Monday, May 28, 2012

Weekend with Nana


 After preschool graduation, the kids and I all loaded up for a long weekend at Nana's.  My dad was away for work - this time in South America, so she was home alone and invited us to join her for the weekend.  Well, it was the perfect opportunity for John to finish up our entryway project, which has been taking a lot longer to finish than we'd hoped.  Sad to leave daddy, but excited for a long weekend in Stillwater, we packed up and headed out!

 Pretty Eden in her outfit from Baggie!

 Eden doesn't sleep as well when we're away from home...luckily, she slides right back into her old routine of sleeping for 8 hours when we return!  Phew!

 The boys share a big bed when we're there and its so cute!

 Nana really had Eden chatting!


We got to have movie night!

 A hot day at Como Zoo!

 The merry-go-round is a favorite!



 Entry finished!  Way to go daddy!  We love it!  
And many thanks to Nana for letting us come for the long weekend!

Friday, May 25, 2012

We love Noah's Ark Preschool!

What can I say besides we LOVE Noah's Ark!  Our kids are so lucky to be a part of this great preschool...its a special place!  John was lucky to go on Logan's end of year field trip (which means we officially went on every.single.field trip.  phew.) to mini-golf with all the kids.  Bennett and Eden and I worked on packing up a picnic and met John and Logan back at school in time for the last few minutes of class.  The teachers handed out the kids' journals they had been working on all year.  They said it was one of the sweetest times they'd had with the kids.  Then the parents were invited in to see their books before school was over.

The kids were all so proud to look through their books: full of their work and stories from the year.

Logan loved seeing his book...

special drawings and narration from the year...

he was so proud to show us his whole book!

I should mention all of the moms were crying, me included!  Like really crying!  Logan was like, "Mom, why do you have tears?"

Mrs. "C" - preschool director

Mrs. Lien - Logan's pod teacher two years in a row!

After class and drying our tears (well, mine), we went outside as our family of five for a picnic on the great Noah's Ark playground!  Logan showed us their rock garden they created this spring.

My special boy - all done with preschool and moving on to Montessori!

Thumbs Up for Noah's Ark!  Benny will be there two days a week next year!  Yay!

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Long lashes.



 Sweet baby girl with her long lashes.


Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Too much to ask?

Is a little peace and quiet too much to ask in this crazy house?
Apparently, YES.  This is one noisy house with those crazy boys!
Come on boys, a girl needs her beauty rest.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

My Dear Mollie

My dear friend Mollie helped me design and create Eden's whole nursery.  In fact, at one point when we were bust making stuff for the nursery, I think I actually referred to the baby as "ours" - like "mine and Mollie's"!  Ha!  She is such a sweet friend to us!  She even came over last weekend and basically ran our garage sale/babysat our kids while it was a little crazy on Friday morning.  We are so thankful for Mollie and Aubrey and the great friends they are to us!  Love you!

Monday, May 21, 2012

Blessings on Eden

May has been so busy - I will honestly be glad when the month is over.  We've had lots of big things happening and most nights have been full with activities.  We're enjoying it, but we're all exhausted!  Last weekend was our garage sale and Eden's dedication at church.  The dedications are set for certain weekends throughout the year and we wanted to have Eden dedicated now, rather than wait until later in the fall.  So, we held our garage sale on Friday and half of Saturday, then got ready for family to join us on Saturday afternoon.  Eden's dedication was 5pm Saturday night to allow for travel time for our parents from Stillwater.  It was c-r-a-z-y!  Luckily, both our parents were generous enough to help provide parts of the meal, so I only prepped part.  The garage sale was a huge success and pretty fun once we got going, but I'm not interested in doing another one any time soon.  :)

We were joined by another family dedicating their two boys.  We prayed over the kids - look at sweet big brother Logan praying for Eden!  Love it!
Is it any wonder my slip is hanging out of my skirt?  I also wore my huge 80s-style hair scrunchie for a whole day last week (I usually only wear it to bed) - do you think I'm a little scatter-brained??  Ok - a lot scatter-brained!

Eden was just as tired as the rest of us after a crazy few days - but she was the lucky one who got to sleep through the evening service.

