A Wee Bit O' Celebratin'

Well we were down for a few days after Dustin had to have an emergency appendectomy (scary!  but I'm happy to report that he's a-okay now!), but we made up for it at the beginning of this week.  (And thank you again to my mom who came to stay with Eden so that I could be with Dustin at the hospital!)

First up - July 2nd - my 26th and Dustin's 27th birthdays!

Dustin was still pretty sore, but we had a nice little family outing to eat lunch in Houston, and then we came home to enjoy our cake!

Next - July 3rd - my grandpa's 80th birthday!

Pops didn't care about blowing out his candles; he wanted Eden to enjoy his cake instead. 

And enjoy it she did!

I love this picture of Pops and his two boys on his birthday!



With the exception of Dustin, of course, those are my favoritest men in the whole world!

And last - July 4th - America's birthday, of course!

Eden was adorable decked out in her red, white and blue, and we had Dustin's parents over for hamburgers.

...and another picture, just 'cause...

Daddy's Girl

So the sweetest little thing happened last night.

Dustin came home last night after being down at the coast for the past five days.  I always start Eden's bedtime routine at 8, and at 8 last night, Dustin still wasn't home.  I called him, and he said he was about ten minutes away, so I decided to wait so that he could see Eden before she went to sleep. 

When he pulled up, I went outside to meet him, and I handed Eden to him and let him talk to her for a few minutes.  I took a picture of them, and then I took her inside so that I could put her to bed.  I lotioned her up, put on her pjs, read her a book, fed her, wrapped her in her swaddle blanket and then started to rock her (our usual routine).  Usually it takes all of five minutes, and she's out.  Last night those little eyes were WIDE OPEN, and she wasn't budging.  After thirty minutes, I was getting a little impatient and wondering what the heck was going on.

Then Dustin came inside.  When she heard him, she started twisting around and craning her neck to find him.  That's what she wanted.  She would NOT go to sleep because she wanted to see her daddy again!  When she saw him, she spit her pacifier out and just started grinning.  It was so cute.  And it went on and on and on.  She would NOT close her little eyes.  She just kept staring at Dustin and smiling at him.  I tried everything... I laid her to where she could see him.  She just kept grinning at him.  We went in the other room to get away from him, and she just kept those eyes wide open.  I had Dustin try to get her to sleep.  She just laid in his arms and stared at him.  I did not get her to sleep until after 11!  But it was just so adorable how much she missed her daddy and how excited she was when he was home!

dad's favorite shrimp

Lately...

Father's Day... I think Dustin had a good day.  I hope he did!  I was really feeling the pressure because he made sure that I had one fantastic Mother's Day!  I got to see my dad and grandpa that afternoon, and he got to see his dad that evening, so that was nice!  I got him a few little presents, one of which was a basketball with Eden's handprints on it.  One of my favorite memories from my childhood is playing basketball with my family after supper in the evenings... well we actually never played real basketball, but we would go outside almost every evening when the weather was good and play "Horse" or "Around the World".  So one of my Mother's Day presents from Dustin was a basketball goal so that we can start the same tradition with our little family.  (Although I have yet to actually receive it... Dustin has told me about it but hasn't gone to pick it up yet.)  Anyways, when I was stressing to my friend Stacy that I had no idea what to get Dustin for Father's Day, she suggested Eden's handprints on a basketball to go along with the whole basketball theme.  I think it turned out cute, but my gosh, it was NOT easy!  It took me two days of Eden's naptimes to get her prints on the ball.  I had to use A LOT of alcohol to remove ink off of the ball and start over and A LOT of stain remover to remove ink off of her clothes, blankets, nap nanny and everything else she managed to touch while flailing her ink covered hands around in her sleep!

  We spend almost every afternoon in Eden's little baby pool.

One of my friends posted a picture of her doing this with her son on Facebook, and I thought it was genius, so I tried it with Eden... I let her play with different textures.  I put grape jelly, whipped cream, banana and oatmeal flakes on her tray and let her go to town.  She loved it!

