Happy Halloween!

This year Mia was a flower for Halloween. We went trick or treating at Grampa and Nana's house and then we went to our church for their harvest festival. It was alot of fun. Some people brought some 1 day old baby cows, so Mia got to pet one of them, it was very sweet. And of course there were alot of games and trunk or treating.

Praise God!

Tuesday evening Mia started saying "ah" again. It's been forever since we've heard that sound, so we were so excited when it showed up again! Will you join me in a Praise God!!!! And of course when we went to speech therapy today they were all super excited too. :)

At physical therapy we've been working on going from sitting on a little bench to standing without any help, just using the leg muscles to push to stand, and Mia has gotten very good at it. She loves playing this "game" with us, where we hold something up and she has to get it, or we give her something and she has to stand up to put it in a bucket...it's really rather silly, but since she loves it we play it because we know it's a great strengthening/balance game. In the past few days I've noticed her go from being able to stand by herself for 3 seconds to 10 seconds, we're a making huge progress. It is really encouraging and I realize that we are one step closer to walking, which is so exciting. Here is a video of Mia and Daddy playing the "game".

We went to LA today to see Mia's intestinal surgeon again. We are now on a size 12 dilator and the goal is a 13, so he said that's it time to schedule her next surgery...hopefully this will be her final surgery! Everything looks great, she has a slight hernia, but he said that is common with having a stoma and that he will fix it when she has her surgery. It should be very minimally invasive, but there is a slight risk of infection because of a surgery involving the intestine and stool. So, we will be praying for no infections, of course, but it was just something he wanted us to be aware of. I don't have a date for the surgery yet, they will be calling me in the next week or so, so you can be praying for God's perfect timing in the scheduling of this. I will keep you updated when we learn more about when it will happen.

Lounging Around...

So, Mia got these fabulous "lounge pants" last Christmas and they finally fit her, well, sort of...but aren't they stinking cute! And yes, the helmet, she still wears it to sleep in and so this picture was taken right after she got up in the morning.

The Pumpkin Patch

Tonight we took Mia to the pumpkin patch again...this time with Daddy and some friends of ours from our Bible Study. Mia enjoyed all the pumpkins again and here are a few photos from the event.

A long week...

We've had a crazy busy week and are so looking forward to the weekend. Mia has been doing really well. She is loving school and I continue to see her making so much good progress, God is so good! She is learning to be around people other than her mommy and today at school she played for a good 15 minutes before she even realized I wasn't near her, that's really good progress for her. Some of the new things she is doing are the following...every now and then she'll pull herself up to her shopping cart (not new), and then let go for a few seconds where she is completely standing alone by herself (very new!!!)...that's exciting and definitely worth a Praise God! Continue to pray for more progress in standing alone (it takes a whole lotta balance...). She's also making some new sounds, again, Praise God! We hear an occasional yuh, and a th every now and then, so please pray that she would produce even more sounds. Lastly, she now will say, he he, for yes. So, if you ask her if she wants something and she does, she'll respond "he he". That's been very nice. If she doesn't want it she'll make this fussing sound, we will work on No now. ;)

On Tuesday (our only free day of the week), we got to visit Daddy at work. That was alot of fun and it was so nice to see so many people who continue to pray for Mia. There are some pictures of her hanging up in some of the classrooms and so in one that we went to visit the teacher told the students, "you were wondering who this little girl was, well, here she is...", it's like she's famous! We are truly blessed at how many people care for her there. And everywhere else, she is a well loved baby! So, thank you again to everyone for always remembering our little girl in your prayers.

Nothing much new to report from Mia. We are diligently working on her speech and occasionally get sounds from her, so you can continue to pray for more sounds and different sounds. The stretching process isn't fun, but she has been doing much better, so thank you for praying! We have another week at this size and then we'll switch again...we are getting quite a bit closer to surgery time, so pray for scheduling and patience on our part. On a praise, she is getting used to letting more and more different people handle her at school and therapy, etc. So, I feel like we are very close to being able to leave her in the nursery and go to church, pray that she'd continue to make progress in that area! Thanks for praying!

