Trinity's Special Day!!

We had a "GREAT" birthday party for Trinity Saturday night. It was nice to have our family and friends present to help us celebrate such a special birthday. It really is hard to believe that she is already one. It has definitely been a roller coaster ride for Trinity, but she has pulled through everything with a beautiful smile on her face. As I look back to a year ago tonight and think of us sitting in the waiting room waiting for Trinity's first surgery to be done, little did we know that it was going to be the first of many. The day Trinity was born he gave us the most wonderful miracle. Her life has been a gift to so many people and yet she doesn't know it.
Here are some pictures from Trinity's first birthday party!


Trinity with one of her presents. She had fun opening presents.


We had a little cake made just for Trinity. It was so much fun to watch her dig into it and get it all over. She never stuck her hands in her mouth, but she got it in her hair.





Trinity with her birthday cake made by Raenelle Bryan. It was fantastic!!

Thanks for the emails and posts wishing Trinity a "Happy Birthday"! What a great community of family and friends we have.
Love~The Arthur's

Happy Birthday Trinity!!

Today is Trinity's 1st Birthday!! We are so excited to be in Iowa and celebrating with our family and friends. Thank you for all of your support over the last year. Everyday we feel your prayers being uplifted. I will be putting a post in the next couple days with pictures from Trinity's BIG day!
Love to All!

Happy Belated V-Day!!

We hope that everyone had a great V-Day!! We enjoyed a quite weekend with not a lot going on. We took the girls out for breakfast yesterday and then I made a nice supper last night. The girls each got a little toy from eachother. Aubree picked out Trinity's gift and did a great job! She got stacking stars that lights up and plays music. Trinity really likes playing with it and Aubree does too! We had a great church service this morning. I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but we really enjoy the new church we found. We are excited to get involved and start meeting new people.

This past week we had Trinity's 2 week checkup with Dr. Haines. Everything looked really good and Trinity is healing very nicely. They will do an MRI in April to check the Chiari and also to check her shunt and make sure it is working like it should be. We didn't get a lot of time with him because he had an emergency surgery to get to. Hopefully next time we can spend some more time talking to him about some of our concerns. Trinity has been struggling this week with a bad cold. We have been to the pediatrician once this week and it looks like we will be making another trip tomorrow. It is all in her chest and she struggles to breath. They did an x-ray last week that looked good, but she has not improved and I would like to get this resolved soon.

This Wednesday we have an interview with Early Childhood to help with PT and OT. We are really looking forward to this in hopes that we can start getting Trinity some strength to do more things. We also go to Shriners on Thursday to get her new chair! This chair will help her to sit up in her highchair and stroller. I am so amazed at all the things they can do to make it easier for a child with disabilities even at the age of 12 months.

I got a nice "Thank You" card from Shriners for all the pop tabs that have been donated. This goes out to all of you that have helped us with donating these. I have a box to bring for my next visit. Everytime I get to drop them off I get so much joy in seeing the faces of the people I give them to. Just know that what you are doing is helping put another child in a wheelchair!

We are getting excited for Trinity's 1st Birthday! We can hardly believe that she is going to ONE!! I look forward to doing a post on Trinity's first year of life. We get to come back to Iowa to celebrate with our family and friends.

Have a great week! :)

"Rejoice Always"

I put "Rejoice Always" in the title because it is something I have to say to myself everyday, even when things seem hopeless, I have to remember to rejoice! I say this because the last week has been such a guessing game with Trinity. Unfortunately she has still had some vomiting issues and choking. Maybe this is something we will deal with for the rest of her life, or maybe it is going to take awhile to change. With the vomiting it does make us concerned that something could be wrong with her shunt, but we are watching for any other signs that come with a shunt malfunction. I swear it is such a guessing game. Yesterday I was doing some PT with her on the floor and when I layed her on her tummy it was a wake-up call to me that Trinity had lost her neck strength, which is a given considering they had to cut through her muscles back there. So we have been working on restrengthening those muscles, which does not make her very happy. This would be the time that I wish I was in Iowa so our favorite PT could help us, "Oh, Paula"!!

We had the privilege of having my parents and Grandma Shearer here for a week to help out and then Shannon's parents came Friday night with a surprise for Aubree. They brought Aubree's cousin Selah with them. They had a lot of fun playing together! They had to leave yesterday, which did not make Aubree a very happy girl for about an hour. She wanted to know when her Grandma was coming back.

We have a pretty uneventful week here at home, which is fine by me. Trinity needs all the rest she can get and if she is stimulated too much she gets kinda fussy by the end of the day. Her incision is looking and healing really good. We will have our 2 week checkup with Dr. Haines on Feb. 11th.