Crawling like Crazy!

There is no stopping her now! Edie is crawling EVERYWHERE and is in to EVERYTHING!! I have to search the floors over everyday making sure there is nothing that Edie can put in her mouth and eat. Thus far she has tried eating dust/fuzz balls, dog food, paper, leaves, grass, dirt, carpet, the plastic thing off of the door stop, jewelry, hair bows, etc., etc., etc. Every time I turn around she has something else in her mouth. Thankfully she has not swallowed anything out of the ordinary "yet" or so we think.

We took a trip today to Clanton to see Aunt Kelli, Wyatt and Wesley and baby on the way. BTW Kelli is having a baby girl! She is due to arrive in July and Edie will no longer be the runt of the bunch. We are excited to have another girl, not so sure Wyatt is though. I think he would rather a little boy.......maybe one day soon. Kelli has also started a blog! It looks like she started it back in October and never shared with me. It is the "Homeschool Adventures" blog so if you like you can now catch up on my big sis and her two & 1/2 munchkins.

Our mom has had an embroidery machine for a few years and we have recently purchased the pretty fonts, appliques and monogramming cd's to go along with it. So Kelli and I tried it out today, doing it the Chastain way (learn as you go). I made a cute monogrammed shirt for Edie, ruined a pair of Edie's shorts trying to make a matching - smaller monogram, almost ruined my beach bag doing my initials and did o.k. on (a) pillow case (now I have to do the same on the other one). So all in all it was a good day of monogramming. Edie played with Wyatt and Wesley all day. She was pooped once we got home. She ate, had a bath and went straight to sleep.

Speaking of sleep.....we have had some weird nights lately. Edie has been waking up several times during the night crying. We are not sure if she is having nightmares, having a growth spurt, still has fluid in her ears or it is because she is getting a new tooth. One of her back molars is coming in. I have given her baby orijel a few times - but I try to use it only when necessary (I read it is not good for babies). I am excited for the new tooth, I just hate they have to hurt so much. Hopefully the pain has passed and Edie will soon be back to sleeping through the night again.

Saturday we stayed around the house trying to get Edie's new playroom in order. We have a few more things to do yet. But once complete I will share some photos. Sunday Scott played golf and Edie and I went to Pratville after church. (By the way, I decided to put Edie in the nursery at church as opposed to taking her in the service as we normally do. This is usually her nap time so I thought she would just sleep. The ladies said she wanted nothing to do with sleeping or eating. All she wanted to do was play with the other babies. When I went to get her she was in the floor still playing. So sweet. She misses her buddies at MDO.) Back to Pratville - we met Nan and Pawpaw and had lunch then Nan, Edie and I went to see Uncle Zach's new house. It was a short visit - but we had fun getting out and just enjoying the pretty weather.

Growing Up

It seems like forever since I last posted. We have been so busy it has been hard to find the time to sit still long enough. I had a video of Edie I intended to share but for some reason the card is not working. So as I was looking though the old photos this one caught my eye. Scott took this picture of Edie when she was about 3 1/2 months old. He sent it to me while I was on a trip, my first trip, after being back to work. She looks so cute, tiny and peaceful. I can not believe how fast time goes by.

We celebrated Scott's 34th birthday this past week. Edie and I got him (us) tickets to Cold Play who is coming in May. Scott was very surprised and excited not only to get the tickets but to learn we will be having double the fun... we will also be going with some of our dear friends - Jimmy, Vanessa, Russell and Stacey. It should be a good time especially since we have not been to a concert in years.

Edie has also been grandparent hopping for the past few weeks. Edie and I went to Nan and PawPaw's for a visit a couple of weekends ago. We both spent the night Friday night. Edie stayed on with Nan Saturday night and went to church on Sunday. Then this past weekend Edie spent the night with Gigi and Giddo and went to church with them on Sunday. Scott and I played both weekends having dinner with friends and doing things around the house. Speaking of.....we are now in the process of turning our kitchen table area into a playroom for Edie. We are going to replace the chandelier with a ceiling fan and we have removed the kitchen table and have replaced it with a small sofa. We are going to add a small chair, a rug, some toy baskets. Don't get me wrong. We LOVE Edie and her 100's of toys, but it will be nice to have an area for her toys so that our company is not tripping over them as they walk through the front door. It will also be a lot easier to watch her play while I cook (whenever that is). So I am excited!

Another FANTASTIC thing that happened recently. Allie's mom Sandy was kind enough to lend us a copy of Allie's My Baby Can Read video. It is a learning video which includes flash cards and a book. Each flash card has a word on the front. When you pull the tab on the card an actual "real life" photo of the word pops out. Edie was so fascinated by these flash cards and book. I believe I went over them three times in a row while she studied each photo and word. When I would get to the Tongue flash card and pull on the tab to show the picture of the girls Tongue, Edie would stick out her tongue and wiggled it around! Se is AMAZING!!! Scott and I were so proud of her! Edie loves to read books. I have been reading about 4-5 books to her each night. She loves to turn the pages, say "ooo oooo" and sit in my lap while I rock and read to her. My dear friend Kristie form Florida mailed Edie a book about LuLu the Ladybug last week. Edie loves the illustrations in the book but she also LOVES the black and red dots on the back cover of the book. Every time we are in her room she will immediately crawl over to her book basket and pull out the Ladybug book. She will then sit and tap it saying "ooo, ooh, ooo". She is too cute!

