Eden Lately

Warning:  SUPER long post ahead!

This might seem crazy, but as much as I wanted another baby, when I saw that positive pregnancy test back in February, I felt just a tiny twinge of sadness.  Sadness because I knew my time of just me and Eden was coming to an end.  And even though I know the new baby is just going to add to our happiness and fun days, it was still a bittersweet moment.

At that moment, I became determined to make the next few months with Eden the absolute best ever and to soak up every last moment of just me and her.

That's because at that moment, the first trimester exhaustion and pregnancy nausea hadn't hit yet.  Dude, I forgot just how tired you are in that first trimester.  I mean, I know I slept pretty much 24/7 when I was in my first trimester with Eden (like seriously... 24/7... it worked out so perfectly that my first trimester lined up exactly with my summer break, and I laid on a mattress in front of our living room TV ALL DAY.  We slept there at night, and Dustin would leave me there in the mornings and come home in the afternoons to find me still there.  "Did you do ANYTHING today?", he'd ask.  "Um, yes fool, I built an ear!  What the hell did YOU do?"), but somehow I forgot the extent of it.  So first, I got really, really, really, really, really, REALLY tired.  Then as my first trimester was coming to a close, and I thought I had somehow managed to escape "morning" (ha!  morning!) sickness this go-round, I got sick.  Like really, really sick.  And for a solid six weeks, I didn't do much other than um... be sick.  Lost lots of weight.  Couldn't keep anything down.  Couldn't look at or smell meat.  And all that wonderful jazz.  Eden would watch Mickey Mouse all day long while I laid on the couch, and when Dustin came home from work, I would just cry and cry about how horrible of a mom I was because I couldn't play with Eden or do anything fun with her.  We missed gymnastics class a few times and storytime at the library a thousand times in a row because I couldn't manage it.

I'm all better now and have been for a couple of weeks, but I've still been feeling guilty about what I thought was a horrible, boring time for Eden.  But yesterday, I was looking at some pictures, and I realized I was being way too hard on myself.  Because from the looks of these pictures, Eden didn't have it too bad.  Yes, there were definitely days when she watched a hundred episodes of Mickey Mouse so that I could just lay on the couch willing myself to not throw up, but it looks like we managed to have some fun too.

So here are some of the things that Eden has been up to for the past month or so:

On Easter, we went to church with my mom and her side of the family at my grandma's church in Houston.  Eden entertained herself throughout the service with an Easter basket from my mom.

After church, we all had brunch at The Aquarium.

Then that afternoon, Susie and I set up an Easter egg hunt in my grandparents' front yard for Eden and her cousin, Rylen, so that my grandpa would be able to watch them hunt eggs from his chair in the living room.

hi Pops!

Eden was into it as you can see from her basket.  Rylen didn't care much.  He just wanted to play with the water hose.

Susie gave them each a little swimming outfit for Easter, and they insisted that they must put them to use RIGHT NOW, RIGHT NOW.  I was freezing just watching them (it got chilly that evening!), but they had a blast!

Eden got a garden for her Easter present from me and Dustin.  Even though ACTUALLY I didn't have it ready for her until two weeks after Easter.  Fortunately, she has no clue yet how these things are supposed to work.

If your name is Eden, you HAVE to have a garden.

It has flowers on one side...

and she loves to water them...

but mostly she waters the dirt, so I have to go back later and make sure everything is properly watered.

On the other side, she has strawberries and cucumbers.  We've had a few strawberries so far, but they never get big because as soon as Eden spots the tiny red berries emerging, she immediately eats them.

some little knickknacks for her to play with...

and then a whole lotta dirt for her to play in.

and I always put her in her swimming suit when she plays in her garden so that when she's done and she's nice and filthy, I can either rinse her with the hose or put her in the water trough now that we've brought it back out for the summer.

My Grandma Jan gave Eden a dinosaur egg for Easter.  It was the coolest thing.  We placed it in a bowl of cool water, and after a few days, it hatched, and voila - a little dinosaur toy.  Eden thought it was the coolest thing, and she checked it's progress first thing every morning.

I think the first weekend in May is becoming one of my favorite weekends of the whole year. For the second year in a row, Eden and I spent that Saturday at the Maifest parade and celebration with some friends.

She got her face and arm painted, and her initial reaction seemed to be, "What the hell is this lady doing to me?"

Once she saw the flowers on her arm though, she was pretty into it.

She rode a pony.

And visited the petting zoo.

Eden gets reallllyyyy into petting zoos.

