These Boots Were Made for Walking

Long story short - our new family at Loading Dock South in Helena donated these adorable boots to several of the girls who attend The Bell Center. They are white, fuzzy boots from GAP. They are a little big right now but Edie will grow into them in no time. For now she just likes to touch and feel them and giggle with excitement! We visited Loading Dock on Saturday to bring them a thank you card and tell them in person how grateful we are. It is a wonderful feeling to know how many people out there love our little babies!

Later we went to The Depot for lunch and Edie had her first grilled cheese sandwich. She really seemed to enjoy it. We have discovered over the weekend that she is not too fond of noodles and pasta. I tried twice feeding her spaghetti o's and then mac and cheese. Edie would suck the sauce from the pastas and then spit the pasta back out. No worries though.......she is still crazy over carrots and green beans.

Our friends Patti, Charles and Bergen Wilkinson came by on Saturday as well for a short visit and to bring Edie the most precious 1st Birthday Crown that lights up for Edie's big bash. Thats right - Edie will soon be one! Can you believe it!! On Sunday, we visited Westwood Baptist Church. Edie slept through the whole service and was a true doll. We bumped into several of Scott's friends and friends parents who were just goo-goo over Edie. But hey, it's hard not to be goo-goo over something so cute!

We are now packing for our first mini family vacation to Gorhams Bluff this week. I will be on vacation for the next few weeks and I am soooooo looking forward to spending a lot of time with Edie and our family(s) before we begin the new year. Our scheduals will be pretty hectic after we return so if I do not blog in the next few weeks please forgive me. I will have lot's of things to share I am sure - Vacation, Christmas, New Year!!

May God Bless you and your family this Holiday Season and have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Edie's Baptism December 13th, 2008

Edie was Baptised at Prince of Peace this past Saturday. It was such a beautiful, moving ceremony. Edie looked like a doll in her white gown adorned with pearls and handmade lace. She wore a satin bow and her Christening bonnet which Gigi gave to her before she was born. She also wore her diamond cross necklace given to her by her great aunts, uncles and cousins along with a cross bib and lace socks (which quickly fell off). Her Godfather, Zach Chastain and her Godmother, Mindy Shunnarah also participated in the service. Nan and Pawpaw gave Edie a beautiful Garnet necklace in celebration of her Baptism. Gigi and Giddo also gave Edie a beautiful etched gold bracelet and Aunt Mindy presented Edie with her first Bible which was engraved with her name.

I am still in awe of how beautiful Edie looked and how perfect the ceremony was. Edie did wonderfully. God truly blessed us January 14th, 2008 with a wonderful, joyful, beautiful daughter - Edith Gabrielle Shunnarah.

My Two Bottom Teeth

Edie does not like to show off her two teeth.....but her they are. I was able to capture this photo by accident. Edie has also started making this new, mean, sour, pouty look. I am not sure where this came from but it is too cute. She does it all of the time just to make us laugh.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

We have been so busy running here and there - truthfully I can not tell you what has happened in the past week. Edie and I visited Nan and Pawpaw over the weekend. On Sunday we all attended our first annual neighborhood Christmas Dinner party. We met several of our neighbors and ate a lot of good food. Edie wore her Santa suite and told everyone what she wanted from Santa. Lots of.......na, na, na, da, da, da, ma, ma, ma. Edie is growing so fast. She now has two very visible bottom teeth and I think she may be cutting a third one. She is chewing and drooling constantly. Edie is doing a great job working on her tummy muscles and building her strength to crawl and pull up alone. I can not believe how strong she has actually gotten these past few weeks! I have a good feeling that by her birthday she will be crawling just fine.

We have been trying a lot of new foods lately. Edie loves to feed herself, she has become very independent. She loves to eat carrots and green beans. She still loves her veggies! I really do not mind the squishing of the food between her fingers and in her hair and on her face. I love to watch her experiencing new things. However, I know it will not be long before we have to begin to teach her that she can not mash sweet potatoes in her ears. She is just so cute doing it!

Our Many Blessings

We had a great Thanksgiving with Nan, Paw Paw, Gigi, Giddo, Uncle Zach, Uncle David, Aunt Kelli, Wyatt, Wesley and Great Grandaddy. Everyone joined us in our home for lunch. Scott and I had a turkey cook off. Scott fried a turkey while I roasted one. They were both very good. Especially to have been my first ever roasted turkey! Everyone brought the side dishes and we ate until we were completely stuffed. Edie even ate some sweet potatoes, green beans and cranberry sauce with us. She seemed to like everything. Especially the green beans! Later we played at the playground and while Nan and Gigi cleaned the kitchen (Thank you Nan and Gigi!)
Scott and I loved having both of our families over for the holiday. It is always great to have everyone together. We have so many blessings to be thankful for this year. I thank God each day for Scott and Edie and for a wonderful, supportive family. I thank God for Edie's health and for the progress she has made. I thank God for Scott's love and patience and for joining me together with such a wonderful husband and even more wonderful father to Edie. I thank God for Gigi and Giddo who take such great care of Edie while I work. I thank God for the great family and circle of friends he has surrounded us with who love and support us in so many ways. We thank God for all of his many blessings.

