3/21: A Day To Celebrate

Nine months ago, I held my baby girl for the first time. And, as I cradled her in my arms, I knew she was the sweetest gift I could ever ask for.

Nine months ago, I cried as the doctors told me she there were some complications with her heart and she'd need to stay in the NICU indefinitely. My eyes were red and puffy for the next week as the doctors hooked her up to more and more monitors and tubes. All I wanted was to take my sweet little girl home!

Nine months ago, I cried even harder as the doctors informed us that our little Leah was diagnosed with Trisomy 21. My already exhausted emotions were stretched even further than I thought possible. I was sad that I'd lost the baby I was expecting. I was angry at myself for crying about the little girl I'd thought I'd lost when my sweet little Leah just wanted to be loved. I was afraid that I wouldn't know how to take care of her needs. And I was worried that I wouldn't be able to protect her from the harsh, cold world of judgement and misunderstanding when it comes to people with special needs.

Nine months ago, I brought my sweet princess home from the hospital a week after she was born and I knew that, no matter what obstacles came our way, I would always love my little Leah. And that's all that mattered.

Today, barely nine months later, I couldn't imagine life without this adorable little girl! My little Leah is such an inspiration to me. She's had to deal with two week-long hospital stays, heart surgery, numerous rough shots and tests, doctors prodding and poking her at least once a month, oxygen tubes (for a month after she was born and for another month after her surgery, nasty formula and medicine, and parents who have no idea what we're doing half the time. Yet, she is the happiest, low-key baby I've ever met.


Today, I know that we all have a lot of work ahead of us in helping her grow and develop. We have to spend a lot of time helping her achieve even the smallest of milestones. But she makes it all worth it. Hearing her laugh is often the highlight of my day. Seeing her accomplish something we've been working on for weeks, or even months, just makes the accomplishment so much sweeter.  I definitely appreciate more of the small things I took for granted before—all thanks to my little Leah.

Today, I am grateful to express my love and appreciation for my sweet little princess and all of the other beautiful children with Down syndrome. You are the sweetest gift anyone could ever hope for. You make the world a better place just by being in it. You are perfect.

Today is World Down Syndrome Day because people with Down Syndrome have 3 chromosome 21s: 3/21. Please take some time to celebrate these precious spirits from our Heavenly Father.

It's time

 This year has already proved to be a busy, yet productive, year. We started off by closing on a house and moving in. We're still living in boxes now (so that's why there's no pictures yet) but we're making progress every day. I started working from home. David started a lot of new video projects at work. We bought David a new toy (see the picture below).

And that's just what David and I have been up to.

Our little Leah has been just as busy. She has learned how to blow raspberries and blows them at everyone, getting spit all over everyone as well. David has found her ticklish spots and loves making Leah giggle. Leah hated moving because she didn't like not being the focus of our attention all the time and she woke up crying in her crib a few times when she wasn't sure where we were. But Leah loves our new home. The day we got the keys to our home, Leah made herself at home by rolling all over the living room floor. (Our apartment had old, uncomfortable, carpet so we didn't let her play on it very much.) But this new carpet has really helped Leah take off on her rolling. We've even left her playing on the carpet a few times and come back to find her sound asleep. It's adorable. Also, Leah has been experiencing new foods. She still tries to spit it out and gives me the funniest expressions when I feed her food but she's starting to put up with the new food a little better.

And here's her newest trick. We've been working helping Leah sit up on her own. She's done really well on our laps where we could adjust our legs to help her balance better but hasn't been able to sit on the floor. I think her bum is just too skinny to give her much support but we sat down today and she sat by herself really well. I was so excited! My little princess is growing up.

And this week, we're going to get Leah's heart fixed. It's scary and exciting at the same time. We've eagerly awaited this week and dreaded it at the same time. Our little princess has no idea what's ahead for her this week and it's probably better that way. Her parents will be worrying enough for all of us. But we know she'll be in good hands and we're excited to see how well she does afterwards. In the meantime, please keep our little Leah in your prayers and hopefully she'll recover quickly and come back home to us. Until then, here's some fun pictures we took this weekend:

Leah surprised us on Sunday by sitting up on her own for almost a minute! I had to keep her distracted with her butterfly toy, otherwise she'd fall down quickly.

I promised David that as soon as we got a house I'd let him get a piano. We bought one this week and he's practically been playing it ever since.

So excited for Christmas!

I cannot begin to describe how excited we are for Christmas this year! It's our first Christmas with our dear little Leah and we've already helped her practice opening presents. She's pretty good but she's usually more interested in the colorful wrapping paper than what's hidden inside. But it's still a lot of fun to watch her try to figure things out.

