Erin and Bentley

My kids adore Erin and get so excited when she comes over. These moments are pretty precious...

Fun in Bosque Farms

It's always fun to go spend the day down in Bosque Farms with family. My kids love the variety of activities that we get down there - like visiting an alpaca farm for example. Eden liked being able to feed them, but Bentley didn't enjoy being too close. He would talk to them and throw the food towards them, but he wasn't interested in having them eat out of his hands like Eden and the Harding boys. It was a fun time though, and the baby ones were sure cute!

After visiting with the alpacas for a while, we went and played at the park. Thanks mom for taking these cute pictures!

Picture Update

We have been watching the winter olympics sometimes in the evenings lately and the kids are thoroughly entertained. Bentley especially loved the speed skating for some reason and would laugh hysterically when the shot would sound and the skaters would take off. He loved it.

Kids and TV - they are so funny… This picture is Eden, Bentley, Grace, and Lydia Pickett.

Family outings to Costco are always so fun. And look - even "bean" the amazingly loved blankie got to come along too!

Anita somehow got wrangled into pulling all the children in circles around the backyard. I do think Eden holding Bentley is pretty cute. :)

More painting with Bentley, which is always so incredibly messy.

Bedtime stories are always a must! I sure love these two boys and am so grateful that Brad is such a good and involved daddy.

Bentley was super helpful for me as I sorted through the first bin of baby girl clothes. He loved throwing them everywhere, but then he was also good about singing "clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere!" as he put them all back in. This game continued for quite a while. Then I guess he decided the bin of clothes was a cozy spot to lay down while watching the olympics.

37 Weeks Pregnant!

Ok so this ultrasound picture was taken a couple weeks ago, but I'm now 37 weeks and counting! I am also starting to get very swollen and gross looking ankles by evening time. I didn't have this issue in past pregnancies so it's been a little weird and gross. :) We sure are excited to meet our baby girl!

Broadway presents "Beauty and the Beast"

A couple weeks ago Brad and I were able to take Eden to see the broadway version of "Beauty and the Beast". It was SO MUCH FUN! In the weeks leading up to the show, we started listening to the music more, reading the book, and we had a movie night to watch the movie so we could get ourselves all pumped up and ready for the show. Eden was always a little nervous about the fight scene between the Beast and Gaston, but she was ready by the time it came to watching it live. :)

She caught a little cat nap on the way to the show which is probably a good thing. She is precious.

The show was a couple hours long, so there were a couple times Eden got a little wiggly in her seat, but she was thoroughly entertained and singing along throughout a lot of the show. There were lots of little girls in the audience all dressed up in Belle dresses and she thought that was pretty neat too. Since then, she has reminded us often that she would love to go to another show when a "good kid one" comes around again. :)

At the end of the song "Be our guest" some streamers shot out from the sides of the stage and landed all over us. She was so excited that she caught some. We, of course, had to bring it all home and she cut it up and used it in her craft projects.

We sure had a fun afternoon getting some alone time with our girl. Fortunately, we saw this show on a Saturday matinee time so Bentley took a nice long nap at a friends house and never even knew what he missed. Someday he will get his turn too. :)

Eden's eye appointment update

This girl is a hit around the eye doc's office. They all get excited to see her and tell her she is one of their favorite patients. She does cooperate really well and usually does something funny or silly to try to make them laugh. She is always very helpful too and likes all the fun attention they give her.

So the appointment went well, without any real changes. The right optic nerve looked a tiny bit more swollen than when we were there three months ago, but it's still within normal range and not something the Dr. Winter feels we need to act on. She will continue on the medication she has been taking and we will go back again in a few months. At that time he plans to do some more in depth vision field testing to make sure her vision isn't being affected, but as of right now we will just continue on as normal! No news is good news though I suppose. Until next time!

Valentine's Day

No Valentine's Day is complete without some Valentine's crafts, which as we know is Eden's favorite thing to do. She made a cute Valentine's craft down at grandmas using paint and grated crayon which they then cooked in the oven. She loved it and it looked really cool.

She also helped grandma decorate some Valentine's cookies which were then devoured by the Harding boys shortly after their arrival.

We continued our annual tradition of "things we love" this year using the Valentine's advent calendar I made. Each day, we (including the kids) put down something we loved on a heart and taped it to the door. It added an extra measure of fun and love for the last couple weeks. Eden's quite often involved loving Elsa, Anna, and anything "Frozen" related. Bentley's were "a show" "phone" "I hide!" "bean!" things like that. :)

Brad only worked a half day so that afternoon he and I got massages, which was especially heavenly on this big pregnant body of mine. Massages are definitely one of our favorite ways to celebrate pretty much anything, right Brad? :)

We spent some time at the park enjoying the beautiful weather.

The kids had a little down time doing basically the only thing that they sit still for - watching a show of course.

Then that evening we had a very nice Valentine's dinner as a family. We had steak, asparagus, french fries, red jello (in a heart shaped pan), and sparkling cider with red heart shaped ice cubes. The heart ice was definitely a big hit with the kids. And then for dessert, Eden picked out chocolate molten lava cakes with vanilla ice cream. Yummy!

I'm not an emotional person, as far as actual crying is concerned, but this year Brad's gift totally left me in tears which has never happened to me before. He made me a book talking about what love is and included lots of pictures of the adventures we have had together. I can tell he put a lot of time and thought into it and I love it so much. This is by far the most special gift I've received. Well played Brad…. well played. Everyone needs to come see this book - you'll be jealous. :)

I sure love my family so much, especially my Valentine, and am grateful everyday to have them! I live a very blessed life. Happy Valentine's Day!