My parents, John's parents, and our friends Mollie, David, and Katie joined us back at our house after church for Eden's party!  Sadly, Bennett missed the party when he fell asleep on the way home from church and we couldn't wake him up.  Even mentioning the cake he'd been waiting for all day didn't rouse him.  John took him to his bed and he slept all night!  Eden, on the other hand, slept all the way through her dedication, but was wide awake for the party!



 My dad had just arrived at 1pm from a two week trip to Southeast Asia.  So...we weren't the only tired ones in the group!  We were thankful his planes were on time and he was able to be at Eden's special day.

Eden sure likes to find her hand these days!

Baggie and Bopbop also spent two weeks in Thailand (what are the chances of 3 of 4 of our parents being in Bangkok at the same time?!) and brought some special gifts over for the kids.  They came home about a week ago, but it was fun to hear some tales from their big trip.

I promised John "no photos", but I managed to snap just one of us with Eden.  :)

 She is the most beautiful girl we've ever seen.  And how adorable does she look?!  Loving those little baby espadrilles!  My mom handmade the special rosette headband for her because I couldn't find one to match.  Impressive, no?

 Seriously, could she be any more beautiful?

 Mommy-daughter photo :)

 Eden gave her "frustrated" look when Logan sat down for a photo with her.  He had the BEST time at Eden's little party - all his favorite people were there and he was quite the little entertainer with lots of songs, prayers, and stories to perform.

Eden got this very cool book from church (and I asked for one for each of the boys as well, since they were baptized when we attended a different church) that I am so excited about.  The book will help us guide our kids through learning about their faith and also help us record some milestones in their life.

Many thanks to our friends and family who joined us in Eden's special celebration!
Now let's all take a nap...

Friday, May 18, 2012

Priceless

My friend Shelly stopped over the other day with her two boys. Logan, Bennett and Grady love to play together and little Henry will soon be able to keep up with the big boys!

The three big boys prove they are 100% BOY because there is lots of running and yelling when they are together. I suggested they run outside instead of inside so they went to put their shoe on, but I found Logan reading to the boys in the back entry a few minutes later.

Logan is quite a reader - often picking up books to read to his siblings or to John and I. We are curious what level he is reading at now, a he can pick up a new book he has never read before and read most beginner words. I love thy he loves to read - what a great gift to share with friends and siblings!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

I love my butterfly

Eden is beginning to really love looking at her fun toys - especially butterfly!

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Mother's Day 2012

Today was the best Mother's Day!  Eden sleeps 7 hours at night consistently, but she wakes up early.  I welcome the early morning with her because its some undivided time with my sweet baby girl before the day begins.  This morning I was greeted with brewed coffee, a special note and a little blue box.  It was a lovely way to start Mother's Day.

Eden wore this special dress from a friend.  She was adorable!

 She has the cutest sneezes!
(I realize only a child's parent would say that...)

 "Bless you, Eden!"

 Biggest brother, little sister.

 I'm so thankful for my three beautiful children!

 And its fun to be the mother of a daughter now!  We had a lovely church service honoring Mother's Day today.  I even got to pray with moms when they collected special gifts at the end of the service.  It was beautiful and moving and blessed.  After church, we enjoyed the beautiful day outside.  John picked up lunch and we played baseball, soccer, and went for a walk.

Its hard to believe 5 years ago, I was pregnant with Logan...

 he is so grown up!

 And Bennett sure is unique!  He is proof to us that each child is their own!  He is just as sweet as he is challenging.

Eden liked hanging out in her stroller, feeling the breeze...

and being entertained by the dynamic duo!

I got some extra snuggles with Eden today because there was no youth group tonight.  After church, John was home with us all day - that was the best Mother's Day gift!

 And lucky for Dad, he got some extra snuggles with Eden, too!

Eden loves some Daddy Time. 

The boys made special cards and said a special prayer for me at dinner.  It was something like this:
Logan: "Thank you God for our special Mommy who loves us so much"
Bennett: "Thank you God for our special Mommy..." (because B just likes to repeat what L says!)
Logan: "And she makes good dinner.  Amen"
Bennett: "Amen"
And, of course, Logan proceeded to not eat his dinner.  Haha!

Happy Mother's Day to all our family and friends - especially our own wonderful loving moms!