Scott said Sunday night that "God could not have given us a more perfect, precious baby...we are blessed" and it could not be more true.

She's Back!

Edie has had a rough month being sick from a cold and two double ear infections practically just a few weeks apart. We have kept her out of MDO for the past few weeks until she is completely over everything. I can not help but think that all of these sicknesses has come from being in MDO. Edie was literally sick once until she turned one, which is when we started her in MDO. I know we can not keep our children in a bubble and eventually they will get sick - but I do hate seeing her feel bad. It is the most helpless feeling when your child is sick and you can not fix it.

One other thing Scott and learned from all of this is you must refrigerate your babies antibiotic. There is a tiny label on the bottle which we did not discover until Sunday night that reads "must refrigerate". Aha! This must be why the medicine is getting darker and darker each day! And to tell the truth - her medicine for her last ear infection I am sure was supposed to be refrigerated as well. Which we did not do. Anyway we panicked and called the pharmacy right away. We learned that 1. It will not hurt Edie and 2. Without being refrigerated it is not effective after 72 hrs!! Poor Edie......no wonder she got another ear infection. The first one probably never completely cleared because the medicine we were giving her was useless.

So we had a follow up visit with her ENT yesterday. He wrote her ANOTHER perscription which we will refrigerate!! And he advised us that Edie would need tubes. I have to say I am torn. On one hand I do not want to jeopardize Edie's hearing, speech and balance in any way. But I can not help but wonder....did the fact that we did not refrigerate the medicine have anything to do with the 2nd round of ear infection? Should we finish this perscription and see what happens? She may do great and never have another one. I know that over 90% of typical and non-typical children have tubes but the thought of making a hole in Edie's eardrum scares me. Dr. Davis's daughter also has DS so we do feel totally comfortable with his decisions because he is so aware of Edie's needs. So I know I just have to trust that this is the best thing for Edie and tell myself tubes are no big deal anyway. Right?

I got a new gadget last week - a mini camera. We have been wanting a smaller, more compact camera that we could just carry in our pocket when necessary. Although it does not take as great of photos as our big one I love the video option. We look forward to showing you a lot of Edie in "action"!

Chili Cookoff

Edie was feeling better so we decided to take advantage of a gorgeous day Saturday. We went the the Chili Cookoff in Homewood benefiting the Exceptional Foundation. I do not know a whole lot about this program but I do know it serves teenagers to adults with Special Needs. They offer everything from educational courses, to art classes, to physical education. They had a great turnout for the event. Edie turned lots of heads - it could have been the cool wagon with the canopy she was riding in that caught their eye. But we are convinced it was just because she looks so darn cute!!! She had a great day being outdoors!

Bell Center "Kids Marathon"

I would like for you to meet some of the kids you have made such a tremendous impact on. This is a slide show of The Bell Center "Kids Marathon". It was held at Samford University kicking off the Mercedes Marathon weekend. Unfortunately Edie was not able to enjoy this day with her friends as we were in the Dr. office being treated for a double ear infection (which she has again!). Even though Edie was not there - we were with them in spirit watching the event live on T.V. Laughing, crying and thanking God for Edie, the other children of TBC and you for making it all possible. Thank you.

If this does not melt your heart I am not sure what will.

http://byshea.com/bellcenter09/ And as with any slide show full of beautiful children, music is important. So turn your speakers on!

Snowy Day

Sunday we had the miracle of about 2"+ of snow fall to the ground. I was very sceptical of the predictions of snow for Sunday, but it really did happen! We put Edie's snow boots on and took her out to play before it melted. She looked so cute. We wanted to make a snow angel with her - but we were too afraid she would get sick from the wet snow.

I know our family in Arvada, Colorado are laughing at us right about now. Aunt Shirley, Uncle Jim, Kelly and Jolie see way more than 2" of snow every winter. They even continue to drive their cars - while we on the other hand stay indoors, buy milk and bread (before the snow comes of course) cancel church, school and other activities due to a couple of inches of snow. Really even just the threat of snow will close Birmingham down! Although it did snow heavily for about 30-45 minutes it was melting by noon and every ones lives were getting back to normal.

Hello Denver!

This is as close as we come to our family's snow days in Denver. Although not as heavy and linger some - it was still fun while it lasted.

"Team Ladybug" Won!!

With the help of our wonderful family and friends our team won 1st place for the Relay Team who raised the most money. We ended with $10,532.00 in total amount raised. As the first place winners our team won ipod shuffles. We will be using these as door prizes and auction items for the fundraiser we will have again in November. Our team also won a nice Bell Center duffel bag filled with goodies for being one of the first 30 teams to raise their goal.

When we began this journey our goal was to raise at least $5000 for The Bell Center. I am still so humbled and speechless by the love and generosity everyone showed. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful group of people surrounding and supporting our family, our Edie and so many other special babies attending The Bell Center.

Thursday night The Bell Center held a party at an downtown art gallery for all of the PIT members who ran in the Mercedes Marathon and raised money for TBC. There were several speakers, one of which was one of the running coaches. He said something that was so special to me and I wanted to share with all of you who helped us in this "Marathon of Love".

"These babies of TBC are all Angles sent from Heaven above. A gift from God. But like all Angles they must have wings to fly. And that is what you are. You are their wings. Lifting them up and helping them to fly"

So thank you. From the bottom of our hearts for helping our babies to fly. We love you!