Miss Eden Bug turned 8 over this weekend and was super excited about her family birthday celebration. She woke up to glow-in-the-dark balloons and a super fun scooter car from Grandpa Bob, which she road back and forth across the kitchen for hours. After church, she got to open the rest of her gifts and was most excited about 8 packs of gum. She loved playing with her toys, by herself, and making her own birthday cake. We had a special birthday dinner with pancakes, sausage, strawberries, and orange juice with cake for dessert, lots of sugar!
One of our birthday traditions is going around the table and saying our favorite things about the person celebrating their birthday. After a day of behavior issues with Eden, it was difficult for her sisters to think of all the great things about Eden. Eden is kind, fun, incredibly smart, amazing little girl and this year we are going to work hard to enjoy Eden's great qualities at home.
I have implemented a strategy to deal with her behavior issues calmly, consistently, and immediately. Yesterday, she had an outburst at the playground because she wanted to drive the Jeep when it was Cora's turn. Normally, I would have tried to reason with her, ignore her behavior and hope for the best. This time, I brought her home screaming and told her that she can throw her fit in her room, which lasted 2 1/2 hours. Throughout that time, she alternated between screaming, banging on the door, hitting the walls, pleading, and tearing apart Cora's dresser. Since she is not able to reason in that state, I repeatedly and calmly told her she could come out when she calmed down. I took the girls downstairs for a show since they weren't able to sleep through her fit, so Eden picked the lock on her door and came downstairs. During that time, she was able to calm down and was acting reasonable when she came downstairs so I took the girls back upstairs, gave hugs, and everyone went to sleep. Today, I bought a stronger door lock and plan to move forward in the same way so that this is a year of transition for Eden. I have high hopes and expectations for Eden and want to record where we are beginning the year so we can measure our progress. Cheers to a hard, but amazing year for Eden.
I don't know how I have missed updating about Miss Indie because she is doing so great! She is TALKING!! She has some great little words like book, ball, out, high-five, up, stop, all-done and has said tons of other words less consistently. I am seriously sooooo excited about her desire to talk and the effort she is making to get it done! She also loves to dance around the living room (spin in circles until she gets dizzy and falls over), sing "If You're Happy and You Know It," bang the cabinets, take clothes out of dressers, play catch, give people high-fives, and keep us on our toes every minute that she's awake. And, did I mention that she's talking??! 
