Family Pictures

The week after Thanksgiving we took some family pictures with my friend, Shannon. She did a wonderful job! Eden is 14 weeks old here.

Catching up - Thanksgiving Week

Thanksgiving week is always filled with a lot of family and fun! Most of John's extended family comes to stay in the Flowery Branch area every year and we have a fun filled week planned.

Wednesday we had a soup dinner at out home, for which I made nothing! All of the food was made and brought by other family and it was wonderful. I forgot to take pictures while everyone was here.

Thursday was the Thanksgiving feast at the church. So yummy! Here are a few pictures from that:

Cousin Matt holding tired little Eden.
Sweet Lucy, holding Eden. Lucy was so sweet to spend a lot of time holding our little one!
Great-Aunt Ann, holding Eden.

5 of the 6 wonderful McNutt sisters. John's mom, Joan/Nana is the one in the purple sweater in the middle.

John, Andrew, Melissa (& baby girl), Jacob, Eden, Me and John.
Quick family picture. Eden was tired and ready for her nap!

We spent Friday with my family. We had a chili dinner at our home and we made s'mores over the fire for dessert and decorated the Christmas tree. Eden received her first set of Christmas PJ's, which was always a tradition for me and my sister when we were growing up. I will have to get a picture of her in them to post.

Saturday morning we had our 3rd annual girls brunch at my home. I love having women in my house. It helps balance all the testosterone I live with when the boys are here!

We had a great week! We missed all of you that couldn't be here this year and we are already looking forward to next year!

Week Twelve - Eden Singing(video)

Eden has been so much more verbal in the past 2-3 days and we just love hearing her sweet little voice! It's so fun to talk to her or sing to her and have her "talk" and "sing" with us! John was singing to her here and she started singing along. We have tried to capture her doing this on video before today, but she usually sees the camera and becomes distracted and stops. Today I caught her without her knowing, but you will see she notices the camera near the end of the video!

(This is my first attempt at loading a video on the blog. If this works well I am planning to add more in the future!)

Week Eleven - cousins

Eden continues to grow and get more active and verbal daily! It's so fun to hear her testing out her voice by trying to make new sounds. Sometimes she surprises herself with the sounds she makes! It's so fun and sweet to see her personality developing. She has been sleeping longer stretches at night, some nights she will sleep 9 hours and then go back to sleep for another 4!

Aunt Lauren and Cousin Benjamin came to babysit Eden so John and I could go out for a real date. We hardly knew what to do with ourselves, but it was a much needed outing! We are so grateful to our family and friends for being such an awesome support!

Here are a couple pictures of Eden with Benjamin and Lauren.

Benjamin loves Eden! He likes to "pet it" (touch her) and "hold it"(hold her) and he even asked if he could help Lauren "slap it" (burp her). Such a sweet relationship these two little cousins are going to have!

Shout out to Mary

I wanted to share a couple photos of Eden in the adorable onesie that our friend Mary Hanks sent. She has an Etsy store and also sent Eden a precious embroidered burp cloth and bib that I love!! Thank you Mary! You can check out her online store here.

Baby Blues - 10.5 weeks

John and I have come to the conclusion that Eden will NOT have brown eyes. If for some crazy reason she does, we will be VERY surprised! Right now her eyes are a beautiful dark blue with a light ring around her pupil and I really hope they stay blue.

We are loving her little coos, smiles and laughs that seem to increase daily. It's so fun to see her little personality taking shape. Right now she loves trying to get her hands to her mouth, and I am afraid to say she will probably be a thumb-sucker. We have tried again and again to get her to take a pacifier instead, but she will not!

We love this sweet little girl - she's such a blessing from the Lord!

Week Eight

I cannot believe Eden is already 8 weeks old!! Yesterday (Thursday) was 8 weeks exactly and Eden had her 2 month visit to the doctor. She looks like she's been growing like crazy the past few weeks so we were very eager to see how much length and weight she had gained.

Eden weighed in at 10 lbs 13 oz and 23.5 in long. At birth she was 7 lbs 14 oz and 20.5 in long, so she has basically gained 3 lbs and 3 in over the past 2 months. She is in the 50% for weight and 90% for height. This girl doesn't have a prayer for being average height, much less short. We have so many tall family members!

She also received her first round of immunizations and she did great! She of course cried when the nurse gave her the first shot, but as soon as she finished and I picked her up she stopped crying. She slept wonderfully through the night (8 hours the first stretch of the night) and has not had a fever. I am wondering if these immunizations can become a weekly event, just kidding!

No news on her hip ultrasound yet, but the doctor is suppose to call when they get the results, so we're still waiting on that.

I took a few pictures of Eden enjoying her swing this morning - she loves it!

Week Seven

This week Eden had her follow-up ultrasound on her hips. This was a recommendation by our pediatrician after her 2 week appointment. We were told to go to the hospital to a certain wing at a certain time and that was all we were told! Needless to say, by the time we got to where we were supposed to be, we were both pretty frazzled and a little late on top of that. We were very pleasantly surprised when our ultrasound tech was a girl from our church and it was a comfort to have her working with Eden! Eden did fabulous, didn't even cry once. We will get the results from the ultrasound when we go for her 2 month visit this Thursday. We are praying she has no looseness in her hips so we will not have to go forward with any other treatment - please pray with us!

