Eden Naomi

Made up a little birth announcement:Eden

Eden means “Paradise” and Naomi means “pleasant and delightful.”

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We pray that God would plant joy and thanksgiving in the garden of her heart so that she would sing praises to Him. We desire that God’s abundance in her heart would spill over into the dry places encountered by others, bringing them new life.

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Aunt Katie – This was the first birth she has attended. She is quite pleased with the results.

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Aunt Stacie – a great comfort to have around! She has been a part of all my birthing experiences.

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Already knows how to sign “eat”

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I love the little wrinkles. Eden also sports a covering of peach fuzz, making her sooo soft!

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Trying to get that head up!

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Nearing the end of the photo shoot….

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We are so blessed with such a beautiful, perfect little girl!

Welcome to the world!

After a slow, somewhat “gentle” labor, little Eden was delivered into her father’s arms at 7:23 PM, March 24 2012.

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A tiny, little thing, she measured the smallest in length of all our children so far (18.5 inches long).

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Eden surveys her new world – I hope she’s happy with it because she sure seemed anxious to be here. She came about a week early (a first for me) and moved around a lot during labor, trying to find her way out.

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Daddy cut the cord and Eden officially became her own little person.

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Despite being small, Eden weighed in at a healthy 7 pounds 7 ounces. She’s a compact, stocky little girl with lots of wrinkles and little chubby thighs (another first for my children).

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Our midwife, Lisa, checks the stats and Eden finds her thumb.

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Daddy substitutes a pacifier – determined we won’t have another finger sucking baby.

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All’s well that ends well. Everything checked out for both baby and Mamma. Things were cleaned up and everyone got a good night’s rest!!

A dinosaur party!

My mom and sisters came up for a visit over Spring Break. Taking advantage of the extra adult help, I planned to throw Lance a birthday party while they were here.

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Lance flashes his perfect grin, celebrating four years with a green dinosaur cake.

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The first activity was making “cave drawings” inside a box. It was funny to hear a dozen crayons and markers simultaneously rubbing over the ribbed cardboard.

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Lance loved this activity and stayed at the task longer than any of the other kids, taking pains to decorate the outside as well.

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Next was a pre-historic fossil dig! The previous day we had made a coffee dough and pressed plastic bugs and such into it to make “fossils”.

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Lance finds a dinosaur egg!

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Grammy also brought some real dinosaur bones (cow bones from the back pasture).

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This very much impressed the kids!

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After everything had been found, re-hidden, and found again, we proceeded to crack open the dino eggs.

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What was inside?

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Baby dinosaurs of course!

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The kids piled up a mountain of sand and we had a baking soda and vinegar volcano! Must have been quite a turbulent time for the dinosaurs because there were multiple eruptions on several mountains.

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It became quite a status symbol to have your baby dinosaur engulfed in hot lava.

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For lunch we had stegosaurus sandwiches – each mom preparing one for their kid – along with “lava juice” (red koolaid).

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Then came cake and presents. Funny thing about the candles, it was super windy but once we got them lit, Lance could hardly blow them out!

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Aunt Katie gave Lance some toy dinosaurs. He and Ivy played with them for over an hour while we sat around and talked until naptime.

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Thanks to my mom and sisters for all their help making a fun day for a special little boy!

Seeing

Due to business and mommy being to tired to do anything some days, this unit stretched over two weeks instead of the original half week as planned. We still managed to do some fun stuff though.

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We read a book about our eyes each day. Here Ivy checks out her eye color and finds her pupil. We also looked at our reflections in mirrors and any other shiny surface in the house. It’s so cute to hear the kids use words like “fwection” and “iris” or tell me that “something is in my eye” just like what happens in the book we read.

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I found a cute binocular project online. Mostly I made them, but the kids enjoyed looking through them.

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To justify the time I spent making them, we went on a “binocular walk” – the kids would “see” something through their binoculars, we’d then go over to that item and look for something else from there.

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Flora liked using hers as a trumpet.

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We tried out different types of eyewear. Lance models the goggles.

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Ivy sees the world in a new color.

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Flora styles the pipe cleaner glasses. She especially enjoyed being held up to the mirror so she could see her new face wear.

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The older kids played a game of visual memory. Three items on a piece of paper, they would close their eyes and I would take one away. Then they had to tell me what was missing. They both did pretty good at this.

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We read the story of Jesus healing the blind man. Then I put blindfolds on them and we talked about what it was like to not see. We used our other senses to experience the world, then they were “healed” and took the blindfolds off. They were able to see things they would have missed, like the color of the building, or a little puppy running around. Lance retold the story several times.

This is the verse they memorized for the senses of taste and sight. It’s Psalm 34:8 if you can’t quite understand what they say.

O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.

Our senses – Tasting

A trip to the Dentist inspired a new topic of learning – teeth and tasting. I ran to the library the morning of our appointment to find a book on dentists and prepare the kids.

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Lance bravely takes his place in the dentist chair – showing off his brushing job.

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The dentist examines his teeth – no cavities! All three kids checked out and did very well for their first experience. Mom and Dad passed with flying colors as well. The hit of the visit was when the kids were given helium balloons – such big smiles!

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Tried a math game of rolling a die then putting the number of teeth into the mouth. The kids adored the activity (and the marshmallows) but the counting part sort of went over their heads. Lance points to his “incisors.”

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I printed off a teeth brushing chart. This is a big hit, though Lance didn’t want to put the stickers in the circles for some reason. The extra stickers on Ivy’s chart are from Flora, who of course wants to be a part of anything the big kids do.

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We also studied the sense of taste. They learned about the four types of taste – here Lance goes for a drink after trying the “bitter” cocoa powder.

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Ivy eats a salty chip.

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Lance puckers over a sour lemon. He must have been hungry because he tried to eat the whole thing, peel and all! They enjoyed a candy heart for the sweet category.

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Flora participates in our mouth study by learning how to use a spoon.

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Found this cute idea online – the kids “brush” the tooth with paint until it’s “all clean” (totally white). Ivy really showed determination and stuck with the task until her tooth was shiny.

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Lance decided to use his teeth…

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And we finish the post with a nice toothy smile from Flora – she really loves her tooth brush!

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