Mini Vacay

Little Eden is sick right now.  :(  It started last night - one minute she was laughing and running and playing, and the next she was glassy-eyed, falling asleep and had a fever of 102.  It's so sad when they're sick and lethargic and not themselves... but I have enjoyed laying in bed with her all morning watching Disney movies!

She's asleep right now, so I'm gonna take the opportunity to recap last week.  Last Monday, Eden and I headed south and stayed at my mom and Mark's for five days.  Some of you may have seen my mom's Facebook posts mentioning her lack of A/C?  She asked if I wanted to come later in the summer, after her A/C had been fixed, but I had already planned so many things around being gone last week, so I decided to just brave it.  And you do have to be very brave to stay in an un-air-conditioned house in South Texas in July.

But it actually turned out to be good because we were constantly going places to avoid being at the house.  It felt better to be outside than inside, so we went on morning walks and spent evenings at the park.  One day we went to a water park.  The next day to the aquarium.  Another day was spent at Barnes and Noble (yay!) and the mall.  On our last day we drove down to South Padre and spent the day at the beach.  When we came home, Eden was happy, a little sunburned, and exhausted.  All signs of a good summer.

Also, girl is tough.  And fearless.  And independent.  At the water park, on about her 400th trip up the steps to get to a slide, she slipped and fell and even cut the side of her head a little bit.  Did that stop her?  Heck no!  Back to the steps and slide she went after I examined her.  At the beach, she kept trying to go further and further into the ocean, pushing me away when I tried to stop her.  She would be out there attempting to jump over waves, but they would crash into her face.  "Eden, are you okay?"  "YEAH!"  "Eden, do you want to do it again?"  "YEAH!"  She just ran around like a little maniac with waves crashing into her and over her, happy as could be.  My mom says I was the same way.  Dustin was supposedly a little daredevil as well.  I feel like we're definitely going to have our hands full.

Some pictures:

  she looks like she only has one leg

 she discovered my virgin strawberry daiquiri and then drank most of it

She also wanted to be buried in the sand over and over and over and over.  As soon as I would finish burying her, she would pop up, move over about three feet and say, "again".

 wish I remembered what this face was about

She was also very excited about feeding my mom and Mark's chickens every morning and evening.

She's waking up!  Back to the couch for snuggling and Disney movies!

It is a Good Life.

My title is from The Fault in Our Stars.  Now I'm gonna quote Stephen King:

"The most important things are the hardest to say.  They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out."

I've never been good at expressing myself.  I can never properly put my feelings into words.  I've written little love letters to Eden for her to read in the future, and sometimes I'll go back a few days later and reread them.  And I hate them!  And sometimes I just throw the letter in the trash because I think, "That's not right!  It's not enough!  It's not coming out right!" 

The past few days have been so wonderful, and I wanted to write about it.  But the second I started this post, I knew that I was never going to be able to put into words just how amazing they were to me.

It's been such a good week and a half.  I've spent so much time with family and friends - some that I hardly ever get to see.  A cousin from Alabama that I haven't seen in a year and a half.  Kate, my best friend that I rarely get to see ever since she moved to Dallas.  We've had parties and lunches and family get-togethers, and these people just mean so, so much to me.  I turned twenty-eight, and I was just overwhelmed with all the love, cards, presents, flowers, phone calls, text messages.  I came home on my birthday to find my gate decorated with signs for me and Dustin, and it just made me so happy.  I lay in bed every night and think about how I am just the luckiest girl in the whole world.  I thank God for all the people in my life (and then I panic that these people who I love so much that it makes my chest physically hurt will never understand just how much I love them because I suck at expressing myself). 

Unlike last year when I freaked about turning twenty-seven, this year I couldn't have cared less about turning a year older.  Why should I when life is so good?  Just yesterday, I told Dustin, "We have a good little life, don't we?"  We do.  We really, really do.  It is a simple life.  But that's the best kind.  I love the little things, the small moments.  On Saturday morning, when Eden woke up, I went and got her and brought her into our room.  She climbed right between me and Dustin in the bed, and just laid there, grinning.  So happy to just be in bed with us.  As we all snuggled together with a few dogs at our feet and a little baby kicking in my tummy, I was just overcome with emotion.  "WHAT IS THIS LIFE?"  (more The Fault in Our Stars - I've read it quite a few times over the past few months, and lines are stuck in my head.)

So I'm gonna talk about the past few days starting with my birthday.  But I'm just gonna give you the facts.  I won't even attempt to be all feeling-ish about it and ruin it. 

The beginning of July is such a busy/fun time for our family.  There's so much to celebrate!

Last Wednesday, the 2nd, I turned twenty-eight and Dustin turned twenty-nine.  I spent the afternoon with Kate and Eden.  First we went out for Mexican food.

After lunch, we stopped at Barnes and Noble.  Dustin had to give me a hard time about wanting to spend my birthday at a bookstore, but seriously, a bookstore is like my favorite place in the whole world.  Kate entertained Eden in the children's area while I picked out four new books for myself, two new books for Eden and two new books for Princess Baby.

So dang cute!

Then we headed to Ooh La La for cupcakes.

YUMMY!

And Eden got a mini cupcake that matched mine.

Since there are few things in life that make me as happy as stuffing my face with Mexican food and cupcakes or walking out of a bookstore with a bag of brand new books, I would say it was a pretty fantabulous afternoon.

She's the cutest.

Here's me with my other favorite girl on my birthday.

23 weeks

That evening, we celebrated Dustin.

And Eden got another cupcake so that this time she could match her daddy.  And just because it made her happy, we celebrated her too!

On the 3rd, Pops turned eight-two (the opposite of me!), and we had a little family party for him, me and Dustin.

He's the cutest too.

Then the 4th of July.

We spent that afternoon at some friends' house.  We swam and ate barbeque.  It's the American way.

Dustin went a little crazy at the firework stand, and that night, we went to my dad and Susie's to shoot off fireworks.  But Eden was having NONE OF IT.  After swimming and playing all day and not getting a nap, she thought the fireworks were the worst thing in the world.  So finally I told Dustin to just stop and save it for the next night. 

Which turned out to be so much better.  We ended up taking all of the fireworks to my grandparents' house on the 5th, and my dad, Susie, aunt, uncle, cousins and some friends all showed up to watch the show.  Adults sat in lawn chairs in the driveway while kids ran around playing.  And we couldn't help but say to each other, "Remember when that was us?  Remember when WE were running around playing with each other in this exact same driveway on nights exactly like this, and now our KIDS are?"

And Eden was much happier this night and thought fireworks were awesome.  "Big.  High.", she said over and over again, stretching her arms as high as she could reach.

with her great uncle Harold

Sometimes I just love when things DON'T change.  On my birthday, my Grandma Jan posted a picture on Facebook of my Grandpa John holding me when I was just a few days old.  This is my mom's dad, but we're at my dad's parents' house:

I saw that picture and thought, "WOW, that couch is still sitting in that exact same spot."  On Saturday, I got a picture of Eden with her two little second cousins sitting in that spot.

Well first I got this...

Because did you know it's really hard to take a picture of a two year old, a one year old and a six month old?

But this one is pretty cute:

"It is a good life."

Family, friends - I love you.  Thank you for making my life so happy.  I'm going to stop with that before I ruin it.