Then, on that Sunday, we again had friends over to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.  Even though this year it was really Cuatro de Mayo.  Dustin made fajitas and enchiladas and quesadillas, and I made tres leches, and a friend brought a piñata, and we brought out the water trough for the first time this year.

Dustin threw that red cup into the trough and said, "Here Eden, a new toy."  And the little girl pictured in the trough with Eden above excitedly said, "EDEN!  A NEW TOY!"  And they were all excited and ignored the other toys to play with it.  Oh, to be a kid again!

One Tuesday after gymnastics, I took Eden to The Children's Museum.  It'd been a couple of months since our last trip, and I wanted to get in a trip before summer because last summer I made the mistake of taking Eden, and NEVER EVER will I visit The Children's Museum during the summertime EVER again!

First, she went grocery shopping, and she went straight for the seafood and stocked up.  I had to text Dustin a picture and let him know that his daughter is just like him!

Then I felt like she was finally big enough (though the art smock says otherwise) to go to the Art Academy.

what a masterpiece!

I felt great the two days before Mother's Day... I had energy and no nausea!  I thought I was finally over the whole pregnancy sickness thing, and I was excited about eating meat again.  So I told Dustin I wanted him to make me a steak for my Mother's Day dinner.  He, of course, went above and beyond and made steak, lobster, crab legs, potatoes and grilled vegetables.  Eden stayed in the kitchen with him all afternoon to "help" him.

As they were cooking though, and I started smelling all the food, I started thinking that maybe I wasn't going to be able to handle everything after all.  Dustin called me into the kitchen that evening to see the results of all his and Eden's hard work.

I managed to look at it long enough to take a picture, and then I had to run outside to ahem (TMI) be sick.  I managed three bites of crab total.  I felt so terribly guilty that he had gone to so much trouble, but he was really nice about it.  He, Eden and the dogs had a fantastic supper.  And I was able to eat the chocolate covered strawberries he had bought... so yay.

We FINALLY put together Eden's big girl bed.

I'm not crazy about the pink bed against the pink wall, but I had the bed painted pink because one day hopefully soon, we are going to build, and I plan to paint Eden's new room green.  And the pink bed against a pale green wall will be so cute!

Eden was so dang excited about her new bed that it took her over three hours to fall asleep the first night!

Did you know that big girl beds come with dream dust to be sprinkled on the pillow every night for happy dreams?

They do.  And this is such a fun little ritual that we do every night now.

This past Saturday, Dustin went fishing while Eden and I went with some friends to Splashway.

Dustin got home that evening after I had already bathed Eden and put her in her pajama gown.  I was just fixing to put her to bed when Dustin pulled up, so I took her outside to tell him "goodnight".  Dustin asked if she wanted to see the fish, and he took them all out of the cooler and lined them up on the sidewalk.  Eden LOVED them.  She started picking them up herself.  She would put them back in the cooler and then take them out of the cooler and line them back up on the sidewalk.  She petted them and poked their eyes.  Then after Dustin cleaned and cut them all up, he gave her the fish guts, and she sat there playing with those!  YUCK!  She had the time of her life though!  Dustin was so proud.  As I was taking her back inside for another bath, Dustin said, "Eden, Daddy's so proud that you're not a little pansy."  HAHA!

On Sunday, Eden and I went dewberry pickin'.  It was her first time.

She couldn't wait until we got back to the house to start eating them.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with her head; she just thought she needed a band-aid there.

On Tuesday, it rained and rained and poured, and after it was finally over, we went outside so Eden could splash in all the water.

and some other favorite pictures from the past month...

Eden Has Some News

It's been so long since I've written a blog post that most everybody already knows this, but...

(dogs in the background of my pictures always!)

Yep!  We're having another baby!  And we just found out this week that...

Another beautiful baby girl to join our family.  I've already been going around saying things like "my girls", and I LOVE IT!

Here she is:

A princess already.  And some hearts so you can't see where I go to the doctor just in case you're a psycho stalker.

Here's Eden when we found out that she was a girl.  All of this baby stuff has me all nostalgic for Baby Eden, and I keep going back to look through all of her baby things.  I've been comparing their ultrasounds - like I can really tell if this new little girl looks like Eden or not based on these two pictures.

My girls.  My daughters.  My little princesses.

