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Weeks before the blessing, I kept debating whether or not I would get Sienna her own blessing dress. I love Brooklynn’s blessing dress, but I also thought it would be really neat for both of my girls to have their own dress that they could keep for the rest of there lives.

I posted this debate on facebook, and my Aunt Alice replied to me informing me that she had a blessing dress just waiting for someone to use. Well it turns out that my Great-Aunt Beth who died 10 years ago (almost to the date of Sienna’s blessing) had bought this dress, but never had a chance to give it away.

To give you a little history on my aunt, she was a very sweet and religious lady who never married, but took it upon herself to buy every blessing dress and tuxedo for all new babies in her family. She bought the blessing dress that my sister and I shared. So when I found out that there was still a dress from her, I was thrilled. Not only was this dress beautiful, but now there was meaning and a connection to a special woman that was like a grandma to me. I truly feel like her spirit was there that day to witness Sienna’s blessing, and I hope someday Sienna will realize what an amazing gift this was.

Also, on a lighter note, two days before the blessing Josh sprained his ankle playing hockey, which caused him to have to hobble up to the front of the chapel on crutches to give Sienna her blessing. A lot of people suggested we postpone it until Josh could carry her himself (I think they were all just bummed that we scheduled it the same day as the Super Bowl), but we agreed that it needed to be done and the sprained ankle was just something we could laugh about later.

All in all, it was a beautiful day with lots of amazing family and some wonderful food (as you can see in the picture of our family, Brooklynn was too busy eating her cookie to smile at the camera!)

Brooklynn wakes up every morning at 8:30am on the dot with a huge smile on her face.

She loves backpacks, boots, slippers, socks and sunglasses. If she could wear them all the time she would.

Her favorite toys are Little People. She has a huge collection of them  and we can’t leave the house with out a backpack full of them.

She loves Dora, Sponge Bob Square Pants, Mickey Mouse, and anything with princess’s.

She is a girly girl with a side of tom boy.

She has her own play tool set that she insists on using whenever Daddy has his tools out.

She loves to dance and sing and insists that we join in the fun.

She absolutely hates being dirty, although she does love to play in the dirt.

She loves, loves, loves stickers!

She loves all of her cousins and grandparents and talks about them daily.

Her favorite foods are, hot dogs, cheese, yogurt, and anything she can put ketchup on. (Which to her, is pretty much everything – including Captain Crunch.)

She loves talking on the phone.

Whenever we are at the dinner table we always have to do “cheers” (tapping the glasses together).

We have our own secret family hand shake that she insists on doing several times a day. The hand shake is a mixture of high fives, thumbs up, rocks, and hands in.

Her favorite day of the week is Thursday, because it’s “School Day.”

She loves her baby sister “Sinana” (her name for Sienna).

She loves to show off her little sister to everyone she meets.

She is always looking for an adventure whether it is scaling the backside of the banister at Grandma and Grandpa Buhler’s, jumping as high as she can on the bed, or setting off the fire alarm at the movie theater. However don’t even think about putting her on an amusement park ride or she’ll scream like 15 little girls all in one.

If you ask what my name is (Cindy) she’ll tell you it’s “mommy.” If she hear’s someone call me Cindy, she’ll correct them and tell them that I am mommy.

If you ask what daddy’s name is, she’ll tell you it’s “Josh.”

If you ask what her name is, she’ll tell you “It’s me, Brookey!”

Nicknames for her include, Brookey, Brookey Brew, B, Bumble Bee, and Princess.

She loves to be the center of attention.

She is the most stubborn, strong-willed, child I have ever known.

She loves to be a part of everything and there is nothing that she misses out on.

She always has a plan and don’t even think about getting in her way.

We love our Brooklynn. She is such an amazing little girl. She brightens each day of our lives with her smile, her laughter, and her sweet spirit. We love her so much and we are so glad she is a part of our family.

Apparently we need to spend a little more time talking about Temples at our house, and a little less time talking about castles!

