2015 Pictures - Merry Christmas to All!

Here are our 2015 pictures. Feel free to click to enlarge. Like last year please excuse us if the order is rather random and the amount is rather astounding! We are way too picture happy. But with such cute kids, how can we not be?

Vivien's Busy Schedule - Birthday Party, Dedication, Vacation and a Brief Hospital Visit

Vivien's "Throne" the kids made for her.

Well I know it’s about time I update again and there is much to share but first things first – Vivien had a wonderful 1st birthday party!

Thank you to so many of you (140!) who came to celebrate with us. We were so blessed by you – old friends and new ones and even people who we have only met online in the trisomy community.

Thank you for coming and sharing in Vivien's Life!

Thank you also for the gifts - both the monetary gifts to Overcomers International, as well as those brought to Vivien. There were quite a few without cards (or the cards were separated from the present) and to those that did have cards, we have good intentions of sending you all thank yours but have not done it yet. Please know we are so grateful for them all and for the love that came with them.

I wish that I had assigned someone to take pictures throughout the whole time, because I know we captured some of you, but not all. Thankfully one of my friends offered to go around with my camera during the time she was there and I am grateful for the pictures she got. I am including just a few here, but I will also include a link here to an album of most of them on Facebook.

 

 We are so grateful to many of you who helped, including the Grandparents contributions and the friends who helped with serving and decorating and ideas. We are so very supported by you. Vivien was happy as a clam and had no idea that all of the fuss was for her.

We also had the privilege of having Vivien dedicated to Jesus at our church several weeks ago. The Grandparents joined us and it was a beautiful time. They had asked us to pick a portion of Scripture to share. I had a couple in mind and I just love how God works, because Todd came home that morning after work and shared with me the exact same verses I’d been thinking of for Viv. They were verses that I had blogged about here when it was such a struggle to realize and accept that she would be different than our other children. The verses were Is 46:3-4 “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save."

At Childrens's Hospital

We continue to be blessed with good health for Vivien, although a few days ago we had a bit of a scare. She had been having some trouble with vomiting at the end of her last feed of the day. It wasn’t subsiding and then it got significantly worse, with her vomiting 7 times in a day. Our pediatrician advised us to go to Children’s so the Grandmas came to take care of the 4 who tearfully said goodbye to us. We went into it not knowing if we’d be admitted and the kids were worried about Viv although we assured them that we thought she’d be just fine. After running a lot of tests and ruling out the big things like heart issues, they sent us home with Pedialyte. We got a call with the results of the tests they did and it turned out she had a UTI, which can cause vomiting. We were very relieved to find something so treatable.  Todd and I were talking afterwards about how it was so strange being back at Children’s after spending so much time there last fall at this same time. We realized later that it was one year to the day from the day we brought her home after being in the hospital for almost a month.

It's exhausting being both intellectual and cute!

Thankfully she has been doing well and as you can see, in addition to her hearing aid, Vivien is now sporting pink glasses. When she had her 12 month checkup she was given a great bill of health and the good news is that she is on the charts for height coming in the 5th percentile. That’s a pretty big accomplishment for a little lady! Her weight isn’t quite on the charts, but obviously she is not starving. Here are a few taken just a couple days ago in her sweet little hoodie.

In more personal news, we are getting more into the swing of life. Summer was a breath of fresh air to me. It was like the sun was coming out in my life, as well as the Northwest. We got to do some fun day trips and continue to learn more about doing life with Vivien in tow and what it entails. Grandma Merry has also been babysitting her for a few hours at a time, which gives Todd and I some time for dates. Vivien has been doing SO well that we’ve been able to have some adventures. We took big two vacations – one was a trip with all the kids and some of the Granparents to Seaside, Oregon for 6 days and the other was a few days getaway alone for Todd, Viv and I to Vancouver, BC. We got good weather for both of them and I was on cloud nine as one of my very favorite things in the world is travel. I felt like I got my life back a little bit after such a traumatic year.

Seaside!

Seaside

Stanley Park, Vancouver B.C.

Speaking of such, God is so amazing. One of the things that I was wondering about– and quietly grieving mainly because it felt selfish when you look at the big picture – was the thought that we might not ever be able to travel, or that it would be very limited. God has a sense of humor, because between what we’ve gotten to do this summer, and what we have planned, Vivien will have been to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Vancouver BC and Hawaii  - all before her 2nd birthday, God willing. Next spring break we plan to take the kids to Idaho, and in June, Todd and I get to go to Maui to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary (March) and my 40th birthday (April). My wonderful cousin who is a nurse and my aunt will be coming along to help with Viv and the Grandparents and friends will be watching the rest of the kids. I feel God’s kindness, and truly unmerited favor acutely.

