Merry Christmas from the Garlands!

It's definitely been harder to find time to keep up with the blog, but the best thing about telling people you'll have a Christmas letter up by a certain date... is that you have to do it. Either that or you've just lied to quite a few people. So apologies for the lack of blog entries the last couple of months. Probably a combination of basketball starting for Jerod and Leah making 2 or 3 trips to Des Moines every week. In any case, we're happy to have a chance to fill you in on our 2010.

CAYLA:

***It has been so fun for us to watch Cayla's personality start to emerge this year. She is turning out to have much more spunk than we ever thought. She is starting to realize when she "has the floor." Cayla has this silly voice she does (perhaps spurred on by her father) while pinching her fingers together and saying something close to "doobeedoobeedoobeedoobee" a few times. She watches to see if you noticed and smiles.

***Walking!!! The fall of '10 was the season 0f walking for CJ. She started putting 7 steps together a few months ago but seemed to stall there. We think she may have watched an old Rocky movie in November without us knowing because suddenly in November she got motivated and started putting steps together. December has been the month of "okay-I-guess-I'll-just-do-it-now" for her and she pretty much walks all the time now.

We've mentioned on here frequently that we don't take anything for granted with her, so I'm not exaggerating when I say it has been a HUGE blessing for us to get to watch this phase come. Her walking has been such a long road and it just puts a smile on our faces thinking about it. Another obstacle overcome on her journey. Just a few minutes ago Jerod started following her quietly while she walked from the kitchen down the hall, just checking things out. Nobody was in any of the rooms and none had lights on, so she headed back to the kitchen after taking a peek in a couple of the rooms. "All right, just checking folks... anybody reading any books in here?... Nope? How about this room?... anybody playing with toys in this room?... guess not... any cats in here?... nope? Okay, I'll just keep moving along..." We love it and can't wait to chase her around in the basement.

***The speech has been pretty slow in coming, but Cayla is making progress. She signs for many things: more, please, help, sorry (have to use this one more than we'd like :) ), milk, water, cereal, all done, ball, etc. "More" used to only refer to food, but she does it all the time whenever something happens that she likes. Throw her up in the air? More. Make a silly voice? More. Daddy fall down and hurt himself? More. Oh yeah, she also signs for "I love you." When she looks at you and does it without us prompting her, it is awesome.

She can say a few things, too. Buh-bye. Da-da. No. Hot. Up (sounds like "puh, puh, puh"). Ma-ma. Pa-pa. She turns "church" into a one syllable word.

Leah: Cayla, where are we going today?

Cayla: Ch. Ch.

***Cayla is sooooo friendly and will often give a hug to anyone. If she is in the mood, she will even give them a loving squeeze. Sometimes she doesn't want to come back to us right away, which makes us wonder if people think we never hold her or something.

Jerod: Cayla, time to go. Come see Dada. (holding out arms to get her)

Cayla: (shakes head and squeezes tighter on stranger)

Jerod: Okay, honey, it's time to go now. (Come on, Cayla, you're making us look bad!)

Cayla: No.

Jerod: Sorry, we need to get going. (plucks her away). Can Cayla wave bye-bye?

Cayla: (signs "I love you" sweetly to person she just met for the first time)

Jerod/Leah: I swear we give her plenty of affection!

***As fun as she has been, Cayla does have a very strong will at times. While this is commonly a characteristic of a child with Downs, Jerod claims this comes from Leah. ;) We are trying several things in regards to discipline, and she has her good days and bad days. Usually, being tired or hungry doesn't help the situation. Oh yeah, and she's two.

One of Jerod's favorite things to do with Cayla: Asking her if she's Da-da's pretty girl and seeing her nod. He hopes she will always remember the answer to this question. One of Leah's favorite things lately was when Cayla looked at her and signed "I love you" during lunch one day. Her heart was melted.

FAMILY:

We got to go down to St. Louis in July to visit Jerod's sister's family. It was so fun to spend time with that and Cayla loved it! We got to visit a children's play house, a splash park with water shooting everywhere, and she got to go to the zoo for the first time. It was awesome! Thanks Heefners!

Over the course of several months in 2010, we were able to finish our basement, adding a bathroom and a bigger living room/play room - we are loving the extra space! Jerod got to learn many new things from Leah's dad, who came several times and helped us out - Jerod's turning into quite a handyman around our house:) Thanks a TON to Bill/Dad/Grandpa for coming out and helping us in so many ways!!! We even enjoyed getting to know him better over the course of this project, which was incredible!

Leah continues to love her job at Bethany, helping orphans find their forever families. A huge joy for her was seeing one of the kids with special needs she visited in China last December get adopted into the Des Moines area!

Jerod moved to Pella High this year. He is still teaching social studies and coaching girls' basketball and freshman baseball. He loves teaching at Pella and has enjoyed meeting new staff this year.

And of course, we'll be expanding our little family next year. On May 20ish, Cayla will no longer be the only show in town. It's big sister time for her. We think it's going to rock her world. We know it's going to rock ours. Yet we are trusting God's timing is perfect. Since Cayla was born, God has given us strength when we've been weak (often), wisdom when we didn't understand (often), and grace when we've needed it (even more often). We always seem to land on this truth: we are ordinary people who are loved by an extraordinary God.

May you be blessed this Christmas,

Jerod, Leah, Cayla Joy, and Baby #2