September 11- A Remembrance

Today is that fateful day when people put their flags at half mast in remembrance of things past. That's right. 29 years ago today, Andy was born. Happy Birthday Sweetie! Andy took a vacation day today so he could stay home from work, but he had a conference to go to until 1pm anyway. We're happy to have him home this afternoon and evening. He' s such a great guy he stayed up until 10:00 last night baking cookies to take to work for his birthday.

I just have to take a moment and brag about what a great guy Andy is. He's funny and sweet and patient and kind. He's a great daddy and Eden loves to be with him. He puts his all into everything he does. He loves his job and is hard working and honest. He's strong, but gentle. He's a worthy priesthood holder and a great family man. He's an excellent bug squasher and he never complains when I have odd jobs for him to do. He takes care of me when I'm sick (like right now) and is always thinking about others. He's always willing to sacrifice what he wants for what others want. He knows when to be serious and when to have fun and I always love to be around him. This list could go on and on. How did I get to be lucky enough to get him to fall in love with me? I'll never know, but I'm glad he did! Happy Birthday!

Curly Shirley

Eden had her hair in twisty pigtails the other day and when we took them out at night her hair was curly. It looked so cute I had to take some pictures. Eden calls herself Curly Shirley when she sees herself like this. I can't believe how old she looks in these pictures (especially the second one). I can hardly believe she isn't even two yet!




For those of you who always ask what funny things Eden has said lately (and you know I can never remember them all) I have created a list of Eden-isms on the right side of the blog. I'll try to keep it updated with the latest quotes from our wee one. There's never a dull moment when she's around.

Car Wash

I've had a few people ask me to post more pictures of our house so I took a couple pictures last weekend while Andy and Eden were washing the car. Eden proved to be more fun to take pictures of so I ended up with more pictures of her than of the house. She was also a challenge because if I got close enough, she tried to get me wet. I should have put her in her swimsuit for this endeavor...

Anyhow, I got a few pictures of the house too. I realized I didn't take any pictures inside the house though. Those will have to wait for another post. Back in June while I was in Utah we had a HUGE storm blow through Omaha. Andy was at home that day and called to tell me about it right after it happened and I'm SO glad I wasn't here for it. Our bishop said he's lived here for 11 years and that was the worst storm he's seen so it's comforting to know that isn't normal weather. I don't believe it was an actual tornado, but it blew over fences and power lines and stop lights and flooded our neighborhood. It also hailed really hard. We live on a bit of a hill so we didn't have anyone in front of us or behind us for shelter. We had all the screens on the back of our house ripped from the windows and the hail broke one of the basement windows. We also had the hail punch holes in the framing around the windows. It also did some damage to our roof and slid our a/c unit off it's pad and damaged the side of it. A lot of other houses had even more damage, so we're thankful that this is all we had to deal with. If you look at the pictures from the back of our house, you can see our screens hanging off some of the windows. We're in the process of getting everything put back together. Thankfully our home owners insurance will cover most of the damage, but it is still crazy to think our house isn't even a year old and it is getting a new roof and new windows. Gotta love the Midwest!

Do you want milk or water? Ummm, juice.

Something Eden said back in December. It's still funny.

One of the many things we really love about Eden is how funny she is. Some of this is unintentional. However, she really has a sense of humor and she knows when she's being funny. These pictures were taken back in May. We were eating at Culver's one day (mmmmm.... frozen custard :) and she was in one of her silly moods so she started making every face she knows to get us to laugh. Andy's parents and my mom were there too and she had us all laughing for quite a while. Fortunately, Sha-sha had her camera and snapped some pictures. She still makes faces like this once in a while but she's already moved on to bigger and better things so I'm glad we captured this moment.

You'll notice the lovely 'hairstyle' she's sporting. This is a common look for Eden. We call it "I had pigtails earlier today, but I pulled them out." I think she does it on purpose, just because she knows it enhances the goofy factor.

Enjoy :)

Okay, and I had to throw this one in too. We've trained her well. Any time she sees the U emblem, she yells "GO UTES!" We're so proud.

More about Utah

We took Eden to Wheeler Farm in June with the Craven Clan (minus Kevin, Scotty and Ben) and she really had fun. She loved feeding the ducks and looking at all the animals. We went on a ride in a trailer being pulled by a tractor (I think they called it a hay ride, but I didn't see any hay). Eden wore her pig tails special that day but we didn't see any pigs (they were all sleeping in their house). Luckily, all the other animals were being quite social. Eden liked the treehouse and we had a hard time getting her out of it. It was a fun afternoon for her.

Riding on the saddle

Peeking through the treehouse window

More to come...

Back and ready to blog!

It's been a long time. But we're back. We've spent quite a while in Utah visiting with family and friends and it's been a lot of fun. I took a lot of pictures, which I will blog about over the next few days. The computer is running slow tonight (and so am I) so I'll just start with a few pictures.

The main reason for the vacation: Family! Eden loved spending time with her cousins.

The Craven Family cousins: Abbie, Lexi, Sammy and Eden

Sometimes they got a little silly.


Eden's first french braids. Grandma Sha-sha was patient enough to put them in while Eden watched SuperWhy. They only lasted about 15 minutes, but she looked so cute while it lasted.

Tag with non-related picture

So, I'm in Utah and I haven't blogged for a long time. I plan on doing a lot of blogging when I get back to Omaha and I can get my pictures to load onto my computer. However, I have been tagged by a lot of people lately (all the same tag too) so I am going to answer the tag so that people know I am still alive. If you're a relative or friend who doesn't care about this, just ignore it.

Five things on my to do list:

1. Enjoy the rest of vacation
   
2. Go back to Omaha
   
3. Download some pictures and blog
   
4. Finish some books I am working on
   
5. Start up family scripture study again (cuz it's been a while...)
   

Places I have lived:

• Salt Lake City UT
  
• Midvale UT
  
• Wauwatosa WI
  
• Milwaukee WI
  
• Omaha NE

I don't have any recent pictures but blogs without pictures are boring so here is a picture from last summer for your viewing enjoyment.