That's My Girl!

For the second year in a row, Eden tried out for and made the "speech meet"!  Today, Eden and a few other kids from Faith Academy traveled to Huntsville to Summit Christian Academy for the competition.  Eden competed in Bible memorization again, and she recited Proverbs 3:1-6 (New King James Version), and she came in 2nd place and received the silver medal!  Her overall score was ranked superior, and she received a blue ribbon for that!  I'm so proud of her for not only memorizing the verses, but for standing in front of a classroom full of 2nd graders and 3 judges and reciting them!

my loves on Valentine's Day

I just wanted to share this photo of my little loves on Valentine's Day!  They were all so cute at their Valentine's Day parties today (James's 1st school party!), and they were so happy after school!  (What kid wouldn't be after getting loaded up with 5 lbs. of candy?)

Tonight, Dustin and I are going out with two other couples, and our friend, Blake, is coming over to watch movies with them while we are gone!

Eden Turns 8!

Eden had an amazing 8th birthday!  Like, if I was turning 8, I'd want to get everything Eden got!

It's been a few years since she's had an actual birthday party.  Her last one was when she turned 5.  When she turned 6, we spent the weekend in Tennessee, and last year, I didn't throw birthday parties for any of my kids because I told them they got to go to Disney World in 2019 instead.  So at the beginning of the year, I told them they could all have birthday parties this year.  (James understands none of this, but Ila is already planning her party nine months early!  Right now she wants a skating party with a Cinderella cake.  We'll see what she ends up wanting by the time October rolls around!)

For Eden, we had a spa party!  A good friend of mine owns a little spa in our little town, and on Friday, the 17th (the day before Eden's birthday), we invited all the little girls from 2nd grade to come to the spa after school for hair braids, mini-facials, and mini-cures!  There was music playing, the girls were dancing and hopping around, and I had a bath salt making station.  I got all the girls robes and made photo props and it was just as cute as it sounds!

I let Eden pick a friend to invite over for a sleepover, so after the party, her friend, Dailey, came to our house to spend the night.  This was kinda a big deal because I knew that when Eden woke up on her birthday, it wouldn't be just our family celebrating with her, but it would be Eden celebrating with her friend.  So I was a little sad, just thinking about how she is growing up, but I know she's getting to the age where friends are super important in her life too!  Ila and James went and spent the night with my dad and Susie so that Eden and Dailey could play without younger siblings around.

I could hear them playing and talking and giggling until I finally fell asleep a little after midnight.  Every year for my kids' birthdays, I decorate with balloons and streamers for them to wake up to, and I start after they go to sleep the night before and finish the next morning before they wake up.  Well, Eden and Dailey outlasted me, and I fell asleep first!  I got up on the morning of Eden's birthday at 6:30, assuming that they would sleep late since they stayed up so late and that I would have time to blow up balloons, but they were up 10 minutes after I was!!!!  Dustin still made her birthday pancakes though, and we all sang to her!

Then Dustin and I took Eden and Dailey to the movies to see "Dolittle".  

After the movie, we dropped Dailey off back at her house, picked up Ila and James, and then went back to our house.  For her present from me and Dustin, Eden knew she was getting to go to a dance convention the following weekend, but I surprised her with a ring from James Avery.

(it's a tiny heart)

For her birthday dinner, we went and had hamburgers at Pivo's.

On Sunday, the day after her birthday, we went and had lunch at Shogun with my mom and Mark, my Grandma Jan, Aunt Kristi and James, Marshall, Audrey, Harrison, and Rosey.

Eden and Grandma Jan

Eden, Ila, and Rosey

Eden's gift from my mom and Mark was a hoverboard!  She's been asking for one, so I passed the word along to my mom, and Eden was THRILLED!

And she's so good at it!  I tried to get on, and I got scared to death, but Eden zooms around and spins in circles, and it's crazy!

I took a couple of photos of my girl to mark NUMBER EIGHT:

Then, the weekend after all of that, she got to go to her very first dance convention!  

(I may have already done a post about this next part; I can't remember what I do and don't post about anymore!)

Last year, Eden was still doing both gymnastics and dance, and when the school year started in August, I signed her up for both again.  But then she was invited to be on the gymnastics team this year and start competing in meets, but that meant that she would have to increase the amount of time she went to gymnastics practice, which meant, less time for dance.  So she declined to be on the team, and we decided that she would just do a tumbling class in addition to dance.  But after a couple of months, she wasn't liking that either.  So she quit gymnastics and tumbling completely, and she's only doing dance.  She goes three nights a week, and she's taking ballet, tap, and jazz.  In addition, the owner of the studio let Eden join the company dance team, and she's in a tap duet and a group jazz number for company!  So there was a dance convention that all the kids in company could go to, and I told Eden that if she wanted to go, we would pay for it (Instead of using her fundraiser money.  She can put that toward competitions later!), and it would be a birthday present.  