She's always so happy when she's outside.  She's completely happy just sitting in her little bumbo seat watching the dogs wrestle and the cat run around and the cars that go by on the road.  Here she sits completely content just watching the leaves move on the tree.

When the temperature reaches a thousand degrees, we come inside and read books or play the piano.  Eden was a little afraid of the piano at first... she would very softly push a key... but now she bangs so loud on it that sometimes I even jump!  Other than that I pretty much just carry her from room to room with me as I do my house chores... she plays on the bed while I put clothes away in our bedroom, we play peek-a-boo with the towels as I fold them, she plays in the exersaucer in the kitchen while I do dishes, etc.

I hear her stirring from her nap... so just one more picture, and I'm outta here!

Eden - Five Months

Baby Girl is five months old today!  In honor of this grand occasion, she decided to roll over from her back to her tummy for the first time.  She's become quite the pro at rolling from tummy to back, but until this morning she hadn't managed to go the other way.  AND I MISSED IT!  I put her down on her activity mat this morning and walked out of the room for all of 60 seconds.  When I came back there she was propped up on her tummy!

This past month has also seen her slowly outgrowing some of her 0-3 month size clothing and being able to wear some of her 3-6 month clothing.  I try to get things packed away as soon as she outgrows something so that I can stay on top of her closet situation, and I have three piles that clothes go into.  One pile I call the Special Baby Eden Clothes.  Even if I have another girl one day, she will not be able to wear these clothes because they are special to Eden alone... what she wore home from the hospital, the first little dress I bought after I found out I was having a girl, what she wore when we celebrated her being in the world for a whole week, etc.  Then I have a pile of clothes that are okay for another daughter to wear and a pile of clothes to be donated.  I have to admit that sometimes I become a little emotional as I pack these clothes away.  I sit there remembering buying this particular outfit on an outing with my mom or opening that outfit with Dustin at our couples shower.  I might even cry sometimes.  But they're good tears.  Happy tears... as I sit there and remember the past few months... and think about how blessed I am once again... because I'm pretttyyyy sure that I have the cutest, prettiest little baby EVER! ;)

June 3rd

Today is another important anniversary in my world.  One year ago I found out I was pregnant.  I'm sitting here watching my four and a half month old play on her activity mat, and I just really cannot believe how much my life has changed in one year.
I remember that day so well.  I took the test, and I sat there for two minutes while praying in my head, "Please God, please God, please God..."  And when it did come up positive, I was pretty shocked.  As much as I was wanting it, I wasn't really expecting it.  It felt like a dream.  Dustin was going to be home from work in less than an hour... I thought surely I could wait 45 minutes for him to get home so I could tell him.  But after about three minutes, I couldn't take it anymore, and I called him.  We had a super weird conversation:

Jenni: What are you doing?
Dustin (panicking): WHY ARE YOU CRYING?  WHAT HAPPENED?  WHAT'S WRONG?
Jenni:  I'm not crying!  What are you doing?
Dustin:  Yes, you're crying!  Did something happen?
Jenni:  No!  What are you doing?
Dustin:  I'm fixing to go to a meeting.
Jenni:  Oh... nevermind.
Dustin:  Why?
Jenni:  I wanted you to come home. 
Dustin:  Are you sure you're not crying?
Jenni:  I'm fine.  Okay, bye.

This was not going as planned.  Three minutes later, I look out the window and see Dustin's truck flying down the dirt road.  I go outside to meet him, and we have another weird conversation.

Jenni:  What are you doing here?
Dustin:  I had to see what was wrong!  You were crying!
Jenni:  I thought you had a meeting.
Dustin:  I told them you were acting strange on the phone, and they told me to come check on you.  I told your dad I thought you were crying. 
Jenni:  WHAT?  Why did you tell them that?  That's so embarassing!
Dustin:  What's wrong?

So I pull the pregnancy test out of my pocket and hand it to him.

Dustin:  I had a feeling when I was pulling up that this is what it was about!

I start crying, Dustin hugs me, and we have a sweet little moment.  But now I'm pretty concerned with the fact that everyone at the office knows I'm crying.

