Ready for preschool...

one funny explanation:
after Brandon sneezes she says, "BLESS!!!!" That's her way of saying "Bless you!" hehe...she cracks us up.

South Carolina Part 2

One of the highlights of our weekend in SC was getting to participate in "Body Life" (ie...church at home with everyone's participation and getting to share).  It was awesome and so refreshing to us as we really got used to small group style church while in The Big Chicken. While we're enjoying certain aspects of church life here in America, we've really been missing being active participants in a smaller scale Church Body. One other plus of Body Life is that Eden is a welcome member as well and that the group just adjusts to dealing with toddlers during teaching/sharing time. It's beneficial for her, us, and lets the entire Body be together. That's one part we REALLY enjoy about home church. :)

Brandon's roommate while in Taiwan came and led worship for us.

and Micah helped him

some attendees :)

the whole group

Happy Resurrection Day!!

A few pics of our Easter Sunday!!  Aren't you proud of Brandon sporting a pink tie? (voluntarily, I might add!)

Eden got to hunt eggs twice! She loved it...especially once she figured out that they opened!

Friday morning we took advantage of the gorgeous weather and went with some friends for a little "Easter photo shoot!" 

She wasn't feeling especially smiley at first:

But then she got to pose with sweet Lily, one of her favorite people!

And then she got the fun stuff. She loved LOVED the bunny ears (as you can tell!) I debated whether she is too old for "nakey diaper" pics, but since we're a week away from potty training (i.e. no more cute pink diapers) I thought this might be our last chance to get cute nakey shots.

Hope you had a great Resurrection Sunday!

South Carolina

There's a first time for everything. And this weekend was the first time we've been to South Carolina! It was a very learning experience for us. Turns out, all those palm trees and crescent moons we see all over cars, doors, flags and stuff around here isn't just about people proclaiming a Muslim identity, but about showing South Carolinian pride. hmmm who knew?!?!

We got to stay with Mark & Kandy and we had such a blast that we may make it a more regular vacation spot! They live not far from Greenville, which I must say is one of THE coolest little cities around. If you are ever in South Carolina, and really the state isn't that big, you've gotta stop through Greenville and check out the downtown area. SOOO neat. Unfortunately (maybe fortunately for you, dear blog reader) I forgot my camera on our visit to said downtown area, BUT I did remember it for our trip to the Greenville Zoo!!

The highlight of the trip for Eden was of course the elephants. She LOVED Joy the elephant and wouldn't stop making her elephant noise the entire time we visited Joy. She made fast friends with Uncle Mark since he'd hold her up on the railing to see the elephants.

Another pose with some lions. :)

Then it was KiKi's turn to hold her for the monkeys. And of course Eden wanted to hold the monkeys.

Another favorite for us all were the giraffes. They were incredible! We all agreed that giraffes must have been created during that hour where God was feeling especially creative.

Eden was more excited about the lion water fountain than several of the exhibits.

And then we found a very awesome playground that we could have easily spent several hours at. I seriously wish more towns would invest in public attractions such as the parks and downtown area that Greenville had. Seriously worth a visit, especially if you've got kids!

Then we headed back to Mark and Kandy's to meet up with some more friends from East Asia! At which point Kandy dug out all sorts of "activities!" to entertain the little ones. 

What is more fun than water in a bucket?

Poor Isaac. Eden had it in for him the moment he arrived.

More to come on our time in SC in future posts! :)

Thanks Mark & Kandy for a great weekend!!

Birthday Pics!

I turned 26 on Tuesday (yikes!) and one thing Brandon wanted to do for me was to take me and Eden over to the SEBTS campus to take some pictures with the pretty blooming trees! We had a fun miniature photo shoot with daddy behind the camera. He did a pretty great job! Hopefully these will suffice for awhile for those of you requesting "belly shots!" I've done a pretty bad job documenting this pregnancy, but as you can see...I'm very much pregnant even in my oh so stealthy attempts at hiding it under a nice black shirt.  :)

Eden loved the "flowers" on the trees:

One of Eden's favorite things lately is wearing her sunglasses. Thus, a sunglasses picture:

"Give mama a kiss...meanwhile, sweetheart, let me just smash my nose into your sunglasses."

In the process of capturing the above photo, Brandon got this one. I think it's cute because it looks like she's telling me a secret. :)

And these are from today. Thursday means Gymnastics, which means she gets really worn out in the mornings and takes a great afternoon nap...sometimes a little earlier than planned. She loves having her back tickled, and this time it put her right to sleep. :)  Dada didn't mind.

More Car Seat info than You cared to Know!

this is a little bit jumbled...but maybe you'll follow my thought process.

We haven't exactly done things the "mainstream" way of doing stuff when it comes to parenting. Cloth diapers and delayed vaccinations probably put us up there with the "weirdos" when it comes to our parenting style. But we've also done something else that is a little out of the norm. Eden is officially 18 months old. And as of yesterday, she's officially a forward-facing little toddler in her car seat. (this is gonna be one of those parenting blogs that you non-parents have my permission to completely skip over)  :)

I'm not sure who decided that 1 year old is the official age kids should be turned in their car-seats but apparently there is a little bit of misinformation out there concerning this topic.

*disclaimer...I'm not trying to bash anyone's parenting choices here. We all do what we think is best for our kiddo.

After doing some research on car seats (when we had to buy one for Eden at 8 months old) I learned that most babies can be turned forward facing at 1 year old. That's to say that they are legal to be turned around at that age. However, if you'll read your handy dandy manual on your car seat you'll see that it recommends remaining rear-facing for as long as possible.  Kids out grow rear-facing requirements by height or weight eventually, but RARELY before their first birthday. So when choosing Eden's first car seat, we went with a convertible one that could be rear-facing for a long time.

I knew I wanted to make it at least until she was 18 months old before turning her around. Well just recently she passed that mark. And getting ready for another baby to share the back seat with, we went ahead and turned her around and moved her next to the window. Part of me still freaks out about it a little...she still has lots of room to grow in her car seat and still be rear-facing! But the girl has become quite the chatter box in the car now. She's never really been THAT quiet in the car anyways, but now that she can see stuff out the window, she loves it!! So there's not going back now!

We've been tempted many times to turn her around much sooner simply because she has HATED her car seat. We usually bribe her with a DVD, or snacks, or just hope that she falls asleep. But I'm so glad we stuck with it until now.

Anyways, I could go and post a whole bunch of links on statistics that prove it's much safer to leave them rear-facing, but I'll let you do that work. And if you do actually look into it, make sure you check the unbelievably frightening youtube crash test videos on that topic. :)  There are children that are still rear-facing that are 3 years old! Kudos to their parents! It can be done...just look into it and make sure you are doing what is best and safest for your kiddo! :)

Like Mother Like Daughter

My parents dug up this picture of me...um...several years ago. :) I had fun comparing it with the one we took of Eden. I need to try to get a better one of Eden now! (don't make fun of my shoes :)  I had weird feet as a kiddo and had to wear those cool "backwards" shoes with the bar in between them.) 

and here's the one of Eden again. :)