 Eden and the owner of her studio, Mrs. Nicole

all the kids from Eden's studio that went to the convention

For two days, she got to dance her little heart out!  

I'd say all that makes for a pretty successful 8th birthday!  It's good to be Eden!

I cannot believe she's EIGHT!  And man, is she wonderful!  She came into this world as a teeny 5 lb. 9 oz. little thing.  Eight years later, she's still teeny (smallest kid in her class!), but she lives big.  I don't know anyone else who loves like Eden.  She loves everything and everyone.  I think I've heard her use the phrase, "This is the best day ever!" on 1000 separate days.  She marches to the beat of her own drum.  She tells me frequently, "I'm not like the other girls in my class."  And I say, "Well, are you happy?"  And she says, "yes", and I say, "Okay, then!"  She's beautiful.  She's sensitive.  She cried for two hours recently because she found out that over sixty years ago, the Russians sent up a dog to space and it died.  "How could they be so mean?  How could they do that?  That poor dog was so scared!"  And she cried herself to sleep.  But then she goes fishing and hunting.  And she's really good at those things, by the way.  She's so smart!  Book smart that is.  Common sense?  Eh... we're working on it!  Haha!  She's ditzy, unobservant, and a daydreamer.  It's been known to drive us crazy. But people that live in their own little worlds are the best kind of people.  I swear she's part mermaid, and she's never happier than when she's in a pool, or better yet, the ocean.  Except for maybe when she's twirling and jumping around and making up her own dances.  She is the most forgiving person I know.  She's creative.  She is forever crafting things.  Sometimes she makes things out of the craft kits and supplies that I buy her, and sometimes she crafts things out of trash that she finds on the ground or actually pulls out of trashcans.  That's been known to drive us crazy too!

And she argues with me all the time and tries to tell me that she loves me more than I love her, and I just look at her and think to myself, "Girl, if you only knew!"

She's a rare kind of person, and I get scared that I don't deserve her.  I get really, really scared sometimes because she has the most tender heart of anybody that I know, and the world is going to be cruel to her.  I protect her the best I can, and I pray to God to do for her what I cannot.

Eden with the deer she shot last fall.  Her first buck!

Eden on the 100th day of school.  

Eden was the top speller in 2nd grade, and she got to travel to Huntsville to compete in the ACSI Spelling Bee.  She got 6th place!

Baby James, Newest Nursery School Student!

Starting this semester, James started going to school on Fridays!  It started because I subbed a lot last semester in the pre-school building, and whenever I sub, they always let me bring James, and he goes into the 2 year old class for the day.  HE LOVED IT!  So on the days that I DIDN'T sub, when we would pull up to the school to drop Ila off, he would FLIP OUT and scream and cry and cry and scream because he wanted to go too!  He was SO SAD!  On our drive home, he would be sobbing in the backseat and saying, "I go school too!  I go school too!"  So after Christmas, I signed him up, and he gets to go once a week on Fridays!  He's happy to go to school, he loves his little Toy Story backpack and dinosaur lunchbox we got him, and I'm not gonna lie - I'm enjoying my kidless Fridays; it's my one day where I can get a lot done!  And then I have Monday through Thursday to enjoy him while Eden and Ila are at school!

I know he loves school because he has FUN of course, but I also think he loves getting to feel "big" and do something that Eden and Ila do.

These days James is talking A LOT!  He talks way more than Eden and Ila did at this age.  It's constant - from the time he wakes up to the time he goes to sleep, he is talking!  Mom brag: his vocabulary is HUGE for somebody his age!  Like, really!

He is absolutely OBSESSED with Toy Story.  It's the only movies he will watch.  Anytime we put on a movie that isn't Toy Story 1, 2, 3, or 4, after five minutes, he says, "No!  I want watch Buzz Lightyear!  Put on Woody!"  He will not sit and watch any other movie EVER, but he will sit for the entire hour and a half to watch a Toy Story movie.  And when he's not watching the movies, he's playing with his Toy Story toys and asking me to help him put on his Woody and Buzz costumes.  I don't think there has ever been a child that has loved Toy Story more!

He is mama's boy through and through.  I'm enjoying it because I know as he gets older, he will want to go with his daddy and do boy things with him, so I love it when he comes up to be 100 times every day and says, "I want you, Mama!  Pick me up!"  And if we are on the couch together watching Toy Story or playing in his room, he stops what he's doing every few minutes and kisses me!

He still has a temper.  Man, does he have a temper!  It mostly comes out when he feels like he's not getting the attention he needs.  When my attention is on Eden and Ila, he does what he has to do to get it back on himself!  But at the same time, he loves his sisters SO MUCH!  He misses them when they're at school, and he loves when it's time to pick them up!

 He is the cutest little boy I've ever seen, and I just love his BIG personality SO DANG MUCH!