Eden turns 3!!

My baby girl is 3! It has been the hardest, but most rewarding 3 years of my life. I have learned a lot of hard lessons about myself and about life through the medical trials she has faced, but without the experience we have had with Eden, I know I would be taking so much for granted in regards to having a healthy and strong baby now. Without the intense emotional experiences we have been through, I know I wouldn't have the same kind of emotional attachment and love for Eden that I do now. It's a different kind of love, one that can only be reached through experiencing the depths of fear and pain together. She is an amazing example to me and I can't imagine life without her. I will always be heartbroken about all the pain and struggles Eden has been through, but I'm grateful for the lessons I've learned.

Eden brings so much joy into our lives! She is making such amazing progress with her talking now, and makes us laugh all the time with the things she says. She has a really shy personality, but once she gets comfortable with you, she loves to be silly and make people laugh.

Here's a look back at some of Eden's pictures over the years. Notice the little monkey in the first picture is the same monkey in the third picture. These two pictures were taken only 6 months apart. It's amazing how tiny she was and how far she has come! What a little miracle baby.






This picture in the highchair is Eden on her first birthday.




The picture in the pink shirt and flowered dress is Eden on her second birthday.






And the picture below is Eden on her third birthday, doing her typical "picture face" with her eyes closed! We sure love this girl, sassy personality and all!


Happy birthday sweet Eden. We love you!

Dead Grass

Lessons learned about what not to do if you want nice grass:

Number 1 - don't leave your Slip-n-Slide on the grass for a few hours after you're done playing.


Number 2 - don't leave your dog unsupervised.


Dang it.

The first one, totally my fault. The second one.... it's just a good thing Eden and Ruby are such good friends.

Eden is so silly... 90% of the time I try to take her picture these days, she thinks it's really funny to either make a weird face, or usually she closes her eyes really tight. I hope she gets over this before we are ready to get our next family pictures taken! :)

She has liked having the old baby items coming back out of storage and thinks the baby chairs are pretty comfortable.

She is such a good big sister. It took her a little while to warm up to Bentley, but now she is so sweet and cute with him. She loves to dance and sing to him and try to get him to smile. It will be so much fun when he really starts to interact back with her.

She still loves to do crafts and is especially into painting lately. She painted this cute little birdhouse for my mom for mother's day and was so excited to help hang it in the tree. Most times when she paints now though, it usually ends with her painting her fingernails. :)

Grocery shopping is a little more complicated now that I have such limited space in the shopping cart! :) I'm just grateful Eden still prefers to ride in the cart because I think it would be much more difficult trying to chase her around and get groceries!

She loves books, and also loves to sit in Ruby's dog bed. Looks like Ruby was waiting patiently for her turn in the bed.

I just love this girl so much and can't imagine how boring life would be without her! And fortunately, I did happen to get a couple pictures of her with her eyes open! :)

Grandma's birthday

We love living so close to family and Eden absolutely loves going to grandpa and grandma Malarsies' house. We are so grateful we got to go celebrate my mom's birthday with her again this year. She taught me what it means to be a good mom, and now she is such an amazing grandma to my kids. I'm so grateful for her.

Instead of the traditional birthday cake, we had a dutch oven peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream. Delicious!

Erin is one of Eden's favorite people and she is constantly giggling anytime Erin is around.

My mom always has random but very entertaining things for the kids to do. Eden was quite entertained shooting the ping pong balls off the golf tees. Thanks mom!

Bentley - at about 6 weeks old

Bentley is such a smiley baby, both when he is awake and asleep! It's so adorable. I just can't get enough of him and smother him in kisses all day long! :) I also can't explain how much I love hearing all the little noises he makes. Eden's experience has taught me to never take that for granted, so with every coo or squeal or even cry he makes, I say a prayer of gratitude for that little voice and the happiness it brings to hear it.

We just had a doctor's appointment for him this week and he is now 10.6 pounds and 22 inches long! He is also outgrowing clothes so fast already it is crazy! I'm definitely not used to having a baby that grows and changes so fast.

Look at those lips.... to die for! :)

He loves baths, and he LOVES his swing. Any movement comforts him and makes him so happy, I guess that's why he loves the car too. The swing has definitely been a lifesaver when he wakes up super early and I still want to sleep! Into the swing he goes and he is content as can be while I get a little more sleep before Eden is up. Fabulous!

I think I definitely have another blue eyed baby too! Brad is winning out on this one for sure. He is two for two!

Bentley is such a good eater it just blows my mind! He makes it all so easy and I'm so grateful. He is also getting much better at night and once he goes into bed, we now get about a 5 or 6 hour stretch between feeds and then he resumes his every 3 hour schedule. I'm definitely grateful for that little extra continuous sleep and look forward to it every night.

I just can't express how grateful I am for this healty baby boy! He is such a tremendous blessing in our lives and has brought so much healing into my own life. I'm also so grateful for Eden and the experiences we have had that have taught me to not take things for granted. I thank our Heavenly Father for this blessing every single day. Life is so good.

What adorable kids I have....

These two little cuties definitely keep me busy, hence the fact that I am no longer a good blogger these days. If I have the free time to be blogging, that means I have the free time to be sleeping and that always comes first! :) It also doesn't help that for some reason now, it takes FOREVER to upload pictures so I get frustrated with the waiting time and just give up most the time. I've got lots of pictures of these little lovebugs though so I'll try to keep the posts coming!

I'm so grateful to be their mommy!

Denver Trip

Over Mother's Day weekend we were in Denver because of Eden's medical appointments. Fortunately though, we are so blessed to have family from my side and Brad's nearby so we were able to have a great time visiting them too.

Both kids were so good throughout the drive to and from. Bentley actually loves the car and is instantly soothed as soon as the car is moving. He never made a peep except when he was overdue to eat. And Eden was a trooper and kept herself entertained with movies and books.

We stayed with Tiffany and Camren, and Jade was such a good little helper with Bentley. She loved holding him, despite the fact that he pooped almost everytime she held him. :)

Eden's appointment at the hospital went great. The doctor did a bronchoscopy to check her airway and he also replaced the tubes in both her ears. He was happy with the way Eden's airway is progressing and we were so happy to get some good news. Since he saw her last November, the grafts where he reconstructed her airway have healed nicely, and her airway has grown on it's own! At this point he doesn't think she will need any further surgeries or intervention, but she does need more time for growth before he is comfortable starting the trach removal process. Her airway is growing, but it still isn't as big as it needs to be for her trach to come out.

The plan is to see him again in 6 months to check airway growth again, and then at that point we may begin the process of getting the trach out. We are so happy to have good news and get the confirmation that we have made such significant progress after the difficult year we had last year.

I just feel so very blessed to be Eden's mommy and am so amazed by her strength and all that she has overcome. Hopefully this time next year she will be trach free!!