love her

So, it is very obvious that we have started to call Miss Eden by both of her names, Eden Brooks. Sometime last spring, I just started to feel like Eden on its own wasn't quite right. I worried that someday she might decide she wanted to go by her middle name (like her daddy did in first grade when he decided to go by Doug, or like I did in first grade when I decided I only wanted Ashley not Laura Ashley).

So, at the end of this summer, Graham indulged me and agreed that we'd really try the double-name thing, even getting her teachers at school to use Eden Brooks. I have loved it.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I was picking EB up from Sunday school and the nursery director stopped me in the hallway to say, "I have no idea how the comment was added in to Eden Brooks's name in the database, but it just printed out that way. No idea who added that comment." When I got EB and looked down at the name tag stuck to the front of her dress, this is what I saw ...

Such a lovely message to receive.

I also have an Eden in one of my classes at LSU this semester. When I asked her (of course I asked her), she said she'd always liked her name and thought of it just like Brittany of Tiffany - it seemed very common to her because she had always had it.

In other EB news, here's the hairdo she came up with, modeled after her friend Grace.

And, here's the new contraption I came up with to hep her  turn on the bathroom light on her own (mini-blind wand plus gold duct tape). EB called it fancy because of the gold duct tape.

Finally, her self portrait from school ...

On the way home from school last week, we had this little conversation ...

EB: Why is there tape on that roof?

Feeling tired, I replied, "I don't know."

EB: Weeeeell ... Can you explain to me one reason why you think it might be up there and how it works?

So, I did.

Love her name and love her.

- ashley

yesterday

sisters

playing "train"

Meet Dorothy

Well, as you might have guessed, we've been slowly worn down lately with EB's daily heartache and tears at not having a pet of her own. Since we can't have a big animal in our current house, we decided to put off the inevitable adoption of a furry creature with the purchase of a fish.

Meet Dorothy.

 Eden Brooks was "super-duper excited" about getting a fish, and named her after Elmo's pet fish. It's amazing how much you can watch a fish and how excited EB got when she saw Dorothy eat food for the first time.

We also had no idea Lydia knew how to climb up into the dining room chairs until we left the room for a minute and came back to this ...
 

Guess she couldn't see Dorothy well enough from down below.

As EB said tonight, "Fish are easy. You just feed 'em and watch 'em."

Yes, yes. That was precisely the idea.

- ajb

celebrating the New Year

So ... about three weeks ago we celebrated the New Year with friends from church. The girls had a blast hanging out with those older and a similar age - 

Perhaps most fun (not for Ashley who stayed inside because she was too nervous to watch, she can't stand kids around fireworks) was the fireworks show, complete with sparklers.

At some point (I did not see this happen), Grace brought out a resolution poster. Eden wrote she was going to play with Lydia more. So sweet!

Not sure when, but at some point I took the girls to Whole Foods - all Lydia would eat was blueberries. She ate an entire pint and asked for more. She got them.

At some other point, this is how I found EB ... cozy place for a horse for sure.

And yet at another point, Ashley hung the pictures Boston and Whitney got us for Christmas. Very cool! A family photo gallery is started - and first thing you see when you come in the back door (nice after a long, tough day).

During the holiday season, we often stay up late, which means that there is a period of time when we have to stop doing it. This particular night was not the night for that battle. We sat there while EB ate something and asked me 100 questions about the show Ashley was watching and we could hear.

Continually, after Christmas and still now though it has gotten better with our purchase of a fish (post to come), she reminded us that she wanted a puppy from Santa. It seems inevitable that we will be the proud owners of something that sheds hair in our house and causes us to spend $500 on a robot vacuum.

Still in her creative mode (which is always really), Ashley framed the birth announcements from both Winters. They are now on the same table but on the right.

I looked at these pictures a few times and have no clue about them except they are super cute. Really, you should look at them at least a dozen times. Love 'em!

So, that's how we celebrated the start of the new year. Now that we are in full swing of the semseter, I suppose blogging will be rare, but we'll try our hardest (really I'll try; Ashley will have pictures up it's just that I don't do a great job of writing in a timely manner...sigh...).

today

Hopefully, we will get caught up on blog posts soon. For now, here's a bit of what we did on day one of the semester (minus the meetings and meeting classes). Yay for Aunt Whitney and Winters being in town!!

friends and a wedding

Thursday night after Christmas, I was able to drive down to Brookhaven and meet some dear college friends to help celebrate Lydia Lofton's birthday. Lydia was in town from London for the holidays, so we had a really good excuse to get together. These are the kind of friends you can see one time a year and it feels like no time has passed at all. They're so great!

On Saturday night, Graham and I got to go on a date (thank you, CC and Granddaddy!!) to my childhood friend Misty's wedding. Again, the kind of friends you can just pick right up with as if no time has passed. So wonderful to have this time with Graham and with friends.

me, Anne Dorsey McCauley, and Mary Markham Williams

Needless to say, we had a very busy and very joyful time celebrating the holidays!

still celebrating

I think EB thought Christmas was two weeks long because we just kept having fun ...

loving their new lego set, Lydia is still addicted to this day!

EB walked out of her room at bedtime to give her Daddy this note

acting out the angel above the stable in the nativity

On our big Friday outing, FeeFee, Bebop, Baby Bop, EB, and I all headed to the art museum downtown for the Lego Jackson exhibit. I was just excited to be able to get everyone into my car at one time ... E's view from the back ...

The exhibit was pretty cool, especially with the "Can You Find It?" pages to guide our viewing ...

EB in her Christmas shirt hand-made by her Aunt FeeFee

There was a tutu for this outfit, but somehow in didn't make it the whole day