10 Years

I can hardly believe it.  I have a 10 year old! 

 This beautiful, amazing, silly, wonderful, smart girl came into my life 10 years ago today and while sadness and grief reigned for the night, JOY came in the morning!
She is, in many ways, a constant reminder of God's goodness.  Of His provision.  Of His mercies and love.  When I think back to this day ten years ago, I am reminded of the immense sadness I felt about her diagnosis.  But, I'm also reminded of the love for her that washed over me.  A powerful love like I could not have imagined before that day.   I'm so blessed to have experienced the power of that love with four more children.  But, my sweet Jordan was the beginning of it all. 

I love you so much, Jordan-bug!  Happy 10th Birthday, Beautiful! 

Jace turns TWO!

Jace turned two a few weeks ago!! He is a FUN 2-year-old and really pretty easy. He is rough-and-tumble, all-boy, super cute, loves music and dancing, balls, cars, The Backyardigans and food! He is our worst talker to date, but has mad motor skills for his age. He walks up and down the stairs without holding on - which usually makes me crazy (especially when I find him climbing up the OUTSIDE of the stair case)! :) He loves the tampoline and can jump right along with his big sisters and brother! He can kick the soccer ball like nobody's business and shouts "GOAL!" every time he kicks it (whether it actually makes it in the goal or not!) You can't help but smile (or laugh) when you see his stocky-short-legged body doing the toddler dash! He is a squealer - and a very high-pitched one at that. I'm fairly certain I've lost a good amount of hearing.
He is a grunter and generally speaks with only one syllable per word. He says "thank you" without prompty, but has yet to master "please." :) He gives the biggest puckered-lip kisses you've ever seen (frequently accompanied by drool). He is a sweet-hearted little guy that gets very upset when someone is hurt or crying. He is a delight and has been the source of great joy for our family - and precious heart-healing therapy for me.

Here are some pix of our very small celebration!
"Happy Birthday to Jace..."

Make a wish

Unlike his first birthday, the cake was a hit this year!

Pure DELIGHT over videos with The Backyardigans from Gummie!

New tricycle from Grandma!

Born Still & Peacefully

Jackson Erin Sustala was born very peacefully this morning at 6:49 am, weighing 1 pound, 10 ounces. He was 12.5 inches long. Bigger than we expected.

We were so blessed to spend 3 beautiful hours with him. Seeing him for the first time was the most painful experience of my life - and yet holding him in my arms was such a relief. Once he arrived, we found he'd had a cord accident - his cord was wrapped tightly around his neck twice as well as under his arm. His tiny feet were both very clubbed as well.

God made his presence felt in so many ways. The room was filled with nearly constant prayer and his arrival was as peaceful as I could have hoped for. God was so gracious to us throughout the entire process. The labor was fairly easy and the delivery very simple. I am in awe of His provision and love! We have felt so loved by our family and friends as well. I am so thankful for Ed - I am so blessed to spend my life with him. He has been amazing!

Leaving the hospital without our baby was difficult and I expect this week will be tough as I recover from birth and all that entails without a babe in my arms. Please continue to lift us up in prayer as we face this week and look ahead to the burial on Friday.

We know that God is so very good and we trust His plans for our family, even in our pain.

The Joy that is Jadyn!

Today my spunky little peanut, Jadyn, is 5 years old.

Its amazing how quickly life passes by when you stop to look back. Jadyn was born in Dallas and was our first homebirth. She was also my biggest baby weighing in at 10 pounds, 5 ounces!!!! Looking at the petite little thing she is now, you'd never know it! I was complaining to our chiropractor a few weeks ago about her "gerbil sized bladder" (because she ALWAYS has to go potty) and he replied, "Well, she has a gerbil sized body. What size bladder do you expect to fit in there?" LOL! Very true.