Dear Ladybug

Dearest Edie,

This weekend we hosted the First Annual Ladybug Fundraiser in your honor. Over 100 friends and family joined together to celebrate you and The Bell Center where you attend school. You laughed, played, went from friend to friend without fussing one time, until you fell fast asleep in Giddo's arms. You were an Angel as always. We are so proud of you and all of the things you have accomplished these past 10 months. We are also so grateful to you for giving us this opportunity to come together. You are so loved, by so many people and this event reminded us of that.

In just a few months Daddy, Aunt Mindy, Mr. Jimmy, Mr. Eric and Mr. Matt will be running in a Marathon of Love. For you and for all of your friends at The Bell Center. And we will be there together again with so many loved ones cheering them on!

We are so thankful that God sent you to us. We have been so blessed by you, your smile, your laugh and your love. You have such a wonderful personality that captures everyone you meet. You have won over so many hearts all around the world. You are our perfect little ladybug. We look forward to the future and seeing what a wonderful lady you become. You have made such an impact in so many people in just 10 short months. We can not wait to see what you do next! We love you so much!

All of our Love,
Mommy and Daddy

First Annual Ladybug Fundraiser 2008

What a wonderful night! We believe we had around 100 people who came out to support this wonderful cause and the best part is we raised over $7000.00!!! Friends and family are still continuing to make donations online as well! The food was wonderful, as was the entertainment and company. It was a perfect night. We can not wait to tell The Bell Center the good news!!

You have no idea how grateful we are to everyone for making this all possible. Chad Stubbs of Reflex Blu who created Edie's Ladybug logo. Stacey Day who created the invitations. Chris Poole with The Cajun Steamer who provided the food. Gigi who made the wonderful cake balls (that everyone loved!). Greg Rains with Alabama Crown Distribution who provided all of the beer and wine. Our friend Sam Shober who entertained us with his wonderful talents. Aunt Mindy who solicited and collected over half of the items for the Silent Auction. Family and friends who helped to set up and clean up. To EVERYONE who contributed .......we thank you and we love you!

We were overwhelmed by EVERYONES generosity. From those who made donations for the silent auction, to those who bid on items and won, and those who made cash donations. We thank you! We hope you had as wonderful of a time as we did. I wish I had gotten some better pictures from the party. My mind was on so many things I did not do a good job at capturing the night. Lesson learned and I will have someone designated next year!

Look at Me!!

Look at Edie! She is standing! I really did not expect her to be able to do this so soon. But here she is.....standing alone with little help from us. She can do this in short intervals and of course is not standing from sitting position yet. But she definitely stand once we get her in the right position. She is so proud! As she should be.

We are still fine tuning our crawling. Although Edie gets around great she has picked up this funny crawl in the past several weeks. Now instead of using both of her feet to push when crawling she pushes with her left only and bends her right knee holding her foot up in the air. So essentially she is just using her left foot to crawl. She crawled last week into the kitchen and discovered Ziggy's water bowl and because she loves to splash in the bath she could not resist splashing the water all over the floor. It is the first thing Edie has really ever "gotten into" so I let her continue until she stuck her face down in the water trying to lick it up with her tongue. Still it was too cute!

I am not sure how this happened the first time but for some reason we began patting Edie's mouth when she yelled making an Indian sound - you know what I am talking about. Anyway, now Edie wants to do this all of the time. She will even take our hand and put it towards her mouth. We will pat it for a while and then we will help her to use her own hand to make the noise. I truly believe she would sit and do this for hours and hours. She loves the new cool noise she is making!

These are all of the fun things we have been working on. We were also notified that Edie will be featured in the Kids First 2009 calendar. This is a calendar that Shelby County ARC publishes each year featuring some of the children that they work with. ARC visits our home 3-4 times each month and works with Edie (and us) on many different skills. I am not sure which month she will showcasing - but I am eager to see it. These calendars are $10.00 if anyone is interested. All proceeds will benefit the Shelby County ARC and Kids first program.

We have also made it through our first sick bug, the "stomach bug". Edie is still not 100% back to her usual playful self - but she is definitely much better than she was last week. She was such a trooper through the whole ordeal. Scott and I learned a lot and we are grateful it is now behind us.

Edie also had a visit with Santa over the weekend for a photo shoot. She did pretty good a first. Looking at Santa, his eyes, his beard, his glasses. Then I guess she realized she was actually - physically sitting in his lap and began to have a major melt-down. I have never heard her cry so hard. Not when she was sick or even getting her shots. We would pick her up, she would stop, we would put her back in his lap and she would begin to cry. She did not stop crying until we left the building and made it to our car. We were able to get a few good ones where she looked relatively happy. But still I must say the ones of her crying in his lap were priceless.

I copied Ashley and did two just to see what I would get. This is the 6th photo from the 6th file from the bottom. This is Edie her first week at The Bell Center. Poor Edie....look at that hair would you! I promise there was nothing we "thought" we could do to tame it (at the time). We later learned we were combing it to the wrong side! Poor baby.