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Enna May

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Brookey

Enjoy

Sienna is now 7 1/2 weeks old and doing wonderful. As many of you know her start in life was not an easy one. After being life-flighted to IMC for a pneumothorax, she spent the next 10 days in the NICU. Luckily the hole in her lung healed quickly and she was only on oxygen for about a day. We were originally told that she would come home after 3 or 4 days, but things didn’t progress as quickly as we hoped. While in the NICU, Josh and I were bombarded with doctors, nurses and specialists giving us their opinion on what could possibly be wrong with our child, none of which had anything to do with the pneumothorax that had brought her here.

Finally with a list of doctors we needed to see and tests that needed to be done, our sweet daughter was finally able to come home. We were so grateful to finally have her home with us and finally be able to introduce her to Brooklynn. They became instant friends and Brooke  has been her protector ever since.

The first half of December was filled with doctor appointments, lab work and frustration. When I wasn’t taking care of the kids, I was on the phone chasing down lab results and doctors. I won’t go into all the details, because I don’t feel I have that much time to explain all that she was being tested for.

Finally, two weeks after Sienna came home, we got our first phone call that was good news, all of her lab work came back with good results. As the weeks followed more good news started coming, her ultrasound came back fine, and other issues seem to be working themselves out. She is still being tested for a few minor things, but things are so much better then what we had been told they could be. As of now, she appears to be a very healthy and happy baby.

I feel so grateful to a loving Heavenly Father that has blessed our family so much in the last few weeks. It has been the biggest trial that Josh and I have ever faced together. I feel it has brought us closer together as a couple and as a family.  I truly believe that Sienna will have a perfectly normal and healthy life. I am so grateful that she is a part of our family and I am excited to watch her grow. I love my family, they bring me more joy then I could ever express.

The original plan was for us to go into Riverton Hospital on Monday, November 16th, to induce labor, and welcome our new little baby into the world. It was going to be great – Cindy and I went out on a date Saturday night, we planned on taking it easy on Sunday, and then first-thing Monday morning, we’d go have a baby. However, it turns out that the little girl had plans of her own…Cindy went to bed on Saturday at 11:00PM. I went downstairs to do some work on the computer and play some Xbox. At about midnight, Cindy came downstairs to let me know that she thought her water had broken. Over the course of the next few hours, we began keeping track of the contractions Cindy was having (yes, there’s an app for that too), and a few hours later around 3:30AM we made the call to have my parents come babysit Brooklynn so that we could head to the hospital, which luckily, is only five minutes away.

After arriving at the hospital, things picked up pretty quickly, and only two hours later at 5:30AM, we welcomed Sienna May Buhler into the world:

Not content to make anything routine, Sienna decided to put her best foot forward, and attempt a breech birth, resulting in an emergency C-section delivery. The surgery went very smoothly, and when she came out, Sienna weighed in at 6 pounds, and 20½ inches long.

We kept Sienna with us for a few hours, just enjoying her company, when we began to notice that she was blowing some spit-bubbles. We though it was kinda cute, but the nurse didn’t think so, and immediately began checking her out for various things, and they took her back to the nursery to check on a few more items. At this point, there was really no reason for concern, and Cindy and I decide to catch up on a little sleep, since between the two of us, we had only slept about an hour in the last 30 hours or so. After a little power nap, I decided to head to the nursery to check on our little girl and see what was up, and it turns out, that things weren’t looking very good.

Sienna had developed a pneumothorax, which means that she had basically developed a leak in one of her lungs, resulting in air escaping into the chest area between her lung and other organs. This causes the area around the lung to continually inflate with each breath, making it progressively harder for her to breathe, and the resulting pressure can actually cause organs to shift position, and according to her x-rays, her little heart had shifted over to the other side of her body. As the doctor was explaining this to us, she also mentioned that they had already began preparations to LifeFlight our little girl to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Intermountain Medical Center.