She may be small physically, but she has a BIG personality! She is very outgoing, super social, fun, full-of-life and she has added many dimensions to our family. I joke (only slightly) that I had the parenting gig figured out until she came along. She gives Ed and me a run for our money and keeps us on our parenting-toes! She is the epitome of a "strong-willed child." Although, I prefer the term, "high-spirited." :)

She is a big ol' pot of extremes. She brings great joy to our lives ... and sometimes, great frustration. She is quite independent, which will serve her well as an adult, but tends to make parenting her a tad tricky. She is charming - and knows it. She is beautiful - and is told far too frequently. She has a cute little voice - according to people who don't live with her! She is very girly, smart, sassy, busy, entertaining and just plain hilarious!

We love you, Little Miss! You have certainly made your dad and me better parents just by being YOU! And, we wouldn't trade it for anything. You are a wonderful, amazing blessing!!! Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

Jordan's BD Party

I'm nearly a month late in posting this ... but, as "they" say, better late than never, right?

Jordan invited her cousins to a bowling party for her birthday. We had so much fun! I totally copied this idea (thanks, Shea!) from a birthday party Jake went to a while back. I made T-shirts for each of the kids. I had to girly it up a bit with matching hairbows! Then, I used the bows as ribbons on their gift bags.

Bowling has become Jordan's favorite game on the Wii and she's actually pretty good. She liked real-life bowling just as much, but let's just say her score was a tad lower! Even with bumpers! :)

We had a fun time ... thanks to everyone that celebrated with us!

My 9th Anniversary of being a Mom!

If I celebrate 9 years of being a mom, it can only mean one thing ...

Its Jordan's birthday! I know I say this with every birthday, but seriously, where does the time go? It seems like it flies faster and faster with each passing day!

I wish I had baby pictures in digital format (or at the very least, that my scanner was working!). It would be fun to post some of her baby pictures. Unfortunately, this is the only digital newborn picture I have of her ... The best I can do are pictures from when I first started blogging.

2006 (love those missing teeth!)

February 2007

September 2007

May 2008

September 2009

I've written before about how hard the first few months of her life were. What we couldn't fathom those first few weeks was THIS GIRL. The life we have with her. The joy that comes from being her mom (and dad ... I'll just speak for Ed here). The interests and abilities she now has. All we had then were preconceived ideas of Down Syndrome based on faulty notions, which in reality had no basis in fact. They are likely the very same ideas that (dare I say?) *most* people walk around with. Even a lot of people who have "experience" with Down Syndrome.

Jordan is a beautiful, smart, active girl who loves dancing, performing, books, school and all things music!

I have loved being a mom for nine years and I'm so thankful for my girl that started it all!

Happy Birthday, Kylie!

Kylie Today is our niece's 2nd birthday. Happy Birthday, Kylie!!

It seems like just yesterday that we were flying down from Iowa to meet her for the first time.

Saturday was her birthday party. At a park. With 102 temps. It was brutally hot, but my little red-faced kiddos all had fun in spite of the heat.

Kylie & her mama, Stacey

Taking a break to eat!

Jace with Ed's cousin, Audra's little girl, Natalie - she wanted to sit by Jace to eat and was so cute with him!

Hot & sweaty birthday girl

Happy Birthday, sweet girl! We love you!

Happy Birthday, Bubby!

In some ways, it seems like forever ago, but in other ways it just doesn't seem possible that an entire year has already passed since our little man arrived.

I still look back on May 31, 2008 in awe. Its a day we'll remember not only for Jace's birth, but also for Jordan's first (and in all likelihood only) ballet recital. I was early pregnant with Jace when I found out the date of the recital and I remember saying to a friend that I would be at that recital unless I was in full-blown labor. Ha ha! I lied. I stood in that recital for an hour, with contractions 5 minutes apart. It was BRU.TAL! But completely worth it.

Jace was born a couple hours later. It was so wonderful ... beautiful ... amazing. My second homebirth. Easy delivery, despite the fact that he was a whopping 10 pounds! Jakey helped Ed cut the cord. Our family of SIX was piled on our bed when Jace was just a few minutes old. My mom, Ed's mom, my little brother Erin and his girlfriend, Beth were all at our house. It was as wonderful as a birth can be. Precious memories! But, you already know about all that. Can't help my little trip down memory lane!