As I've already written about before, getting pregnant doesn't exactly come easy for me.  It wasn't easy with Eden, and it wasn't this time either.  It sucks.  But how grateful I am that even though it may be more difficult for me than for most, I CAN get pregnant.  God is good.  He has His reasons for making me wait.  I feel that I appreciate this experience so much more than I would have had I gotten pregnant easier.  And His timing is always perfect even when I don't see that at first.  After many trips to the doctor, lots of fertility drugs that made me sick, more ovulation tests than I care to remember, and over a year of prayers that went, "Please dear God, please let us have another baby", here we are, and even though I thought I wanted my kids closer in age, I see now that Eden will be at the most perfect age when she welcomes her little sister.  You would think by now that I would've learned that God knows exactly what He's doing, but I always seem to forget to trust Him.

I thought I was excited when I was pregnant with Eden.  But I'm more excited this time.  Now don't take that the wrong way.  It is BECAUSE of Eden that I'm more excited this time.  When I got pregnant with her, I was happy and I was excited and I imagined how amazing everything was going to be.  And then she was actually born, and she blew me away, and she was even BETTER than anything I could've possibly imagined.  This time, I know just how awesome this experience is going to be.  I cannot wait for that magical birth day and to once again hold a tiny baby against me and breathe in her scent.  To witness first coos and giggles and words and steps.  And then watch as she enters the wonderful world of toddler hood.  Not only that, I can't wait to share this experience WITH Eden.  I can't wait to see her hold her little sister for the first time and love her and kiss her, and I know she's going to insist on "helping" with every part of it.  There are no words to describe how wonderful it is going to be.

Everybody keeps asking what Eden thinks of the whole thing.  I don't think Eden really gets it.  When I first told her that there was a baby in my tummy, she thought she had a baby in HER tummy too.  She would look down her shirt to try and find it.  Now though, when you ask her where the baby is, she points to my tummy, but I know she has no idea what that really means.

And no, we are absolutely not upset that we're having another girl.  When we told people I was pregnant, so many people made the comment that we must want a boy this time.  Um, no, we just wanted another baby.  I had absolutely no preference.  In fact, when I was laying on the table earlier this week waiting to hear the ultrasound tech say "boy" or "girl", I couldn't decide which one I wanted more.  I imagined her saying "boy", and I was over the moon excited imagining a little baby boy and how fun that would be.  Then I imagined her saying "girl", and I was over the moon excited imagining another little girl and how fun that would be too.  At one point, I thought how great it would be if she just said, "SURPRISE!  It's actually twins, and there's one of each!"  (Actually, if she would have REALLY said that, I would've freaked!)  I did not care which word she was going to blurt out because either way, it's the best thing ever.  And no, Dustin is not upset either.  I'm pretty sure he can take girls hunting and fishing just as easily as he can take boys, and if anyone were to see how much he absolutely loves and adores Eden, they would know that he is perfectly happy with little girls.

After we found out that Eden was a girl, we stopped at HEB, picked out a blank cake, asked the person behind the counter to write "It's a Girl!" and we went straight from the grocery store to my grandma and grandpa's house where everyone was waiting to hear the news.  This time I was actually going to have a fancy (not realllllyyy fancy, but fancier than a grocery store cake) cake made at an actual bakery ahead of time, and after we found out the gender, I was just going to have them fill in "It's a Boy" or "It's a Girl" in the appropriate color when we went to pick it up.  I wasn't expecting to find out the gender for another month, so I was really surprised when my doctor asked me on Tuesday if we wanted to go ahead and find out that day.  Um, of course I did.  And I suppose I could have waited a couple of days and still ordered a fancier cake to announce the gender with, but I am not a patient person, and I felt that my family needed to know approximately .4 seconds after I did.  So I once again just ran to HEB and picked out a blank cake.  The best they had was a white cake with lots of different colored icings around the edges.  This is the conversation I had with the lady behind the counter who apparently did NOT speak good English.

Jenni: Can you please write "It's a Girl" on this cake with pink icing?
Lady: We don't have pink icing.
Jenni: But there's pink icing on the cake.

See:  pink icing

Lady: I will check for you.  So you want it to say "Happy Birthday"?
Jenni: No, "It's a Girl".
Lady: Right, but "Happy Birthday"?
Jenni: What?  No.  I want it to say "It's a Girl".
Lady: What do you want on the cake?
Jenni: I'm confused.  Are you asking what I want written on the cake?
Lady: Yes
Jenni: "It's a Girl".
Lady: Oh.

And then she wrote it in black?  Navy?  Definitely not pink or a girl color.

Oh well.

So yeah.  We're adding a little baby girl to our family in October, and life is pretty dang fantastic.