The Burgin Bunch: Leah is Four Years Old!

It's hard to believe Baby Leah is now Big Girl Leah - 4 years old! This child has been through more in her first 4 years of life than most people go through in their entire lives. And through it all, she is one of the happiest children I know. Her joy for life has made walking through all of the trials with her so much easier. We are so grateful to God for blessing us with this special little girl. Our Leah girl has made so much progress in the past 9 months since we moved to Norfolk. With every gain she makes, our hope is increased for her future. She is so much more "in the world" than she used to be. There are many Leah Leaps to share, but that will be in the next post! For now, I will share a little about Leah, the four year old. Leah loves to laugh and sing. She wakes up every morning with both. There are a few words and phrases she likes to say or hear said, that just make her giggle. Leah actually has at least 4 different laughs: she has a muppet laugh, a count chocula laugh, a squeal and cackle laugh, and a forced fake laugh that usually turns into real laughter because she just loves to laugh so much. Leah also knows the melody to 7 hymns now, as well as other praise songs and children's songs. All in all, I would say she knows close to 30 different songs. The interesting thing is, she doesn't just know the melody, she knows how many verses, too. For instance, if you ask her to sing Amazing Grace (and she is willing enough to do it), she will sing through the melody 4 times before stopping. She's pretty talented! She is still an extremely picky eater, which gives me endless amounts of worry over her health. She is definitely a salty snack lover, though. If she could, she would live off of crackers and chips. However, there is one sweet thing that she does love - Lucky Charms cereal. Only, she has to eat it dry, no milk. She eats it almost every single morning for breakfast. She also loves most fruit, so she is getting something healthy in her diet everyday! Leah loves to go to school. Not only does she love being there, she loves the going part. She has been riding the school bus since December and looks forward to it every morning. The weekends are hard for Leah, because she doesn't get to go. In addition to her therapists at school, Leah started working with a speech therapist and occupational therapist at the children's hospital in February and has already made so much progress with them. The last thing I will share about 4 year old Leah, is her new relationship with her sister. She is definitely aware of Rebekah, knows her name, and even says "Bekah" occasionally. She also likes to hold Rebekah's hand and tickle her toes. She still doesn't really like it when Rebekah touches her though. She wants to be the one to initiate contact. And we are just fine with that!

Happy BIRTHday!

Happy FIRST Birthday!

Happy SECOND Birthday!

Happy THIRD Birthday!

Happy FOURTH Birthday!

This year, for Leah's birthday, we decided to have a birthday party with a theme, and even invite a couple of friends (aside from some of her cousins). I had great plans for an outdoor party with a beach theme, but a rainy cold front decided to come through Friday night and Saturday morning, so it wasn't as elaborate as I had hoped. Oh well, maybe next year! We did have a few beach things, including: beach ball bowling in the hallway, a buried treasure dig in the sand and water table, leis for all the kids, life preservers and pool noodles (life savers and twizzlers) for snacks, and a beachy cookie cake. The kids seemed to have a good time, and Leah especially seemed to love her party. It was almost as if she knew that the party was for her. She even enjoyed opening presents. We decided to put all of her presents in gift bags and she did very good with reaching in and pulling items out. It's always so special to celebrate Leah's birthday, to think about the ways our lives have changed since she was born and how blessed we are to be the parents of Leah Rose Burgin.