26 hours in a day please...

We could all use a few more...right? I'll cut right to the chase...we have been crazy busy for the last few weeks. Ya know how life has those little ups and downs of being busy & being CRAZY busy...well I am at the peak of CRAZY busy right now. But I'm good with that. It's self inflicted busy that I am happy & excited to do! These days, my mind is not only going 100 miles an hour keeping up with the kids, but it's in full swing benefit mode. On May 14th DSAMC (Down Syndrome Association of the Mid Columbia) is having our 1st annual (if all goes right) Glitz & Glam benefit. It will be a incredible evening! It will be held at the Anthony's event center, so you know dinner is going to be amazing! We are starting off with appetizers and cocktails. Silent auction with AMAZING items to bid on! Dinner while listening to 3, not only amazing, but inspiring woman talk about their life with Down Syndrome. I'll tell you more about those 3 women a little later. Their stories deserve their own post! We will also do door prizes thru out the evening & will liven things up with a dessert auction! And at the very end of the presentation...a grand prize drawing...with a little extra surprise for the winner...who knows...a few hunky fire fighters might be there to walk her up to the stage! I do have connections in that department! And to end the evening...dancing with our girlfriends!! All ticket sales & donations raised from the silent auction & dessert auction will go to the new DSAMC Resource Center! How do you not get excited about that?! With all that said...I'm off to make some phone calls! I have begging to do! Wish me luck!!

Back to where I started...

I originally started this blog to be about our adventures with Jake. And wow, was that first 15+ months a adventure. We had our up's, down's, did that really just happen's...and so much more. Best of all, we got to be a family. In our home, all 4 of us, doing family things together. In 2010 we only had 2 hospital visits (one locally and only for a few days just for pro cautionary reasons), and the other was a planned surgery that went very well. It's hard to fathom that the years can be so different. But they were very different! At some point during the last year (I'm not sure when it happened), I was able to let go of that "waiting for the ball to drop" feeling, & just live. Accept the up's and down's for what they were worth & live. We have no medical issues on the horizon, just growth. Growth in more ways than just the physical. I have a lot of, for lack of better words, mental growth to do as well. I would like to think that I have fully accepted Jake as being different, but I'm not sure I have. I can honestly say, I would have him no other way. In that aspect, I have fully accepted. There are things that I still can not wrap my head around. His future. All aspects of his future. Will he be accepted, will he have a childhood BFF, will he play sports or be a musical master mind. Will he ever live on his own & will he ever fall in love. Will he ever stop destroying things...sorry, that was one of those thoughts that was in my head, that came out thru my fingers. I know these are things that we think about daily with our typical kids too, but it's on a whole new level with Jake. With Gracie, we know these things will happen if & when she chooses. We expect them to happen & we expect that she makes the most of her life with a little guidance from us. With Jake, it's hard to, again, wrap my head around what we should expect from him and what realistic hopes and dreams are for him. With all that said, I hope to make 2011 the year of mental growth...for myself.

It's only the 1st day of the new year & here is what we have in store...
*First off, my brother got married today...CONGRATULATIONS to Shawn & Nina!
*We are taking another family vacation (this time with the grandparents) to Florida to see my brother's retirements ceremony from the Navy. He will have served for 20 years!
*I am helping plan a benefit with our local Down Syndrome Group that will happen on May 14th! It is called Glitz & Glam, stepping up for Down Syndrome. It's going to be fabulous! I'm so excited to be a part of such an amazing organization!
*Gracie will start kindergarten & Jake will move from the Developmental Center to the school district.
*We have our normal little "mini vacations" thru out the year too.
So, here is to a busy, happy, healthy, & productive 2011!
Happy New Year!!

Do you...

Our family does. Gracie REALLY does! So much has happened since my last post!

Gracie had her 2nd annual Christmas party with a few of her little friends. They decorated sugar cookies, did a gift walk (like a cake walk, but with gifts), opened their little gifts, then played. It was a great day! I'm loving this age and the fact that Gracie BELIEVES! And oh does she believe!! She even got a little star struck when she met Santa at the DSAMC Christmas party. She froze up like a popsicle! It was so cute!

Gracie & I took Auntie Brandi to her 1st Nutcracker performance! She loved it! I've gone almost every year for as long as I can remember. Gracie has been once before, it was a first for Brandi! I think it may become our yearly tradition with Auntie! Auntie Carrie & Lexi were supposed to go with us, but Ms. Lexi wasn't feeling well...there is always next year!!

Oh, and it snowed, and snowed...and snowed more. Oh look...it's snowing again outside right now! The kids have been loving that!

Merry Christmas Family & Friends!!

I'm still here...

Just busy as ever! Tiss the season, right?! As soon as I have a few minutes to sit and fill you in on all of our holiday doings, I will! But that time is not right now!! Happy holidays everyone!

I love this time of year!

How could you not? To start...yesterday was my birthday!! I'm proud to say I'm 33 years young! I'm one of thouse people that LOVES birthdays, so I have no issues with my age! It helps that my husband is older than me, and most of my friends are older than me! Just say'n!