Leah's discovering so many new things these days. She loves grabbing her toes and staring at them. When she gets excited, she raises uses her whole body to respond. She kicks her legs out and raises her arms high. It's adorable to see how excited she gets, especially when she's playing with her daddy. And Leah is our little social butterfly. She smiles at everyone and tells them stories She loves meeting new people and having all the attention focused on her.

We're definitely going to take tons of pictures this Christmas but, until then, here's few pictures of our sweet little girl for your viewing pleasure. :-)

 We took Leah to visit Temple Square for the first time a few weeks ago. Too bad it was raining and really crowded the day we went so it was a really short visit but it was a lot of fun and we had to get pictures to document another one of Leah's firsts.

 Leah's auntie Em came along with us. Leah sure loves her aunts.

 Leah loves to smile. This is the adorable look she gives to her many admirers. Doesn't it just make your heart melt?

 David, of course, had to have a snowball fight with his little brother after the first official snowfall of the season. It lasted a few hours.

 And JR won. David got hit pretty hard and was down for a few minutes. But he eventually got back up.

 Then they made a snowman and put Leah on top so she could be the head. She was our cute little abominable snowman.

 Our laughing little Leah.

 We took some family photos for our family calendar and came up with some adorable pictures. Leah is definitely the cutest of us all.

 Like mother, like daughter. My mom always closes her eyes during pictures and she obviously passed that down to Leah and me.

 Poor Leah! She's not too fond of being stuck between us.

 We sure love our little princess!

 We went to the midnight showing of the Hobbit a few weeks ago and David's sisters made hobbit dresses for the occasion.

Leah stayed home with grandma and had a wonderful time. She's just not too sure about what her mother is wearing.

Angels are made with 47 pieces

 Our little Leah is growing up! I can't believe she's already 5 1/2 months!! Here's an update on how much she's learned since the last time I posted:

Leah loves reading with her dad. Here she is reading the book Corduroy with her Corduroy teddy bear. So cute!

 Leah loves taking naps with her daddy. We have so many pictures like this. I can't help documenting this sweet moment. Leah has also learned that she won't fall asleep unless someone is cradling her, she has her binky in her mouth, and her arms are folded in front of her to keep her from grabbing the binky. Combine these three actions and she'll be asleep in no time.

 Leah LOVES candy!! Just kidding! She can't eat it yet. But everyone thought she was adorable at the trunk or treat so we came home with tons of candy. Leah also loves Tangled---or at least she will. David and I love the movie so we dressed up for Halloween. David was Flynn Ryder, I was Repunzel and Leah was Pascal. You can find pictures of us all on Facebook. I forgot to add our family picture on here.

 Leah also loves playing with her cousins. She has so many cousins who love playing with her on my side of the family (29 to be exact). We're eager to get her surgery done so that she can actually play with them though. We've had to keep her at a safe distance so she won't get sick. But during Thanksgiving break, we got to meet her new cousin, Emma. They're just 3 months apart and are destined to be best friends. :-)

 It was fun to watch these two interact with each other.

 We know which one is the bully... Just kidding. Emma was trying to grab at Leah's hair. Luckily she doesn't really have any yet.

 Speaking of hair, Leah got her first haircut! She has the cutest little fohawk on her head and some of the hair was really long. The rest of her head is covered in fuzz but I finally got tired of the Alfalfa look she had going and trimmed the top of her head.

 We really have found that "Angels are made with 47 pieces." Leah is the sweetest baby I've ever met, and I'm not saying that because I'm her parent. Or maybe I am. She hardly ever cries, just a few minutes of fussiness once in a while. She's such a motivated little girl too. She hasn't quite learned to sit on her own but whenever we're holding her, she'll lock up her legs to let us know she's ready to stand. And she loves standing! She gets the cutest little grin and makes the funniest noises because she's so proud of herself and wants to show off to us how strong she is. I think that when she learns to walk, she's going to take off running. But we're not in any hurry for that to happen just yet. We're focusing on sitting and rolling over first.

And finally, Leah has her parents wrapped around her little finger. We sure love our little princess and can't imagine what life would be without her. We're so blessed that she chose to come to our family and are excited to see her grow.

Laughing Leah

This video is so stinken cute! I just had to share it with you all. Leah was playing with her daddy and was having so much fun that she actually started laughing! We'd never seen you laugh that much and we had to get a video. David is pretty funny to watch as well.

We sure love our baby girl!

At the top of the world

Or... at least at the top of Mount Timpanogas.

David and I attempted our second hike up Mount Timpanogas last weekend. Our first hike up Timp was last year with David's family.

 This year, we attempted it by ourselves.