Today Mia decided that she wanted to feed herself with the spoon. Usually when I give her a spoon she just plays with it and occasionally brings it to her mouth, but today she made a big mess, but was able to get quite a bit of her cup of applesauce in her mouth on her own. It was neat to see and we love progress!

Lately she has been into her own image wherever she can find it. She'll watch herself in the fireplace for long periods of time, and today it was really cute, she was watching herself drink out of her sippy cup. The dishwasher and stove are two other good spots to find her image. And of course at therapy they have a huge mirror that she loves to be by and watch herself do everything in the mirror. I think she is just amused that her reflection does everything that she does.

Mia's birthday is on October 12th, and it's super special to me (Lisa) because my dad died on October 12th in 2001. So, I wanted to start a tradition with Mia of taking her to my dad's grave site each October 12th, just so we could take some time to remember Grandpa Dan. Yup, that's why she's a Mia Danielle, after her Grandpa Dan. So, here are some pictures of us there on Monday.






Pray also for Mia, she got her second flu shot today, pray that she doesn't have any reactions from it. The last one was fine, so we are praying that this will be the same. On a sad note, I found out that her pediatrician's office is closing their doors next month, so we will be looking for a new one in the near future, you can pray for wisdom as we find a new place for Mia that is just as wonderful as the one we have been at (we know it's out there, we just don't know where yet...)

Happy Birthday Mia!

Precious Mia,

Wow, time flies when you are having fun and it seems like we just blinked and you turned 2 years old! We love you so much sweetie, you are becoming such a "big" girl! How big? Well, over the last year you've gained 6 pounds 6 ounces to bring you to 21 pounds 10 ounces. And you've stretched out 6 more inches, to make you now 33 inches long...or is it tall, we can't remember. ;) That's alot of 6's!

Over the past year you've learned how to crawl and pull to stand, one of these days you'll be walking, you keep getting closer. But, crawling does get you most places you want to go, including the cat's water dish, which you know is a No No, but it's always so tempting. Sometimes we get you before you make it there and tell you No, other times you get there and splash away before we can catch you...then we have a pretty big mess.

We keep praying that we won't have to spend as much time in the hospital each year, that's our prayer for this coming year. This past year you spent 9 days in the hospital for surgeries, which included heart surgery and surgery to recreate your anal opening. But, because your anal opening didn't heal right you spent another 19 times under anesthesia for the doctor to repack your bottom (wow, 19 more times of anesthesia, that's more than I thought it was), that was alot of 4am trips to LA, no wonder Mommy was so exhausted! And during those repackings you had one long hospital stay of 11 days! That's 20 days in the hospital last year just for hospital stays (that doesn't include doctor appointments...), and 21 times of anesthesia. We are praying that this year we finish with 1 more hospital stay and 1 more time of anesthesia and that we are done, that's what we are praying for big girl!

Over the past year you haven't said too much, in fact, it made us really sad when you stopped saying Mama, but you have learned a dozen signs and we keep teaching you more. Plus, we started speech therapy and we've seen alot of improvement over the past few weeks, so we are praying for lots more words over the next year, we really do love hearing your sweet voice.

This past year you started going to school, you were too smart for your class and they moved you up and you keep learning new things! You also do alot of therapy, our schedule is busy. You now do physical, occupational, and speech therapy...and mommy wants to start taking you to water therapy classes! You're a trooper and you really love all your therapists, so much that you even give them kisses when you go. We do love those kisses!

You continue to be an amazing testimony of the grace and power of the awesome God we serve! Your little life continues to touch so many people, God is using your little life in such an amazing way for Him! We can't wait until you are old enough to understand your own story and get to share it yourself. In the meantime, we keep writing it down so that you'll be able to look back and see how God answered so many of our prayers and healed your body in such an amazing way. We can't say it enough, but thank you God! Yet, even more than healing our little girl, thank you for sending your Son to die on the cross for us!

We love you baby girl,
we are looking forward to the "terrific" two's!