I love, love, love the holidays and all that come with it! I love the gathering of family & friends, fabulous food as far as the eye can see, snow on the grounds, using Santa as a bribery mechonism, ohh, did I just say that? Anyway, one of our favorite Christmas storys is the Polar Express. And thanks to Grandma & Grandpa, we got to ride on it!! There is a town about 200 miles away called Hood River, Or. that decks out one of their trains for a few weekends so that the Polar Express can come to life. It was so much fun watching Gracie's facial expressions. She truely BELIEVES! We got the shirt that says so! Here are a few pictures from our Polar Express adventure.

We boarded the Polar Express to find a hot chocolate mug and a plate of cookies for each one of us!

Gracie got her ticket ready because the Conductor was coming around to punch everyones tickets!

He made it "snow" on her head! She thought that was pretty cool!!

Jake got some "snow" too! He was not as impressed as Gracie was!

Then the Conductor announced that there was a bum (the ghost from the story) on the train and to watch for him so the Conductor could kick him off!

There he is!

We had to stop because there were caraboo on the tracks!

Then the Conductor announced that Santa had boarded the train!!

Santa gave each of the kids a bell...Gracie instantly jiggled it to make sure she still believed!

See, still making sure she believes!!

"Mom, I believe...I really do", almost with tears in her eyes. She was so excited! It was about the sweetist thing she has ever done!

It was a great trip! Thank you Grandma & Grandpa!

Carrie, go get your tissues now...

Our local Down syndrome group hands out a binder to new parents of children with Down syndrome. We got ours, along with a bunch of books about Down syndrome when we left the hospital with Jake. The binder has information about DSAMC (Down Syndrome Association of the Mid Columbia), and stories from parents in the group. The binder is being updated and we were asked to share Jake's story! Here it is!!

Our life with Jake
Our lives were forever changed in ways we never thought imaginable on September 25, 2008. That was the day that Jake was born. To us, his birth was pretty typical, nothing out of the ordinary. I was pretty shocked and a little disturbed to see that each of his hands had two webbed fingers, but “we see it all the time, it’s a easy fix” we were assured by the delivering doctor. I tucked my beautiful baby boy’s hands into his blanket so nobody would see, judge, make fun of, or love him any less. I was ashamed of myself for doing such a thing, but it felt like the right thing to do. I was protecting my son. We were about to learn that our sons hands were the least of our worries. Our pediatrician came to our room later on that evening, and started doing her newborn check up. Without skipping a beat she looked at us and said, “I believe Jake has Down syndrome”. Confused, heartbroken, scared, shocked, and in total disbelief were only a few of the emotions that slapped us in the face right at that moment. We spent the next few hours try to process that kind of life changing information. There was a lot of silence between out burst of crying that night. A lot of, “what are we going to do, how did this happen, I don’t know anything about Down syndrome” was said between Zach and I. A wave of extreme mental and physical exhaustion fell over us. We looked at each other, agreed that we were going to be ok and fell asleep. That was short lived. A few hours later our nurse came into our room to do her checks on Jake and decided to take him to the nursery because she wasn’t getting a good reading on his oxygen levels. Turns out, she did have a good reading. Jake had very poor oxygen saturations. Off to the NICU he goes. He spent 24 hours in the NICU, then another 48 hours on the Peds floor. While we were waiting to get the ok to go home, his diagnosis was confirmed. He did in fact have Down syndrome. I felt my heart break a little more seeing it on paper, but I was completely drained of emotion by this point. We went home.

Jake’s first year was exhausting. Not only were we still trying to accept our new life, but we were trying to understand it as well. Parades of people, necessary people, were brought into our lives. Social workers, in home nurses, developmental therapist, and medical specialist, to name a few. Exhausting. He had a lot of major medical issues to overcome as well. We spent a majority of his first year dealing with health issues. We became very familiar with MedStar, and Seattle Children’s Hospital. The silver cloud to this story…we learned who we are, and what we are made of. Acceptance is no longer an issue. We fully accept Jake the way he is and would have him no other way. We learned that we are not as weak as we once thought. Jake made us open our eyes to how precious life is. Trust me when I tell you, it took a long time to come to terms and accept that Down Syndrome is in fact a gift. It’s a different gift for each and every one of us. The gift is what you make of it. We choose to embrace Down syndrome as part of our lives. We don’t hide it, we don’t run from it, we love it and embrace it for the gift that it has given us.

The most important thing that we have learned is this…it will come with time. Acceptance will come. Understanding will come. Goals will come. In their own time, all things will come. And life will be good!

Hmm...

I'm doing my best to not go a month between posts...but I got nothin'! I take that back, I have a few Halloween pics...

Gracie was a Starbucks drinking Glitter Witch!

And Jake was a monster! Or is a monster...or...whatever...

In other news...one of my oldest friends got married over the weekend! I don't want to show off too much because I'm sure she has way better pictures that are about to come out, but here are a few...

Shannon & JR's daughter Chloe! Prettiest little flower girl ever!

Mrs. Shannon Thomas!

And every ones favorite picture!!
Congratulations Shannon, JR, Chloe, and baby boy soon to come!!