David loves hiking and is helping me to enjoy it as well. After our hike last year, we made it a goal to try to hike Timp again this summer. We knew it might not happen because we were planning on starting a family soon but we were hoping it might work at the end of the summer—after I'd recovered a bit.

So, three months and two days after Leah was born, we hiked Timp again.

We hiked 18 miles in 10 1/2 hours.


It was really tough.


We started hiking at 4 a.m. so we needed flashlights to see where we were going. The sky was so clear and the stars were so bright. It was really pretty. And, as the sun rose up in the sky, we saw the vibrant colors of autumn all around us. It was absolutely gorgeous!

But I was also really tired. Last year, I worked out in the gym 3-4 times a week and was in pretty good shape. This year, I'd recently had a baby so I haven't really been out much and my exercise has gone down to basically walking a few miles each week. So I was in a lot of pain by the end.

David was so great. He coaxed me along the whole way. He even had to bribe me with the promise of Coldstone ice cream in order to get me to the top. But we did it. We hiked all 18 miles and lived to see another day. :-)

 Here we are at the top of the mountain. We were both exhausted by at this time and we still had 9 more miles to go. Luckily, it was all downhill hiking and the view from the top was incredible. Otherwise, I might have refused to go on.

Here is a picture of Utah County. Can you see the red trees on the mountain? Beautiful, huh? We also saw a bunch of mountain goats as well.

My plan is to get in better shape for our hike next year—yes, we are already planning our next hike to Timp. We're going to do a lot more little hikes to work our way up to this one and I'm going to take Leah out on walks a lot more. We're not sure if we'll be brave enough to take Leah next year. She may be too small still and it was great motivation going down the mountain knowing that the faster we walked, the sooner we'd see our baby girl again. Either way, it's going to be another great adventure!

Thanks again to Grandma Landeen (Meemaw) for taking care of Leah while we conquered this mountain!

Leah meets world

With Leah's heart condition as serious as it is, we've been really careful about where we go and who can hold her. We've even steered clear of a few family reunions, social activities and church. So for the past few months, we basically only ventured outdoors for Leah's weekly doctor appointments and the occasional trip to visit family. We've felt silly a few times for being so overly cautious about Leah, but our doctors have told us that if she gets sick before her heart surgery, it could be really dangerous for her and she could end up back in the hospital. We definitely don't want to go through that again... or at least more than we already have to in the near future. :-)

It's been kinda hard to be inside all day, especially with the beautiful summer we've had but when I look at this adorable face, I know it's all worth it.

Isn't she so cute?!? She's getting so good at holding her head up!

 
We've already got a list of  things we want to do and places we want to take Leah next summer. And, with Leah's Down syndrome, we can get a Golden Pass that basically lets us get into any park for free or half off. Nice, huh? We definitely plan on making the most of that pass in the future.

But, we just couldn't let the summer go by without taking Leah on a few adventures. The past few weeks, we've taken Leah to my niece's baptism, jet skiing, fishing and hiking. It was fun to see most of my family at the baptism and it was fun to let Leah meet some of her cousins for the first time. And jet skiing was a blast. We put Leah in her playpen with a blanket over the top and she slept most of the time while David and I were able to go play on the jet skis. We really appreciate Deb and her family for letting us join their party. I don't have pictures of the baptism or jet skiing, but we did get some cute ones of Leah helping dad catch a fish and her first hike.

We went to Silver Lake with David's family on Labor day. Leah didn't like the sun in her eyes.

With her daddy's help, Leah caught her first fish while sleeping peacefully. Now that's talent!

Last weekend, we took Leah on her first hike to Stewart Falls in the Provo Canyon. It's a pretty easy hike of about 4 miles total with a really pretty waterfall. It was the same day as the BYU vs. Utah game so we wore our BYU shirts. Also, in this picture, some of my hair was getting in Leah's face so she's trying to grab it. She eventually got it and gave it a good yank. What a little stinker!

David sure loves his baby girl!

David's mom hiked with us. Leah loves spending time with her "MeeMaw"

We hiked to Stewart Falls the weekend before Leah was born. (I was trying to help induce labor and was curious to see if I could do the hike at 38 weeks.) It probably not my smartest move but it was fun. Also, my water broke a week early so it must have helped move things along quicker. I look like such a rolly-polly here.

So, of course, I had to pose on the same rock when we did the hike almost 3 months later. It was so much nicer to do this hike with Leah in a backpack than inside my stomach.

Next weekend, we're going to attempt hiking Timp again. I was in great shape when we hiked it last year, but this year I haven't exercised as well so I'm a little worried. But it should be way fun. But we plan on leaving Leah at home with her grandma while we attempt this hike. I don't think the altitude change will be good for her this year so she'll just have to wait till next year to hike to Timp with us. :-)