Jace is a sweet little guy. He's known as Bubby, Bubs, Bubs-a-rooni and Jacey-bace around here. Where all these silly little names come from, I don't know, but somehow they stick. He's a happy little guy as long as he's not hungry. He gets downright mean when he's hungry. I have NO idea where he gets that from! Interestingly enough, he is our 'worst' talker of all. He says fewer words at this age than any of the others did. But, he has the cutest voice when he does talk! He's our first 'normal' crawler. The other 3 all had the same weird crawl. Jace is a major momma's boy. I love it (most of the time), because I know my time's limited! :-) He also loves to eat. So far, we haven't found much he doesn't like ... except, as it turns out, birthday cake! He adores his brother and sisters. Jadyn is his current fave. He calls for her when she's in another room. SO cute! He gives the biggest, sloppiest kisses ever ... and nothin' beats that!

Yesterday, we celebrated his birthday with a house full of people who love him! It was so much fun and the company so good, it lasted all afternoon! Thank you to everyone that came - we had a blast! The weather was perfect and the kids all played great together.

A cake of his own

Happy Birthday to You!

New toy from Grandma

Hangin' outside

Happy Birthday, My Love

I have so much to catch up on, but I couldn't let today pass without wishing the love of my life Happy Birthday.
I know you already know this, babe, but I'm so thankful for having you by my side. You are amazing and wonderful and so much more than just my husband.
You are my best friend. My rock. My partner. My joy in life.
We've been through so much. Good, bad and yes, even some ugly. I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Because the bad and the ugly have brought us closer than any of the good could have done alone.
Looking forward to yummy Japanese and Sushi tonight! I love you. Happy 35th!!

Jakey & Jadyn's BD Party

We had Jake and Jadyn's birthday party last Saturday. It was so fun to have our house (and backyard) filled with aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents! We had a great time. They both wanted a party with a bouncy house, so we got a really fun one - complete with a slide! Plus, we made it an art party, since its one of the things they enjoy together. We had crafts and painting. It was really a lot of fun! I made the invitations to look like a painter's palette - but didn't think to take a picture of one. Jadyn was hilarious. Leading up to the party she would tell people she was going to have a "paint cake" but everyone thought she was saying "pancake!"

I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked (as usual!).

One of my favorite things was watching my little neice, Kylie in the bouncy house. Her daddy would set her at the top of the slide and watching her face as she slid down was just hilarious! She reminds me so much of Jadyn with her adventurous-no-fear spirit!

Our super cool bouncy house!Jake & Jadyn working on craftsThe 3 Muskateers ready to slide!Kids painting fence (and the 'men' playing washers in the background!)

Stacey modeling a painter's smock.

Jadyn's messy paint hand!

My cousin had a great idea to wrap the present in brown paper, so it, too, could be painted!! So fun!

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Jake

and blowing out candlesI'm not sure what happened to the pix of us singing to Jadyn or her blowing out her candles. So, I'm posting pix of her actual birthday ... when I made a 'trial-run' cake (which, of course, turned out better than the party cake!)

Jadyn was so excited to get a princess tent! Ed's BD is also this month, so his mom got him and Jake a Wii. Any guesses as to what we've been doing this week?

Finally, a big boy bike!

Happy Birthday, Little Miss!

I can't believe its been four whole years since Jadyn made her debut! Her birth was by far my best. She was my first homebirth. My easiest labor. And an easy delivery. Jordan was 4 and Jake was a few days shy of 3 when she was born. They don't remember life pre-Jadyn. But, I do. And I can say with a whole lot of certainty that life was just plain boring before her big, bright personality came to entertain the world!

She is highly social, fiercly independent, creative, unique and wonderful!

I love 4th Birthdays. I can now see that this particular birthday marks a changing point in my kids. Some people hate the terrible two's. For us, age 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 has always been the challenging time. So, the 4th birthday comes in as a new start. A new level of maturity that makes the kids easier to enjoy. A new level of independence that makes life a little easier. As my friend, Amy says for kids like Jadyn, 'the maturity to handle their great big personality!' So true!

Since Jadyn and Jake's birthdays are so close (11 days apart), we are having a joint party on Sunday. An art party since they both love arts/crafts. Can't wait - it will be lots of fun!

Happy Birthday, Jadey-bade! I love you more than you will ever know.