Mommy and Daddy

1.999

We figured 1.999 was close enough to 2 years old that we thought we would celebrate today. You know, we did this last year too, we celebrated her birthday the day before, so we might have to do that always. Anyway, we had a nice time with the grandparents and some aunts and uncles and cousins, and of course, Mia's boyfriend Jacob made a brief appearance. :) And his brother Jonah and mom, too. We had a great time, Mia had a barn cake with pigs, sheep, and ducks...even some edible grass. I noticed some of the guests nibbling on the grass...I thought that was for the animals! Mia got lots of nice toys, even a Meerkat. Here are some photos from the day.

The presents were ready under the "birthday" tree.

The birthday girl was ready too!

The barn and animals were waiting to get eaten...

Cousins Samantha and Seth were having fun with the birthday girl.

Big Yawn! Mommy, why did you wait so long to cut the cake!

Vision Therapy and More...

This morning I got the privilege of speaking at Bakersfield Christian High School's chapel. And I got to share Mia's testimony with them. It was a very sweet time and many of the kids enjoyed getting to see Mia there, some of them had prayed for Mia quite a bit after she was born, so that was really neat.

This afternoon, we went to Dr. Suter's office in town and had another eye exam for Mia. Since CHLA hadn't billed our eye insurance, Mia was still eligible for an eye exam through them and I thought it wouldn't hurt to get a second opinion. I'm so glad we went. Dr. Suter is wonderful. She did such a great job examining Mia and thought that it would be in her best interest to start some vision therapy sooner rather than later. So, we will start doing this at home, we don't have to go there yet, and it just requires putting a patch over the right eye and doing some stretching/strengthening exercises with her left eye and then switch and repeat. She doesn't have the complete range of vision in her left eye, and so she's hoping that as we stretch and strengthen that will get better. We are going to work her right eye also because somehow the muscles of your eyes are interrelated and that will strengthen her left eye also. We will check back in 2 months and see how she is doing then.

Please keep praying for the stretching process of her anal opening, as Mia continues to progress to the larger sizes it is a bit more uncomfortable and difficult for her. We know it's only temporary, but it's no fun to watch her be in pain as we do this to her.

As always, thanks for praying!!!!

LA

I took Mia to LA today to see her intestinal surgeon, another routine visit as we continue the stretching process. We are now up to a size 11, it's hard to imagine that we are almost to a 13, which is our ending destination. Anyway, at the end of the visit, he said that next time we'll discuss when we are going to do the reconnect surgeon. It kind of took me back for a moment because I didn't think we were that close to ending, but then I realized, we are almost there! Praise God! So, pray that she would continue to tolerate the stretching process over the next 2 months and that the surgery would get scheduled at the appropriate time, that we wouldn't rush into it, but that Mia would indeed be ready for it.

After that we had her helmet get some minor adjustments done. She is still wearing it at night because she sleeps in her hip brace and that forces her on her back for the entire night, so we just want to make sure her head doesn't get flat again in the process.

And then we were back home again, and the good news is that we don't have to go to LA for another 3 weeks! I love it!

Please continue to pray for soft scar tissue! Thank you God for another safe trip there and back and a good visit with the doctor.

This is how I kick it when I'm eating my icecream. Mommy thinks this might be the beginning of teenage attitude???

Practicing for when Mommy takes me to Magic Mountain!

October Already?!

So, where did the year go? I can't believe it's October already. I am very excited for cooler weather and of course, fall, my favorite season.

Yesterday we went to the fair, we enjoyed the animals. Mia gets a big kick out of them when they move around, I guess we are so used to looking at them in books that we don't realize they move??? She loved the bunnies and pigs. And of course we had yummy food and Mia enjoyed part of my corn dog and some funnel cake.

We keep making lots of progress in lots of areas an we are so grateful. She's getting better with her fine motor skills, we've learned to put chips in a slot, we weren't able to do that before. We are still working on learning how to unscrew a top, but we'll get there. We are gaining more and more leg strength all the time, so that's great. Keep praying for more sounds and continued overall development. I can't believe she's almost two! Wow! She's been on quite a journey and God has been so gracious to her along the way. Thank you Lord!