One year ago

One year ago today (Halloween) we had a bit of a scare thinking Miss Eden was going to be coming 9.5 weeks early. After being admitted to the hospital for five days, I was sent home on strict bedrest and made it 4.5 more weeks. 4.5 looooooong weeks but the most important of my life because Eden grew stronger everyday.

This week has been very emotional for me when thinking about everything that happened around this time of year. The best thing was seeing how much love and support was poured out on our family. All the meals, company, magazines, pumpkin spice lattes, Claire-sitting, emails and phone calls were so wonderful and overwhelming. Thank you to everyone who helped us through such a tough time! Your friendship means the world to me.

Pumpkin Poem

Being a Christian is a lot like being a Pumpkin

God picks you from the patch, brings you in and washes all the dirt off of you.

Then, He cuts off the top and scoops out all the yucky stuff.

He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, pride, etc.
and then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see!

So I love this poem and got this idea to tell it in pictures from Kelly's Korner (love that blog!) I told it as we were carving our jack-o-latern tonight and Claire caught on fast. I said "Who is the light?" and she quickly answered "Jesus!" I love hearing His name from her lips =)

Here are God's pumpkins on our door step showing off the finished product. The pink pumpkin is one Claire decorated at playgroup last week.

Eden's bubble would say "huh?"

Go, Spurs, Go!

Last night was just what I needed!! A girl's night out with Kate sitting row 25 at the opening season game Spurs vs. New Orleans. It was awesome and besides the Spurs winning, the best part was getting to spend some quality time with a friend of 20 years... wow! That's a long time! Thanks Kate for a great night out and for being the most awesome single mom I know =) Be sure to read the post below - my two thumbs up to you!
Two mommies without three and a half year olds!

2 Thumbs up for single parents

So it's been another crazy week over here! It's never boring that's for sure. I have always admired the strength of single parents and there are certain times when I'm reminded of just how blessed I am to have Neil here with me.

Monday night was one of those nights! Neil was up at his campus office working on his tenure portfolio and Eden woke up screaming at 11 p.m. just as I was crawling into bed. After a good 15 minutes I held her and tried to get her back down. Just as I thought she was good to go, Claire opens her door coughing and crying so I get over there with Eden now waking and Claire is covered with throw up. Poor thing.... I put Eden down in her crib as she starts to cry harder than before ands I strip Claire down to get her in the bath. I get to her bed to survey the damage and I pretty much almost lost my cookies too! It was bad... REALLY bad... so... screaming baby, bathing beauty and I'm changing sheets. It's now 11:30 p.m. and Neil isn't home so I call him and here is how it goes:

me: "hey, are you coming home?"
Neil: "Yeah, I'm just about to walk to the car."
me: "Good - the baby's been crying since 11 and Claire threw up. I need you home NOW!"

Claire went through three more sheet changes that night, had fever Tuesday, laid on the couch pretty much all day and ate nothing but Pedialyte Popsicle's. Needless to say we all didn't sleep much. So glad she was feeling good Wed. and back to herself today. It must have been just a 24 hour bug and so far the rest of us are all still feeling healthy.

WOW - I'm so glad I could call in the reinforcements and I know I'm blessed to be able to do that. For those of you out there who are single parents all the time and some of you who are a lot of the time (spouses working or traveling all the time), cheers to you! Don't know how you do it!

11 months old

I'm having a hard time believing that Eden is almost a year. The month of October has been emotional for me because it's almost been a year since we were in the hospital thinking Eden was going to be our Halloween baby! When thinking about how fast time has flown by, I am grateful that Eden took a little longer in some of the developmental stages because she stayed our baby just that much longer. Well, no more! The past two months Eden has grown up so fast. Here she is with Mr. Bear:

Love this one! Looks at those toes =)

Eden has so much more hair than Claire did at this age. Still trying to see if there are any curls in there!
SO here is what I want to remember about you Eden girl! I will do it in pictures this month!

You are EVERYWHERE and learned how to move fast this month. Once you learned the stairs (only 3 of them) there was no stopping you so out came the gate. You still don't know how to get back down so I'm always close behind.
So now that you move everywhere, you make a mess everywhere! You love to climb into the toy cabinet and empty everything out.

You are still Ms. Snaggle tooth and working on the second one coming in hence the bib to catch your constant drool. On the teething note, everything goes straight into your mouth and not just because you're teething but simply because you can! You put more in your mouth than your sister ever did so I wasn't used to watching for everything little thing that might be on the floor or tabletops. You will find the smallest thing that the vacuum doesn't pick up. You even had your first taste of cat food this month!
This wonderful toy has become a favorite this month for you and me! It keeps you busy and in sight when I need to get things done in the kitchen.
The blocks are pretty much your favorite toy whether it be knocking two of them together or knocking over something tall that Claire builds for you!
Did I mention you are wanting to be everywhere and you get there fast as lightening? This gate has saved you from many tumbles down the stairs.
Eden, you already love music and I love this picture of you and Claire playing my keyboard together. You're just tall enough to reach now that you can pull yourself up. You even started cruising a little while holding onto the edges.
And what did you start doing on the 25th? You started standing up by yourself! You're up for about 10-15 seconds before you realize what you're doing and quickly get down. Claire didn't walk till she was about 14 months old and I wouldn't be surprised if you walked sooner.