Jenni:  We can't tell anyone yet!  What are you going to say when you get back to the office?
Dustin:  I don't know, I'll figure something out.
Jenni:  Okay, well make it good!

Dustin goes back to work, and comes back later.

Jenni:  What did you tell everyone?
Dustin:  I told them the dish washer was leaking.
Jenni:  WHAT THE HELL?!  Why would I be crying over that?
Dustin:  I don't know.  I said it was leaking everywhere and you needed help because you didn't know what to do.
Jenni:  THEY ARE GOING TO THINK I'M INSANE!  AND STUPID!

Okay, so telling my husband I was pregnant didn't really go how I always imagined it would.  But the whole thing amuses me now.

So here's the deal...  There was a time that I didn't think I would ever get to have a baby.  And it's what I wanted most in the entire world.  When I was little, all I really ever wanted to be was a mom.  When I was young, and I would imagine my life when I was older, I always pictured myself pregnant.  Seriously, I did.  Wait, I take that back.  At one point, I wanted to be a princess.  But when that didn't pan out, I went back to the whole mother thing.  I went to college, I chose a major... but I was never all that passionate about it.  Because again, I just wanted to be a mother.  When Dustin and I started dating, I made sure that he understood and was okay with the fact that I wanted babies and I wanted to stay home and take care of them.  And then doctors started taking my dream away.

I reached a very, very, very dark place in my life.  My friends started getting pregnant.  I would smile and congratulate them and then cry myself to sleep while Dustin held me.  People started asking me when I was going to have a baby.  I couldn't stand to tell them the truth... only a few people closest to me knew my struggles.  So I would lie and act like a baby was the furthest thing from my mind.  But really I felt like I was dying inside.  For a while, besides Dustin, the only people that knew what was going on in my life were my mom, my dad and a few very close friends.  I was too embarassed to tell anyone else.  I felt like a failure.  I felt like I was less of a person.  I felt like I was letting Dustin down.  At the time, I couldn't imagine anything else worse than not being able to get pregnant. 

Then one day last spring, I was talking to my two teaching partners.  I mentioned that I was getting a sub for the next afternoon because I had a doctor's appointment.  I had been going to the doctor every month, so one of the teachers laughed and said, "You have to go to the doctor again?  What are you, pregnant?"  She was joking, so she was pretty shocked when I burst into tears.  I was just at my breaking point.  I started telling them a little bit about what was going on and all my struggles.  I asked them to please pray for me. 

That's when it hit me...  I wasn't trusting God.  I was being selfish and having a breakdown because I wasn't getting what I wanted in life.  But I wasn't trusting that God had a plan for my life.  I had been praying about a baby here and there all along... When I said my nightly prayers, I threw in a "Oh, and let me have a baby."  But what kind of prayer is that?  Seriously?  That's the best I could do?  And here I am asking other people to pray for me when that's the best I could do for myself?  I started reading the story of Hannah and Samuel in the Bible over and over and over and over.  Any time I started losing hope, I would go back to those pages and read about how Hannah prayed her heart out and then gave it to God.  So that's what I did.  Every night, literally on my hands and knees in my bedroom I would pour out my heart to God.  And then I would tell Him that it was His will.  I put everything in His hands, and I started completely trusting Him with the whole thing.  My dark place started getting a little brighter.  I still wanted a baby more than anything, but now I was trusting God's timing and plan for my life.

I got pregnant that month. 

And I know it's because of my prayers.

To say I was happy is a vast understatement.  There will never be any words for me to describe how I felt when I saw that positive pregnancy test. 

I didn't want to tell anyone yet though.  First, I just wanted it to be special between me and Dustin.  Later that day we went to my cousin's graduation.  I remember running into tons of people that I knew and being surrounded by my family... acting like everything was normal, but Dustin and I had the greatest secret in the world.  Second, I wanted to make sure it was a healthy pregnancy before I started blabbing it to everyone.  Part of me felt like it was too good to be true and that it might get taken from me. 