As part of her initial treatment, the doctors inserted a needle into Sienna’s chest to try and drain some of the air from her chest. As they did this, you could actually see her little chest deflate a bit, and see her begin to breathe nice, deep breaths, and finally relax. Up to this point, she had been taking increasingly shorter and shorter breaths, and you could see that she was expending all of her energy just to breathe.

The LifeFlight crew finally got her prepped for her trip, and my dad and I escorted her to the helipad to send her on her way to the NICU. As soon as the helicopter took off, I knew that Sienna was in good hands, and that everyone was doing everything they could, but to be honest, that was a very difficult sight to behold as a father, knowing that there really wasn’t anything I could do but watch these folks go to work on my daughter.

Shortly after lift-off, Dad and I jumped in the car, and followed her to the new hospital. Unfortunately, Cindy would have to stay behind in Riverton, but I knew she’d be taken care of, and her parents were at her side the entire time I was gone.

Dad and I arrived at the NICU, and we were very relieve to hear that she had stabilized during the flight, and the leak in her lung had appeared to patch itself. (That’s apparently what happens with small cases of pneumothorax like Sienna had – the hole in the lung can close up, but often doctors will still need to insert a needle to remove the excess air.) Sienna had spent most of the day on oxygen, receiving a 50% mix to start the day, but by about 6PM, she had progressed to only needing a 22% concentration, which was fantastic, as the goal was to reach 21% – which is the average concentration of oxygen in the air we all breathe. By the late afternoon, she only needed the oxygen delivered via the little nose tubes, and didn’t need to live inside of a box like she had earlier in the day. Also, according the x-rays taken upon arriving at the NICU, her heart and other innards had shifted back to their proper locations again.

Dad and I stayed at the NICU for a few hours with her, and it was quite a relief to see my little girl sleeping so peacefully after those few hours where we just didn’t know what was going to happen, and she had looked like she was fighting for her life. It’s amazing how attached you can get to someone after having only know them for hours – watching the days events, it just felt like someone was trying to rip my heart out, Temple of Doom-style. (I just really can’t describe the feeling I had, so you’ll have to settle for that imagery. Sorry.)

Knowing that Sienna was in good hands, and that she had stabilized, I decided to go check on my other girls. Brooklynn will be spending the next few days at my parent’s house, so I stopped by there to say hi, and play with her a bit, and since Cindy was taking a well-deserved nap, I decided to head home and do the same. After napping for a few hours, I cleaned myself up, got a fresh change of clothes (which according to the nurse at the NICU, I apparently needed to do – I guess I really looked like crap at that point), and went to have dinner with my parents and Brooklynn. After dinner, I went back to the Riverton hospital to spend the night with Cindy.

As I’m writing this, it’s now 11:30PM, and apparently Cindy’s pain meds have finally kicked in, since she’s out cold. I last spoke with the nurses at the NICU a couple of hours ago, and they said that Sienna is doing great, much better than expected. Her respiratory system is functioning just fine, her oxygen levels are great, and her lab work is all coming back with all good results. She’ll be staying there for at least another 48-72 hours just so they can keep a close eye on her, but so far, everything is looking great. It’s a bit hard to know that we’re here in Riverton, and she’s all the way across town, but I know she’s being looked after, both by professionals and a higher power.

The last 24 hours have been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster, but it’s looking like things are starting to level out for us. Thanks to everyone who have called, emailed, txt’d, Twittered, Facebooked, etc. for your words, thoughts, & prayers. You have no idea what that’s meant to us so far, and I hope that one day we can return the favor. I’m very grateful to the staff both here in Riverton, and out at Intermountain Medical Center, and to the LifeFlight crew, for all of the work they did, and their professionalism. We’ve had a few tense moments, but not once did I feel that we were dealing with a bunch of rookies.

Most of all, thanks go to our Heavenly Father, whom I know has been watching over us very closely today. He was kind enough to bless us with this dear little girl, and I know He’s been making sure that we’ll get to spend a lifetime with her.

Last Sunday morning Josh and I came out to the kitchen to find this; Brooklynn kicked back at the breakfast table, looking at the new toy ad.

I love this kid. She makes us laugh every day!