Week Six

We went up to Jaemor Farms with Aunt Lauren, Benjamin, Gram and Pop on Saturday, October 9th. Benjamin visited the petting zoo and rode the hayride. Eden pretty much slept the entire time while daddy was carrying her in the Baby Bjorn. We had a great time, even though it was crowded and much warmer than we hoped for a fall event!

Next year Eden will be old enough to walk around the petting zoo and see the animals!

Week Five

During the 5th week, Eden began to smile!!! This might be the most precious and amazing thing for a parent to experience! Eden had smiled many times in her sleep, but this was when she started to smile voluntarily when she was awake and would look and John or me. I think I would do just about anything to get her to smile again and again!

Here are some pictures from when we went over to the Owens for a cookout! Eden got to meet a lot of her cousins and we had such a nice time with everyone - thanks for having us!

Week Four

Eden began sleeping longer stretches at night by the fourth week! She went 6 hours between feedings for the first time and boy were we happy! Can't you tell how well rested John looks in this picture?

John is modeling our Baby Bjorn. Eden loves it - especially when daddy is wearing it!

Week Three

By week three, everything had started to smooth out with nursing - the first 2.5 weeks were challenging. If I had not had so many sweet women around me telling me it would get easier after the first 2 weeks, I think (actually I KNOW) I would have given up!

This was a very difficult week in many other ways. The lack of sleep was becoming overwhelming and I was on a hormonal roller coaster. I talked with some dear friends and family (you know who you are!) and was encouraged that what I was going through was normal, but I have to say - the things you think and feel at a time like this are something you could never explain to anyone until they have been through it!

I am thankful that God put so many great people around me, this week especially, to help me gain the right perspective! All-in-all I realized what a wonderful and relatively easy baby we had been blessed with and what a great support system we have surrounding us - we are so spoiled by God's love for us!

The highlight of this week had to be a visit from my friend Tiffany! She took some wonderful newborn photos of our sweet baby girl. Check them out here: Simply Yours Photography - Sweet Baby Eden

Week Two

After a week off, John was getting back in the swing of things with our Ranch boys, so my mom came to stay with me as I was still getting used to baby duties and the lack of sleep. We have commented SO many times how thankful we are for our families and their willingness to help us adjust to life with a baby. As wonderful as it is, it's not easy, and we don't know how people survive without their families during an adjustment like this!

Also, John and I were so thankful to our Eagle Ranch and Chestnut Mountain Presbyterian friends and family for supporting us with meals! We probably would have been eating PB&J for every meal if not for the help! Cooking for 10 people every night is quite a task and we are so appreciative to everyone who helped by cooking for our crew!

Week One Photos

Just snapped a couple shots of Eden at one week. She changes so much every day and we wanted to remember what she looked like when she was this little!

Week One

Two days after we got home from the hospital we had Eden's first doctor's appointment. There were a few concerns at her first visit - she was still jaundice, her hips felt loose and her weight had dropped a good bit. When she was born, she weighed 7lbs. 14oz. When we left the hospital she had dropped to 7lbs. 8oz. and the day of her first doctor's visit she was down to 6lbs. 10oz.

Dr. Hilton, our pediatrician, made an order to have a Bili-bed delivered to the house for Eden to sleep on to help drop her bilirubin level.

She hated the bed at first, but got use to it. Thankfully, she only had to sleep on the bed for about 2.5 days!

We also were instructed to try and get her weight up, so we did hardly anything but feed her for the next 24 hours, and when we went back to the doctor the next day she had almost gained a whole pound! She was back up to 7lbs. 9oz.

We were told that the doctor would just watch her hips over the next several weeks to see if they tightened on their own.

In the first week, we had 3 doctors appointments, which we did not anticipate ahead of time. Thankfully John and I had been relieved of our Eagle Ranch duties for the week so we were able to get adjusted to life with our little girl :).

Playing catch-up...

Now that Eden is 6 weeks old (I can hardly believe it!), things are normalizing and I have found time and energy to update the blog. I will start at the beginning...

Here we are the day after she was born in the hospital:

The second day, we came home from the hospital. Here we are getting ready to leave the hospital ( I was scared!):

When we got home, Gram, Pop, Aunt Lauren and Cousin Benjamin were there to welcome us:

Baby is here!

I know this is WAY overdue, but I couldn't skip the announcement on our blog. Eden Joy Cunnings was born Thursday, August 26th at 5:25pm. She weighed 7lbs. 14oz and was 20.5 inches long.

This little girl is so amazing!!

Eden's Nursery

Putting Eden's nursery together has been such a fun project for me! Here are some photos of her little nest. Hope you enjoy...The frame was a gift from her great-aunts Charlotte & Becky and pseudo aunts Melissa and Mary Anne! Can't wait to put a picture of her sweet face in there!
Chloe, the butterfly doll, was a gift from her Gram and Pop (my parents). I hope it is her favorite doll, because I know it will be mine!

Wall art above the crib.

Glider was a gift from Nana and Grandpa (John's parents). We love it and use it so much already!

The blanket and pillow were handmade by my mother.

The bedskirt and small quilt were made by John's mom.

Changing table - great antique find on craigslist!

Accessories - what girl can live without them (thanks Tiff and mom)!

Homemade mobile thanks to TJ Maxx and Etsy!

Wall hanging - $5 ebay deal!