One through Twelve

These past two months have gone by WAY too fast!  My little BIG boy is now two months old!  I must say it has been so much fun.  We have once again been blessed with a sweet and happy baby.  Dr. Cortopasi warned me of how fast things would go this time around I never expected it would be this fast.  OA started smiling at 4 weeks, cooing at 6 and found his hands at 8 weeks.  He is now working on getting his thumb in his mouth too!  He has good neck strength and is working on controlling it.  He loves to sit up and look around but his favorite thing is for someone to sing to him.  I promise he is trying to sing too, it is so cute :)  He wakes up smiling just like his big sister and has truly been a great baby.

Last night was my first time not being in the same room with him in technically over 10 months.  He started off in the bassinet and/or sleeping in my arms :)  Three weeks ago we felt he had outgrown the bassinet and moved him to his crib.  I slept in the twin bed in his room until last night :(  It was bitter sweet because I truly do LOVE to cuddle with him but I must say I do not think I have slept so hard since I was 6 months pregnant.  The biggest blessing of all was that he slept all night!  Well.....at least from 11:00-6:30.  To me that is all night.

OA continues to grow and weighed 10 lbs 5oz at his last Dr visit.  He eats VERY well and we have finally settled into somewhat of a pattern.  I can't believe how fast he is growing and I wish it would slow down just a bit! 

Giving Thanks

We have SO much to be thankful for this year.  We are thankful for our Lord and Savior who loves us unconditionally, our family(s), our health, God's many blessings, OA - our new addition to the family and Edie and her continued accomplishments (she amazes us each day).  We have a wonderful life and I would not change anything!

This year we had Thanksgiving lunch at our house.  Scott smoked THE BEST turkey ever!!  It was soooo yummy and of course we had a fried turkey too, but the smoked was my favorite (along with nannies famous dressing).  We had an abundance of food and stuffed ourselves silly.  Edie decided she wanted to wear her Christmas jammie pants ALL DAY LONG which did not go very well with the matching pumpkin shirt I had gotten for her and OA to wear - but oh well.  You pick your battles :)  We had a great day sharing, eating and laughing with the family.  These times are too few and far between, but I am thankful when we do all come together and for the memories we make.

Daddy Day

Recently OA and I went to visit daddy at his new office and to see where OA will be working one day :)  Back in February Scott was offered a position as a District Manager for Farmers Insurance in Prattville.  This is a goal he had been working towards for over three years.  We were not sure when this day would come, but what a blessing God gave our family.  His timing could not have been more perfect!  I had just found out that we were expecting and I hated the thought of continued traveling for work.  For me it was just not an option to have two babies at home while I was away working, nights at a time in another state.  So with Scott's promotion (and permission :)) I too got promoted!  We are so proud of Scott for working so hard and for the opportunity he has received.  I am thankful to him for giving me the gift of being a stay at home mommy.  I have SO enjoyed my time at home, especially with having a new baby.  It has been such a blessing.

Since opening his office Scott has done really well.  He now recruits agents, trains them and manages a team.  Right now he has a team of ten with several others in training.  My part in the operation was helping to select furniture for and decorate the office.  It is a minimal clean look and works well with Scott's taste.  It still needs a few more things, but other than that it is close to perfect ;)  Once I have adjusted to being a new mommy again I hope to help in the business in some way.  Scott has much to be proud of and I look forward to seeing what he accomplishes next!

Boo!

This Halloween we were a family of ghost and spiders.  I went along with the spider theme of our house (for those of you who have never seen our house at Halloween we have a HUGE black spider that all of the kids just love).  Edie and OA were ghost and daddy was the ghost buster :)  They were all super cute.  Edie and daddy went out Trick or Treating while OA and I stayed in and passed out candy to all of the neighborhood kiddos. 