Ha! I just realized that you aren't wearing a bow in any of these pictures! You still let me put them on you but you often try to take them off.

We love you Eden Bear! I want to savor this month before you turn one!

Pumpkin Patch Pictures

We did one of our most favorite things come fall time - pumpkin patch pictures! We love to go early when it's crisp and empty so we can get some good shots. The girl's looked super cute sportin' some leopard print from Grandma =) I have so many favorites that I created a slide show for anyone who is interested. I put it below my top four teasers that I included. Gosh my family is so darn cute!




http://www.slide.com/r/serf8Dpp6D-W8_LmbK6W6PQoCbowYOMv?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

Day to day

My stubborn, beautiful baby girl


Wow - I have the best husband! He came home today with purple tulips, my favorite, and had arranged for his parents to watch the girls so we could grab a quick dinner alone. It was just what I needed... this week has been HARD. I'm feeling complete exhaustion. Still not sleeping through the night. A good night is getting up once but there have been many the past few weeks when Eden is up 2-3 times. Now Claire has refused to take a nap this week which makes my down time non-existent. She's in her room making noise and fussing and all because she's wearing panties for nap time now. SO.... she hasn't napped since Sunday. That of course makes for a very whiny afternoon filled with time outs. I find myself getting frustrated and even angry which doesn't help the situation one bit. This is all because I'm simply worn out. I have too much on my plate. I'm too busy and I need to learn how to say no and/or delegate! I'm a mom and wife first and I haven't been a very affective or positive one this week.

Now, I say all of this to be real so my girls know that it's not all roses. I also say it so that if you're feeling the same way you will know, you're not alone! Most of all I say it for your prayers. I know that in our weakness HE is strong so I pray that I can rely on Him even more and seek His guidance even more. I ask you to pray for me and our family as we continue learning. It's a never ending process!

"I love Clifford the big red dog!"

So what did we do last Saturday night?

We heard Clifford was in town and Claire just HAD to see him! She couldn't stop talking about it all day and was wondering "Will he have a bone","Will TBone be with him?", " Is he going to say hi to me?" Claire loves watching Clifford on PBS and often pretends to be Emily Elizabeth while I am, of course, Clifford (I'm always the dog or boy!) When we got the BK, we were two away to take our picture and Clifford had to take a 10 minute doggie break. So we waited patiently and Claire was getting more excited only to be terrified when it was actually her turn! That silly girl! We thought for sure she might have conquered her fear of strange people dressed up in costumes and was going to be brave enough to do it by herself. Nope! So Neil had to hold her to take the pictures and the second one turned out pretty cute. She's always been afraid of Santa so we'll see if she'll get over it by December.

Cousins

Claire LOVES her cousins! She's always wanted to be attached to Kyle's hip and she and Justin play really well together. She also wants to hug on them but their gettingOn the 12th, we had a house full of cousins and had a blast with the play dough, mac and cheese, baking pumpkin muffins, playing on the keyboard and the highlight was making a garden tile for Poppa's birthday. Kyle had stayed the night before and Claire was in heaven having an over night guest. We look forward to more times for the kids to build these sweet memories together. It's something I never got to do so I know we are so blessed to have family close.

Eden showing off her tooth and her prunes

All the kids loved their turn on the keyboard discovering the different sounds! We rotated for at least 45 minutes.

Pouring the water for the concrete tile

Taking turns stirring

WHAT? All four cousins in one picture?! This is the first one we have even if Eden's head is turned. All three of the big kids are actually smiling!

Eden's Baby Dedication

I LOVE the annual baby dedication that our church traditionally holds. It's so special to celebrate with all the families and babies born that year! It was a wonderful morning - although we missed my mom, Shannon and Steve, a minor miracle occured - all of my siblings were in church together!! This made me the happiest woman and so grateful that they were all there to support sweet Eden. The service went really well which was a relief because I had planned it. One of the best thing was Neil and I got to read a Parent's prayer from scripture at the end. After service everyone came over for lunch. We made a chili bar with as many chili options as you can imagine! It was a perfect, cool, rainy afternoon for chili and great family time together.
Us with the Zorn's - Jeremy, Lezlee and Lily Kate - Eden was of course pointing!
Aunt Heather
My sweet girl who had been up a lot the night before - she was exhausted so we were having a hard time getting her to smile
She loves the stairs
Having fun with Mimi and Poppa
Cheese! Uncle Billy
Aunt Heather and Uncle Mike came from Austin

Grandpa's baby girl

Aunt Jenny came in from New Braunfels - Eden always smiles big in her pictures with Jenny!
Claire was so busy playing with her cousins but we did get this one shot! What a beauty! (Her eye got scratched up when she caught herself falling on the concrete with her face)