We actually didn't get to keep it a secret for as long as I wanted to.  Morning sickness (which really should be called all-day sickness) hit, and we figured people would start figuring it out on their own since I gagged and ran to the bathroom every time somebody mentioned something food-related.  We told our families on Father's Day, we told our best friends a couple weeks after that, and by the end of the summer, everyone knew. 

I look back on my dark time... And I know it was for the best.  God's timing was absolutely perfect.  And because of my dark time, I appreciate everything so much more.

I don't think I love Eden more than other moms love their babies because all moms love their babies.  But I think I'm less likely to take it for granted because of what I went through.  Every time I felt like complaining about my morning sickness, I remembered... When I wanted to complain about dirty diapers and getting up every three hours to feed her in the night, I remembered...  I will not complain because I know a pain much worse than morning sickness and dirty diapers and lack of sleep.

So now Eden is sitting on my lap.  And I'm still just amazed at what God can do in a year.  One year and one day ago, I didn't have any of this!  (Well I guess I did, I just didn't know it.)  Now I have a beautiful, healthy, perfect baby girl. 

She just told me that she wants to go splash around in her baby pool.  :)  So I'll just leave you with my most favorite picture ever.

Dustin snapped this just seconds after she was placed into my arms.  My mom put this picture up on facebook and somebody made the comment that it looks like Eden is looking at me and thinking, "We did it Mom."  I LOVE that!  My journey to Eden was much longer than 9 months.  But WE DID IT!  It was a hard journey, but I wouldn't change a thing.

Four Years

Four years ago today, I married my best friend.  No really, I did!  To be honest, I get kinda annoyed when people always say they married their best friend.  I feel like it's just something people say these days.  Dustin and I didn't get together and then I decided that he was my best friend.  Dustin really was my best friend for about two years before we ever started dating.

Somewhere in the course of our best friendship, Dustin decided he was in love with me.  I told him he wasn't, I told him he was crazy, I refused to listen to him.  I told him that it would ruin our friendship if we dated.  For nine months he didn't give up.  He begged me to go out with him, he told me over and over that he loved me, he sent me flowers, blah, blah, blah.

After a while, I thought maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.  I remember wondering why I was fighting it so bad.  I remember thinking, "Hey, he's my best friend!  I could seriously date my best friend.  We could have so much fun!  One day I could marry my best friend, and isn't that like the best thing ever?"

So I gave him his chance.  I called him one night in May and told him that I loved him too.  We dated for three years and then got married.

It has NOT been easy!  I knew marriage was going to be hard.  That's what everyone tells you.  Nobody told me just how hard!  We've had our ups, we've had our downs.  I've had days when I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world, I've had days when I thought I would murder him. 
But even on the days that I've hated him, I still loved him.  He's my best friend, the person I tell everything to, my rock, my big ol' teddy bear, my husband, Eden's daddy.  He's my everything.

I love my husband for lots of reasons.  These days I love him because he loves his baby girl so much.  And I'm looking forward to many, many more years and adventures and reasons to love him.  The best man at our wedding finished his toast by saying, "When you look back on this day, I hope it's when you loved each other the least."  I can honestly say that four years later, I do love my husband more than I did on our wedding day.

All those bad times that we've had just make the good ones that much sweeter.

Here's to Summertime

Even though it's blasted hot here in Texas weeks before Memorial Day (and even though I know summer doesn't technically start until later in June), Memorial Day always seems to signify the official beginning of summer for me. Yesterday we had some friends over for a relaxing day. Dustin cooked lots of delicious food...

Eden went swimming in her little pool for the first time (she didn't know what to think).

and was just all-around adorable.

favorite picture alert!

It was a very good day!

I'm doubly excited about this coming summer because last year I didn't really get one. I was in my first trimester of pregnancy, annnnndddd I was pretty much sick 24/7. I spent three months sleeping and doing everything I could to avoid the heat. So I'm going to make sure that THIS summer pretty much rocks.

In other news...

I'm excited to announce that Eden actually smiles and laughs now during tummy time instead of screaming bloody murder the second I set her down!