While I enjoyed the summer, Todd is a happy camper in the fall. It is his favorite season as the air gets cooler, the house gets cozier and school routine starts in. He loves routine and I love adventure. Opposites attract – although both of us do enjoy a little of each. We feel like life has normalized and between his work, homeschooling through co-op, piano lessons, Awana, church Bible studies, and basketball for the kids this coming winter, we are amazed at where we are at, living a fairly normal – actually maybe not normal – maybe a little too crazy busy – life. Vivien fits right in and even though life sometimes seems almost too full – I know that it’s not just because Viv takes a little extra work – it’s partly just because we have 5 kids who love life. Sometimes it feels like I can’t catch my breath but we are learning when to give a little extra effort and when to just let things go knowing we’ve done our best and try to enjoy the ride.

God has been talking to both Todd and I specifically about the need for Sabbath rest.  We are learning to not assume we are too busy to take time for our bodies to rest and spend time on relationships with God and others, or that the work we have is too important to take the time to take a break. It means letting things go that we might want to accomplish, knowing that it is prideful to think we can and must do it all. The world can go on without us if we take a break and we are not mini-saviors. Responsibilities can wait and we will actually be better at what we do if we take the time to rest every so often. Our Sabbaths are not Sundays, but when we can schedule them in and we know we are honoring Jesus in taking them.

We continue to have our “moments” of being overwhelmed but overall we look at life with a lot of gratefulness for where we are at. In fact, because of things being more settled, we can look at the outside world and all that is going on with wars, rumors of wars, people in tragic and difficult circumstances – and actually ask God “what do you want us to do?” rather than being so focused on our own needs that seemed to encompass all our time this past year. While it certainly wasn’t wrong to focus on Vivien - just being able to get past survival mode is a blessing and we don't ever want to take for granted our ability to look outside of ourselves and our own little family and ask God what needs need to be met and what He wants us to do with the gifts he has blessed us with so we can bless others.  We are grateful for the relative stability He has granted us with our sweet girl.

 

Vivien's First Year Slideshow - Short Family Version

To watch the longer Friends and Family Version click  Here

Slideshow of Vivien's First Year, Links to Evite & the Elijah Mubezi Memorial Maternity Wing Fund

The second version is family only, but 5 minutes for those of you who prefer short and sweet.
5 Minute Family Version

Here is the link to Vivien's laughter!

Here is the link to the evite for Vivien's party this Saturday.  All are welcome.
Party Time!

Lastly, as you may know, in lieu of birthday gifts we are asking you to give toward the building of a hospital in Uganda through Overcomers International.
Link:  The Elijah Mubezi Maternity Memorial Wing.
If you give by check please write "Elijah Mubezi Memorial" and if you give via Paypal, please write "Eiljah Mubezi Memorial" in the special instructions box.  The story follows:

Backstory of the Elijah Mubezi Memorial wing of the Hospital in Uganda

Several years ago my cousin Rachel went to Uganda with an organization dedicating her time to help children with special needs in Africa.

While she was there she met a wonderful man, Isaac at Hope University in Burundi. He loved Jesus and was studying to be a surgeon. He was from a poorer village and saw the lack of medical care available for them. While many in Africa study to become doctors because they are interested in earning money, moving to the city and getting rich Isaac saw the plight of many in his village who would become very sick or die because of lack of medical care. His dream was to study, go back to his village and build a hospital and serve there.

They fell in love, and married. Their dreams became one and they began working hard to begin their life together in Uganda looking towards building the hospital. My cousin Rachel and I became pregnant at the same time, hopeful for what the future held. We didn't know that both of our lives would look different than we were expecting. I received the news about Vivien and a few months later, when Rachel went into labor, her little boy Elijah went to be with Jesus before they even reached the hospital. She had had a healthy pregnancy up until that point.

Rachel and Isaac grieved, received comfort from Jesus and continued on with their dream. In their bereavement a relative set up a memorial fund to be given to create the Elijah Mubezi Memorial wing of their hospital. Vivien was born and is one of those "special needs" children that Rachel originally went to to help. In the meantime plans continue for the hospital to be built and their dreams are becoming a reality as they have obtained the permits and plans to help those in Uganda receive the medical care they need. In addition to this, Jesus has blessed them with twin boys born this summer!

You can visit Rachel's blog here: http://rachelinburundi.blogspot.com/

Please join us in remembering Elijah, celebrating their twins and and giving toward the hospital in leiu of gifts for Vivien's party. We are excited for what God is doing in their family and how God is going to bless those in Uganda!