Twin Cities Harvest Festival

 Before the horse started moving.

 After.

A morning at the Twin Cities Harvest Festival with Grandma and Grandpa.  Reagan LOVED it!  Her recent obsession is goats so it was thrilling for her to be surrounded by goats.  She also LOVED the corn pit.  She immediately wanted mmmoooorrrree jumping in the corn pit when we left.  I am her horsey (or neee as she refers to horses) at home and she will ride on my back and loves it but this was her first time on a real live horse.  See before and after pictures- pretty funny. 

National Prematurity Awareness Month

Hi friends, November is National Prematurity Awareness Month and we are excited to do some very special things with Eden’s Garden. We will be making donations to Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota NICU’s. These donations, both monetary and gifts will directly provide support for families going through the journey of being in the NICU. We would love for you to get involved and show your support for Eden’s Garden. When you are out and about please consider shopping for the following items:

Rattles, O-balls
Fisher Price, Sassy, Baby Einstein toys and toy sets
Mirrors
Mozart Magic Cube
Sound & Lights Aquariums (Fisher-Price)
Baby Board Books
Melodies & Motion Soothers (Fisher-Price)
Toy bars for strollers
Music CD’s

Once you’ve purchased these new items please connect with us so that we can collect the gifts from you. Or if you prefer to make a donation to Eden's Garden you can do so via PayPal. We will make one large donation to Children’s on November 17th from Eden’s Garden. We would love for you to join us on this special day as we honor Eden’s life with this donation. Please contact us if you have any questions and thank you for donating!!

Four generations

We spend a lot of time with my grandma whom Reagan now calls GiGi.  It's so fun to get all four generations together and share stories about how life is so different from when my grandma was a child and when she had her kids.  I especially like the story about how ice cream was a special treat for her family, she would cut a half gallon into 6 small pieces for each of them.

Eden met my grandma and knew that she was loved deeply by her.  We felt it was so important to get photos of us together before Eden and I left for Texas.  Now I realize how special these photos will be forever.     
We love you grandma!!

Milestones

September30th was 18 months since we lost our sweet Eden. We love her and miss her more than ever. After talking with other families who are also grieving the loss of their children we find that we really are dealing with it in our own unique way. I do not feel bitterness. I have a strong desire to live my life with Eden’s legacy in mind and to share our story with everyone. I want to do something wonderful with her memory, hence the creation of Eden’s Garden. I am sad a lot but at the same time grateful to God for giving me almost 8 months to hold, kiss, cuddle, touch and talk to my sweet Eden. I want her back more than anything in the world but I want to be a healthy mom for Reagan. Part of being healthy is doing what’s best for Reagan, what’s best for Scott and what’s best for me. This means spending time growing my faith, being with Reagan as much as possible and focusing on events that build us up rather than cause strain or stress. Another part of being healthy for me is something that I posted about a few months ago; it’s continuing to take my medication for depression and PTSD. Some people may wonder if this is in fact healthy, but for me it is. I need to do it and it helps me deal with my grief in a positive way.

We are having so much fun watching Reagan grow and develop. She is truly amazing. Not a day goes by when I don’t look at her and think about how far she’s come and how incredible she is. God is so good to us and to Reagan. We are a true testament of faith. Everything with Reagan’s medical issues and development were out of our hands. We cried and were terrified for the future. There were endless times when we were so discouraged and exhausted. But we kept strong in our faith, continued to pray and now you wouldn’t know that Reagan was any different than any other 2 year old. She’s in to everything!! She is so curious and brave. She talks back and says NO often. She eats everything!!!!! She never stops unless she’s sleeping. She is happy most of the time and constantly is laughing.

Another Eden's Garden event!

On Sunday we hosted another event for Eden's Garden!! It was amazing! We served brunch at the Ronald McDonald House in Children's Hospital Minneapolis. Our friends and family jumped in and helped us flip pancakes and cook sausages for over 50 people. Scott and I had a great opportunity to sit and talk with families and provide them with encouragement and friendship. Having been in their shoes it was easy to relate and have an open ear to listen. It was also so great to catch up with our friends and to talk about our kiddo's, especially Eden. Eden's Garden is right on it's way to providing resources and support to families going through the journey of being in the NICU. This winter we will be focusing on other activities to share Eden's story and we feel so proud of being able to do something to honor her life. A very special thank you to our wonderful friends and family for helping with this event, we LOVE all of you

Our first family vacation

We took our first family vacation the first week in August. This is something that we are thrilled to be able to do as a family. We went to the north shore and stayed in two different places. Our week consisted of biking, hiking, running, exploring on the shore and spending time together. We took some beautiful pictures and had a great time. Reagan did well despite waking up at 5:30 am the first day- we told her that we were on vacation and she needed to sleep in! Hard to tell a two year old that. Everywhere we went we noticed a butterfly near us- it was Eden!

Gordy's Hi Hat

Smores!

Gooseberry Falls

Splitrock Lighthouse

Doing yoga with mama!

2nd Birthday Party

Birthdays are a big, big deal for us! We are those people that plan months in advance, put lots of time an effort into organizing, invite everyone we know and maybe go a little overboard. But guess what I’m not apologizing for any of it. We have an amazing miracle and we love to celebrate her life! Reagan and Eden were gifts from God and during the seven months that they were inpatient we didn’t know if we’d ever get to birthday number two. For Eden we didn’t but we are grateful for the almost eight beautiful months that God gave us with her. For Reagan’s 2nd golden birthday we created a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme based on the book by Eric Carle. Scott and I had a lot of fun staying up late working on decorations and drinking wine.
We are so thankful for all of our friends and family who helped us celebrate this special day. This year was even more special because Reagan was eating!! She eats 100% by mouth now and ate her whole cupcake!! Last year she would barely touch her cake so to fast forward only one year is major progress. Sometimes we still can’t believe that she’s eating.