This year Edie had several chances to wear her Halloween outfit, so the $10 was well worth it!  She had a costume party at dance, a Halloween parade at school which OA and I attended and again on Halloween night.  Edie loved wearing it.  OA on the other hand was not too pleased with wearing his ((snug)) ghost tail.  Poor thing....it was made for a newborn yet he had already outgrown it!!  I love my little BIG boy!

Life and Loves

Our lives are full of joy these days. Edie has grown into a sweet big sister over the past 6 weeks. I honestly believe she has grown by leaps and bounds since her baby brother was born. She is talking so much these days making 3-4 word sentences. She has been minding very well and her teachers have reported that she is actually the best listener in her class. We have been told that she likes to hug her friends A LOT and she has really began to initiate play, which is a nice change from the hitting she was doing to get her friends attention. Edie is also using so many new signs. So much so that I have to break out the sign language book to know what she is telling us! She is SO smart and she has such a good memory it is amazing!

OA is eating very well - and mommy is exhausted from his big appetite :) At his two week visit he weighed in at 10lbs 2oz! I love the bond he and I have formed, however this baby does not like to be put down. If he is awake he wants to either eat or just be held and has now grown fond of sleeping with mommy to the point that he does not want to go in his bassinet. I feel bad, but I guess we have plenty of time to break him (and me) of this habit. Right now I am just going to enjoy cuddling and loving on our sweet baby.

Two Weeks.....

Our good friend Grethel Van Epps of gvephotography.com came to visit us soon after OA was born.  She was sweet enough to bring her camera along and take some sweet pictures of our new love.  And as our baby gift she gave us the entire CD of the session :)  G has been a part of our life since Edie was one, she has been taking Edie's pictures ever since.  I am blessed to have such a sweet lady in our life who too will be having her own baby in the next few weeks.  We can't wait to meet Vivian and watch our babies grow together.  I thank G for all of the wonderful memories she has captured and I am especially grateful for these.

Welcome to the World

Welcome Owen Anderson Shunnarah.  OA was born at 11:42 on September 30th, 2011 weighing 9lbs 4oz and 21 inches and a head full of hair.  The love we have for this little boy is unbelievable, something I did not expect to be honest.  I was afraid of how I would love two little beings equally, but I do.  OA has been such a blessing to us and the perfect addition to our family.

I would be lying if I said we were not nervous going in to deliver OA.  Of course there was so much running through our minds on the health of our new baby boy.  Would he be healthy, would he have all ten fingers and toes and the most obvious, would he be born with DS.  Scott and I chose not to test for any of this and we knew going in that we had a slightly higher risk than most of having a child with DS - but honestly it did not matter.  We want our family to grow and we knew we would love this little boy no matter what.  After all having a child with DS is a blessing.  Simply put, a blessing. 

Edie has really taken to OA and being a big sister.  We have yet to experience any jealously or serious injury to baby OA.  We are still learning how not to love so hard and that baby does not need his diaper changed every 5 minutes :)  Other than that Edie has been a big help.  She hands me diapers and wipes, throws away dirty diapers and loves to help with bath time.  She is very concerned if he cries and can't wait for him to be big enough to sit and play with her.  We are so looking forward to seeing these two grow together and become the best of friends. 

We are truly blessed to have such sweet Angels.

Princess Edie

Over the beautiful - cool weekend, while waiting for OA, we enjoyed just being at home.  Da da got some yard work done, we decorated outside with our Halloween decor, watched some football, jumped in the jump-jump and attended a Princess Party for Edie's friend Ashlynn.  Edie really had a good week at school and home.  She got all good reports from her teachers, therapist and was an Angel at home for us.  I hope this sweet streak continues :)

I can not believe how much Edie has grown.  She was such a sweet girl at the princess party and she had so much fun.  She was SO excited to put on her Princess dress that as soon as we got home from church she wanted to wear it.  Edie has never had any "dress up" clothes, mainly because I did not think she would care anything about it.  But once the dress was on she was ready to go - so we got to the party 15 minutes early.  Luckily Ashlynn only lives two doors down.  I stalled Edie as much as possible, but the Princess was ready!  So I think I know what Santa will be bringing her for Christmas this year.  A Princess needs variety, right? 

