....then came baby in a baby carriage!

eden is 20 days old today and i'm finally sitting down to type out my thoughts from the last 3 weeks. never could i have imagined a more exhilarating experience than having a baby added to our home! she is equal parts terrifying and inspiring, and we love her so very much. i'm not sleep-deprived by definition, just tired. but on the flip side - I CAN BEND OVER AGAIN! (there's no greater thrill, people) i can still remember what it's like to get 12 consecutive, uninterrupted hours of sleep, yet i still melt every single time i get up in the wee hours of the morning and look at her little wrinkled crying face as she screams for her mama. jed and i both are entirely smitten by this little child. she entertains us with her hat full of tricks, scolds us when we're not efficient with meal time, inspects our every feature when we talk to her, and continuously makes us the happiest people alive!

we put a lot of time into choosing her name. we didn't want to cramp her style with a boring name, nor did we want to overwhelm her with a crazy name. eden means “paradise.” we chose Eden for a variety of reasons. first, we love the name. she has been our little “ede” (pronounced ee-dee) for many months now. second, we want eden to always be drawn to the thought that life on this sin-cursed earth is not an end all. and thank God it’s not. the painful consequences of living in a sin-cursed world are a gift from God pointing us to find our hope and joy in the life to come, the life in which God will restore eden-like sinless perfection to his newly created heavens and earth. it is this future paradise that we hope and long for. third, we want eden to always be drawn to the thought that eden-like sinless conditions can be brought to her own heart while on this earth. through Jesus Christ, God sees us as current dwellers in his spiritual eden. eden, out of which we were expelled because of our sin, is once again our dwelling place because God has brought us there by his great grace to dwell with him by the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. her middle name is janetta. we wanted to honor both of our mothers ("jan" and "etta") and their sacrificial love for each of us, and this name just made the best sense. it doesn't hurt that she was born on mother's day weekend too.

as we would have guessed, ede looks mostly like jed. as an in-law in the tyrpak family, i was hoping that my genes would finally rise up and be the first dominant in-law gene in the tyrpak clan, but no such luck. you can spot a tyrpak a mile away, and ede is no exception. she's just beautiful - rounded cheeks, trusting eyes, delicate lips, a tiny chin, and dimples that'll take your breath away. i'm biased - i understand - but she's so much more wonderful than we thought she would be! maybe it's because, after nearly 7 blissful years of marriage, we were finally ready to embark on parenthood; or maybe it's because she truly is a piece of heaven in our family. i don't know. i just know that i feel so priveleged to be her mama, and her presence in our home is the best gift possible. God has shown such kindness to us in giving us the gift of life! there were so many complications and things that could have gone wrong, but the grace given throughout this pregnancy and birth has been more intense than any complication could've been.

she's a mama's girl and a daddy's girl and together we're the three bestest of friends. we're so thankful for this new adventure, and with every step along the way we praise God for our little gift in eden.