A Birthday Recap

I can't believe my sweet baby girl will be 4 next week! I have had so much joy watching her grow, learn, and become the amazing little girl that she is. I love when something mature, that an adult would say, escapes her almost 4 year old mouth and catches me totally off guard.It usually cracks me up or makes me ask, "Where in the world did I get you from?" in which case she always replies, "Hev." (heaven) with a smile. It's bitter sweet to watch videos of her as a toddler and to hear the cute way she pronounced things incorrectly and to now hear her say those words perfectly. It's a sign that time is moving all to quickly. I will be really sad the day she starts calling root beer, just that, instead of root beard...it's pretty much my favorite thing ever. I used to love getting her to say Red Robin, when we'd talk about restaurant options, and to hear the cute way she pronounced the alliteration of r's. Now, that too, is gone. Unfortunately, I still catch her eating paper, haha. That's something I wouldn't mind her growing out of sometime very soon!

Some recent things I always want to remember:

Eden is super into Shopkins and Tsum Tsums right now - little collectible toys and she LOVES playing in the water, be it the bath, pool, sprinklers, water balloons, or even running around outside with a spray bottle or squirt gun. She is also obsessed with Merida from Brave right now and she loves to pretend she is riding on her horse when we are in the car and any time we stop at stop signs she will pretend they are her targets and she shoots them with her pretend bow and arrow. She loves reading and she loves numbers, but she does not love to write or draw - it's almost like a chore to her, which is totally opposite of me as kid.She does like to paint and play with playdoh though.

The other night she literally caused my mouth to drop as I was vacuuming at the bottom of the stairs and I received a text on my phone, which was upstairs on the table. I asked if she could tell who the text might be from and she said simply, "It's from Holly Jacobs"...then I asked, doubtfully if she could read me the text, thinking it wishful thinking that my pregnant self might not have to walk up the stairs mid- vacuuming to read it, and I heard her sound out the first word and then read the rest of the text to me perfectly. My jaw dropped...this kid seriously amazes me - my 3 year old can now read my texts for me, that's cool. I have heard her read books, but thought most of it was from picture clues or because she had it memorized, but here she was reading something, with no pictures, the first time she'd ever seen it and no one had read it to her previously. I always want to remember how amazing that moment was - hearing my kiddo read.

She is my little buddy - I love having this cute girl to pal around with each day while daddy is at work. I love how when she hears me talking out my adult decisions to myself at times, she tries to give me her advice or answer things I am asking myself. While I think preschool presents a nice break for us, I sure do miss her the moment I drop her off, and I can't wait to see her running up to give me a hug when I come to pick her up. I love the way she always tries to convince me to take her to the Provo bakery for a treat afterwards, since her preschool is conveniently in Provo, haha. Since she most likely gets her sweet tooth from me, it's pretty hard to turn her down most days, but every now and then I take her and we get a treat and sometimes walk around that area and I show her the house Reed lived in and the house I lived in during college when we were dating. I point to the house right across the street where he lived and point out the bench on the porch that we sat on and talked for hours at a time. She asks lots of questions and I love it. I also, love doing her beautiful long blonde hair. I always dreamed of having a little girl and of doing her hair. It used to be a half hour battle to get her hair done and it usually wasn't worth it, but as she has gotten older, she willing lets me style it most of the time. I could write so much about this sweet girl and the things I want to remember of her, but I assume I will do more of that as I am consistent in my blogging journal. For now, since I didn't have a blog during her first three birthdays I wanted to include a photo dump from each to recap those special days before she turns 4 and I write about that birthday.

Eden's 1st Birthday

Eden's 2nd Birthday

My little superhero, was thrilled to party in her cape! When I was growing up, my most favorite thing at a birthday party was a pinata. I remember my mom making pinatas while I was growing up and wanted to have a tradition of making one for each birthday (other than the 1st, since the kids are too little to give it a good whack and barely walking). For this birthday I did a spider pinata for these little super heroes to take down! And down they did!

Eden's 3rd Birthday

Eden has been obsessed with cats since she could talk, so what more suiting a party theme than cats? Also, there is just one day between she and her friend Harper's birthday, so we decided to celebrate both of their birthdays together this year.