Edie was not as clingy to me as she normally is when we are in a large group of people.  She walked right in, hugged Ashlynn's grandmother and made herself at home.  She colored (without eating the crayons), waited her turn to have her makeup applied, sat patiently while reading a story (looking over at me several times grinning ear to ear) and ate her TWO pieces of birthday cake without any help from me.  My baby is growing up and I am SO proud of her!

Owen Anderson Shunnarah

With the addition of O.A. in the coming week I will need to change the blog to "All about Edie and Owen".  Of course I am very excited to finally meet him - but I am also nervous of having a new itty bitty baby in the house.  I am confident that Edie will do well and she will be a great big sister to O.A. my nervousness comes from my ability to care for two babies.....my first love and our first son.  Can I do it?  I know it will not be easy but I know it will be rewarding for all of us. 

I have been working on Owen's room practically all summer it seems.  Picking the paint colors were easy.  I knew I wanted an all white and grey room with touches of blue.  So we chose a soft grey for the walls and a pale blue for the ceiling.  The initial plan was to only have blue on the ceiling and in the bedding and their not be any type of "theme".  I bought the sequin stars several years ago and held on to them for our next baby room.  Those multiplied into more stars and well I guess the room has a "star theme" with more shades of blue than I had anticipated, but it all works.

A few of my favorite pieces in the room is first the painting that Edie did.  I squirted the paint and Edie smeared it asking for more and more and more.  She LOVED painting this picture and the best part of it were the hand prints that she left.  I love how it turned out and I can not wait to make more of this type of art with both of my babies. 

My next favorite is the glider/rocker and ottoman.  This piece was given to me by my sister when Edie was born.  One of my talented neighbors paint and distressed it and another neighbor recovered the cushions in a grey linen and made the sweet pillow.  It turned out perfect and was a great baby gift from the two of them.  Another piece in the room that I thought turned out pretty darn cute is the light fixture.  I got the idea from a fixture I had found long ago but the colors would have never worked.  So I made my own using a painted fixture from Lowe's, hardware cloth and hand carved birds painted silver.

I think the room and all of it's pieces came together well.  It is a very soothing room and I hope Owen loves it.  Who am I kidding....he could care less, the most important part is that I love it!  I can not wait for our baby boy to get here and see it himself!

Milestones

This summer we worked on two BIG milestones - potty training and moving to a big girl bed.  We are pleased to announce that Edie did great with both.  We are still tweaking the potty training part (more to come on that) but as far as the big girl bed goes....she was more than ready for it.  We did have a few nights where she was confused and not sure what to do with herself but after those passed she has been a big girl ever since! 

This bed was given to me by my great grandmother.  We painted the bed white, her room the color "Lettuce Alone" green, hung some hot pink curtains, purchased new bedding and hung lots of ferries from the ceiling.  The room turned out really cute and best of all Edie loves it!  She is now officially a BIG GIRL, not so sure if I am happy or sad about that :(

Small Spaces = Cool Places

One of the projects I worked on over the summer was our laundry room.  Because my office/desk area was previously located in O.A.'s soon to be baby room we had to come up with a new solution.  We did not have a playroom or an extra bedroom to spare, but what we did have was a laundry room.  So we made the most of this small space.  We painted the same color as our dining room, hung a wall of curtains to cover the washer/dryer, purchased a smaller antique desk, hung a pretty awesome light fixture, added a few accessories and ended up with a pretty cool room.  I am still searching for a super skinny storage piece to go between the desk and the wall and I am contemplating on painting the desk white.  But for now - I am happy with the way it all turned out.

p.s.  my photography skills are not the best in these photos.  we got a new camera and i am still learning.  personally i think the room looks better in person :)

Summer 2011

To say we were busy over the summer is an understatement.  Aside from several family trips, parties and holidays we also did some renovations and re-do's at the house, Scott opened his new District office in Prattville and I have been pregnant.  So every time I sat down and thought about all of the blog catching up I had to do - frankly I became overwhelmed and just put it to the side again.  So here I sit today, determined to get our summer blogs complete so we can start fresh because I know there is SO much more to come!