My heart tickles just looking at this photo. Edie was so tiny. These clothes had the sleeves rolled up and to see them now they look like baby doll clothes. Edie has come such a long way since this day. We could not be more proud.

O.K...........Stacey, Tiffany, Kathy, Mandy and Sandy......... (my bloging buddies who's name I just realized all ends with a Y)........your it!! And no cheating!!

Tag........now your it!

My friend Ashley Spencer "tagged" me so I have to play along. The rules are - go to your photo files and post the 6th photo in the 6th file. This is what I got.......Beautiful Edie. This picture was taken on a wonderful sunny day after church from our porch upstairs. You could see the sky for miles and Edie took so many good photos on this day. I named the photo album "Butterfly Kisses" because of her little butterfly hair bow.

First Annual Ladybug Fundraiser

It is almost here! The First Annual Ladybug Fundraiser - proceeds to benefit The Bell Center for Early Intervention Programs. We are working hard to make this a successful event and we hope you will join us. We will have great food, great entertainment and great auction items. If you are unable to attend you can still participate by donation at Edie's Firstgiving site on the top right side of the Blog. Please send me an e-mail @ michelleandscottshunnarah@yahoo.com if you should have any questions or if you need directions.

Please click on the invitation above to see details.

Game Day

Edie had fun playing with her friends Merritt, Joseph and Aaron. Edie just had to taste Merritt's shoe!! (Why I am not sure) I love watching Edie interact with other babies. She is so sweet with them. She did not even fuss when Aaron took her toy. Edie just found something else to play with. We had a good time seeing everyone and watching the VERY CLOSE game together.

The best part of the day was that Edie hit a milestone!! She stood for the first time and held herself up beside the sofa. It was quick....but she did it all alone! We are so proud of her!

My Friend Charlie

Edie had a wonderful time at her friend Charlie's 1st Birthday Party at the Birmingham Zoo. We were able to touch a turtle, snake and chinchilla. We ate cake and ice cream. We rode the carousel and the train. Edie was so pooped from all of the fun and excitement she fell asleep on the train ride. Thank you Charlie for such a fun day!

A Walk in the Park

Saturday morning our whole family took a trip to the Veterans Park in Alabaster. It is really nice and has a great trail to walk on. Later Edie and daddy played on the swings and then Edie and I played on the slide. Edie had a great morning playing and chattering the whole time we were on the trail.

My Sweet Aunt Kelli

Aunt Kelli handmade Edie and I some beanies for this winter. I just love this one that covers her ears and has the pretty little flowers on the side. Edie was not too crazy at first about having something on her head. But she is now warming up to the idea. Kelli also made her a red one with white ribbon. They are both so precious and Edie looks precious in them. Thank you Aunt Kelli! We love you!

Peek a Boo!!

These were just too cute not to share!

Meow

Our little Pink Kitty. Edie was so cute on Halloween. Why did I waste all of that time again looking for a costume? This kitty outfit could not have been more perfect!

I see you!

Edie has discovered the camera in her room. She is so curious about this little red light. This is what Scott and I see from our angle. It is kinda spooky at night waking up to a black eyed baby. A little like The Blair Witch Project.

Last but not Least

Don't forget that October is National Down Syndrome Awarness Month!

Please take a moment to forward Edie's blog to someone you know before the months end and tell them what a beautiful baby she is. And what great things she and her friends at The Bell Center are doing. I truly feel that Edie and her extended family of friends who also have DS are changing the eyes of the world. Not to mention making a HUGE, wonderfully positive impact on all of those old, outdated statistics! "You Go Girl!!" quoted directly from Dr. Cortopassi himslef!

Just Checking In

I am headed home tomorrow to my babies and I can not sleep from the excitement! I have been in Dallas for a few days working and spending all of my free time searching for Edie a replacement Halloween costume. I have had absolutely zero luck with this. At this point I can not help but wonder "what does it really matter anyway". Edie will be just as happy no matter what she is. My mom had actually given her a cute pink kitty cat outfit. Not necessarily a costume but it is warm and with a little painting of whiskers it could be just purrrrrrfect!

Aside from the costume search I have also been looking at several Christmas outfits, Baptism Gowns, dresses for upcoming fundraiser, and Birthday suites. These are just a few of the events that will be taking place in our household over the next several months. Among many others. We are all staying so busy and loving being a family. I never knew how much love a little girl could bring to my life. Now I know and I love every minute of it!

I explained to Edie and Mr. Punkin Head that he will be going home soon after the Trick or Treaters. Edie and I sat with him Sunday night and counted his suckers. Edie would pull them out one by one. Every now and then trying to get a taste on one. She would pull them out, I would count, we would put them back in and do it all over. We did this until she fell asleep. Just for Edie I may keep him out a few extra days, weeks or months After all - out of the 100 toys she has to play with the things she finds most interesting are Mr. Punkin Head and Ziggy's pink poodle toy. Go figure!