Reagan and I were so happy that Piper was able to stick around Blythedale for the holidays. Today, she sat on Santa’s lap and he gave her a present. It seemed like she was really pretty interested in the whole event, too.

Regan and I arrived kind of early, to get Piper into her Christmas dress, and everything, before Santa showed up. It was the first time that I had every been able to see Piper at her little school. It was super cute.

She was in kind of a sleepy mood when we first arrived. She threw up almost immediately after we wheeled her over to her school room. It always takes her a little bit to be in a good mood again, after that. So she wasn’t being super playful. But There is one volunteer who brings a guitar, and Piper freaking loves that thing. The volunteer holds it up close to Piper, so that Piper can strum the strings. That was pretty much the only smile that we saw her do, during the whole morning.

Piper’s present from Santa was a princess shopping cart. We can already tell that she is going to love it. She has been making a lot of progress with her walking. I think that this little cart will help her even more.

I just have to take a minute and say how amazed I was by the volunteers that we saw in action today. Since having Piper, we have grown a new appreciation for people’s hours of selfless service, spent on these little ones. The Santa was amazing. What was equally amazing was the small crew following him around with pockets full of screwdrivers and batteries, whipping the toys together as fast as the kids could even get them unwrapped. It probably sounds really corny, but even writing this, I’m still getting a twinge of emotion thinking of how overcome with gratitude I am for the good people in this world who help Piper have a more comfortable life. There truly is no way that we can ever thank them enough.

Here are [kind of a lot of] more photos from today.

This little girl never ceases to amaze me. I’m sure that Reagan will post this video, too, since she is the one who uploaded it. I couldn’t believe my ears, when she called me and told me what Piper was doing today. But I do believe my eyes. So cute. Just in time to go trick-or-treating

piper walks!! from Piper Breinholt on Vimeo.

This morning I was able to sleep in a bit, which is always nice. Since this is general conference weekend, there were no regular church meetings for us to attend. The conference, (which we are able to watch from the comfort of our living room), did not start until noon, eastern time. Since my Ma B sings in the MoTab choir, one of my favorite parts it trying to locate her on the screen, when they are singing. We saw her several times. Woo hoo. Then we headed up to visit Piper. During our visit yesterday, we learned as we were about to leave, that we would be allowed to walk her around in her kid cart. Apparently, the nurse who told us that we still needed training before we would be allowed to take her, didn’t know what she was talking about, or didn’t realize how much training we already had done. So, we were pretty excited about today’s visit, in anticipation of our little walk. Piper did not disappoint. She was so cute the whole time. The hospital that she is in right now is very quiet on the weekends, so it really was just the 3 of us haning out. We were able to wheel her around where ever we wanted to without any sort of trouble. We debated on taking her outside, but it was a little brisk. Plus, we didn’t want to push things. A walk by any terms was a really big deal to us. It was the first time ever, that It was just Reagan, Piper and myself, hanging out alone. I almost felt like a real parent. I didn’t want to take her back to her room at the end of it. I just wanted to pack her up in the car and bring her home. We took a bunch of pictures, and shot a few short videos of the event.

In addition to all of our fun activities with Piper today, we also learned that they will be trying the trache collar on her again tomorrow. Last time, it didn’t go so well. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.