Over the summer we visited Chestnut Bay Resort at Weiss Lake for a mini vacation.  I absolutely LOVED this place.  There was so much for us to do.  It was relaxing and we all had such a good time just being together.  I look forward to this being a new family tradition and returning each year for some good ole' family fun!

Forth of July was a big even in our neighborhood this year.  One of our sweet neighbors hosted a party at their home for the whole neighborhood.  We had tons of food, a jump house and fireworks that night.  We know we live in a great neighborhood with great neighbors but times like these help to remind us of how lucky we are.

For our 6th Anniversary we took a trip to Boston for a long weekend.  We chose Boston because of the cooler weather, the sightseeing and to visit Martha's Vineyard.  We did SO much sight seeing which really took a toll on me, being 7 months pregnant.  I started off strong but by the end of the trip I had elephant kankles and was completely exhausted but it was all worth it.  We had a great time taking tours, eating great food (lots of lobsters), seeing the Boston Red Socks stadium and taking a boat to Martha's Vineyard.  We experienced lots of first and made some really great memories.  It was the perfect Anniversary.

Our last trip for the summer was to PCB baby!  We stayed in a beach side condo which was nice having our room so conveniently located.  Normally we always stay off of the beach and have to haul all of our things to and from.  This trip we made a deal that we would only go if it were easy.  So we got on the beach early and stayed late, we cooked dinner each night and just took it easy.  It was one of the most relaxing beach trips we have taken in a long time and the timing could not have been more perfect.  It was our last trip to the beach as a family of three and we know that next year it will be a whole new experience :)



One of the parties Edie was invited to this summer was for one of her little friends, Anna James.  She had just a few of her friends over for pizza, cupcakes and a visit from Cinderella.  The girls had so much fun dressing up, dancing and having their faces painted.  I thought it was a perfect little girls party, so perfect that we may have to steal the idea for Edie's 4th :)



Chickens, Puppies and Cousins

We have been spending a lot of time at Nannie's and Pawpaw's this summer.  It has been so nice going back "home" eating good home cooked meals, spending time with my parents and just being in the country with them.  One of the biggest highlights for Edie is to feed the chickens.  She LOVES to feed the "bock-bock's" and would feed them 10 x's a day if Pawpaw would let her.  They also have about 10 other four legged farm animals called puppies.  Edie loves to play with them until they all start to surround her and nip at her legs and then she is ready for them to "go!".  During one of our trips Edie's cousins - Wyatt, Wesley and Wylie also came to stay and play.  They had a fun time playing in the pool, jumping on the trampoline, playing dolls, dress up and loving on one another.  I love to watch Edie play with her family at her grandparents; it makes for such great memories.



Class of 2011

We recently celebrated Edie's graduation from The Bell Center.  A nice ceremony was held for all of TBC graduates and families at Canterbury Methodist Church.  During the ceremony each child received an actual diploma from Ms. Betty Bell, founder of The Bell Center.  There was also a slide show showcasing each child, their graduation photo and photos from their time while at TBC.  

We are so proud of Edie and all of the things she has accomplished these past three years.  I can remember the very first day we entered TBC and met with Ms. Betty.  I remember Edie's first visit at just 6 weeks old.  I enjoyed going with Edie to her visits when she was just an infant and learning new techniques and things to help her with her development.  It was fun to see her working towards her goals and it was even more fun to see her accomplish each of them.  We still have much to work on and we will miss TBC, the staff and the children; but we look forward to what the future holds for Edie and the adventurous road getting there!



