparing pictures of her there now to pictures of her when we first started going a year ago.  She was soooo little, not even walking yet, and I had to protect her from all the big kids.  Now she's one of the big kids, and I have to protect the little babies from her!

 

 It got really, really, really cold one day.

Since cold weather doesn't last long here, we had to take advantage of it, and we took Eden on her first trip to a deer stand!

Sitting in a deer stand, even with no intention of actually hunting, is one of my most favorite things to do.  It's so peaceful.

After a while, we got out and told Eden to go get the deer, and she took off!

Dustin came home one day with a camouflage shirt and jacket for Eden.  It was so cute!  He told me it was boy stuff, because he looked at the girl stuff, and it wasn't gonna work for him.  No pink camo allowed in this house!

love

 

Eden got herself a new little cousin, and it was love at first sight.



Dustin and I went to a Texans game (and watched them LOSE... AGAIN!) with some friends while Eden had a fun day over at her Poppa James and Susie's house.  I wanted a family picture before we left.

I took Eden to the park yesterday, and when we got to the swings, she wanted NOTHING to do with the baby swing.  Only the big kid swing for her!

On the way out of the park, there were some pretty flowers.  I asked Eden to sit down in front of them so I could take her picture.

I should have been more specific.