Mother's Day 2011

As you can see I am still playing catch-up in the blogging world.  I really do try.  It is always on my list of things "to do" but somehow it just keeps going to the back of the line.  We have been having such a fabulous summer and I have so much to post, but there just never seems to be enough time to sit down and do it.  So today while Edie is napping I have decided to get at least two-three things on the blog.

So going back to Mother's Day.......we had a great day.  Church, then brunch at Silvertron.  All I wanted for the day was to be with my family and have the HUGE fried mushrooms that I remember from Silvertron.  I can't say much about the mushrooms (they were not as I remembered) but I can say that I had a wonderful day with my family.  Playing, napping and eating one of Scott's wonderful home cooked meals.  I am so blessed, we are so blessed.  I love being a mom and I look forward to being a mom of two soon.  I just hope that our baby boy is just as sweet as his big sister :)



Beach Baby

Back in MAY we took a short trip to the beach and I can not believe I am just now getting around to blogging about it!  We actually left the day the tornadoes hit Alabama.  We could not (still can not) believe the destruction this terrible storm left behind.  We continue to pray for the families who were affected.

Although the winds were strong and the waters were cold we still managed to make it to the pools and to the beach.  I have not been to the beach so early in the season (since spring break ) and I had forgotten how cold the beach can be in May.  Cold!  None the less we had a good time.  The resort we stayed at was beautiful with plenty of kid friendly pools.  We ate plenty of good seafood, a little watermelon, we got a little sun and Edie was in her dream "sand-box" so life was good :)  We hope to make it back again this summer once the water has warmed up!



Easter 2011

We had a wonderful Easter Sunday.  Starting with Edie's excitement over her Easter basket.  She screamed with excitement over her new potty book, owl neck wrap and Elmo toothbrush.  She can be so funny sometimes.  The weather was beautiful, Edie was adorable and we are humbled by Jeasus' sacrifice to die for us on the cross so that we may have everlasting life with him.  Church was packed as it is every Sunday which is exactly how I like it too.  I love praise and worship and hearing the Church full of song - it just makes your heart sing!

After church we had lunch at Gigi's and Giddo's along with Aunt Mindy and Uncle Chuck.  We later had an Easter egg hunt where Edie collected her money eggs!  It was a great day which ended with a l-o-n-g nap : )

Easter Goodies

Edie helped me in the kitchen on Good Friday making rice krispie Easter Eggs for the neighborhood kids.  She helped me to measure, pour, stir, smash, bag and stick!  We had such a good time cooking together and delivering her sweet eggs.  She was so proud of them and so was I!

Slip N Slide!

One of the best things about Fridays in Hillsboro is spending them with neighbors.  I love getting together with all of the moms while the kids play.  We are all so anxious for the pool to open so on this particular Friday Kerin got out the slip n slide which is the next best thing!  Edie was so funny.....she would just sit and observe the older kids slide and once they were on to something else she would give it a try.  But once they were back again, she would just sit and watch.  That was until she discovered the mud!!  Oh well, mud makes fun too :)

Thomas the Train

Several weeks ago we visited the Thomas the Train exhibit in Calera and even rode Thomas!  We went along with several of our neighbors and their kiddos in celebration of Maxwell's3rd birthday.  Although Edie does not know who Thomas is she still enjoyed all of the activities.  Riding Thomas was a lot of fun but Edie's favorite part was the ginormous sandbox and musical entertainer who sang and played for all of the kids.  Edie even got to join in and play a few instruments herself!  We ended the day with a picnic lunch and the petting zoo.  It was a great day - even better with five VERY pooped kids :)

We continued Maxwell's birthday celebration on Saturday with a Trike-A-Thon party.  All of the kids brought their trikes for a fun trike race.  Edie still is not "in love" with the idea of a trike so she did not participate - but the rest of the kids had a great time.  Edie did however LOVE the bounce house! (despite the photo below) She is really getting good at jumping and feeling more comfortable doing so.  So she jumped and flipped until she wore herself out.  Her next favorite part of the party was the cake and ICE CREAM!!  Of course she ate every bit of it and licked the bowl :)