Today we celebrate Skyler Sue’s 3rd birthday. The tradition has always been to receive gifts on our birthday. But on Skyler’s birthday, she gave us the most amazing gift — her being born as our daughter. Skyler’s life was a great gift to us, her life was the reason we know what true LOVE is.

We are thankful for the love that you taught us, and for choosing us to be your family. We love you and miss you very much, and how much we wish we could hold you again. Even though your life was short, the gift of love that you left us, will always be a part of our lives.

Happy Birthday Sweat Pea and thank you for your wonderful gift!

Mother’s day 2012, Skyler Sue gained her angel wings. It’s been one year now since our baby girl became an angel. To celebrate Skyler Sue’s first angelversary, we decided to release 24 butterflies by her grave on Mother’s day. Releasing butterflies was a symbolic event to us. Just like butterflies, Skyler Sue also gained herself a pair wings and became one of God’s angels. Happy Angelversary Sweet Pea, we love you and miss you.

When your child is born, naturally you look forward to years and years of birthday celebrations.  When Skyler was born and we eventually learned of her diagnosis, we were hopeful that we’d be able to spend a handful of birthdays with her.  At the very least, maybe we’d get 1-2 years worth of birthday celebrations with her.

Today is especially hard for us as a family.  To be without Our Little Angel and just left wondering, is not easy.  We will always celebrate her birthday for as long we live and remember the joy she brought us in such a short time.  We will watch her videos, look at her pictures, spend time in her bedroom, visit her grave and find every way we can possibly think of to celebrate her amazing life.

Here’s another tribute video for our little angel. Mom worked on compiling all her happy videos into one. It’s amazing how this brought  back so many happy  memories with our precious Skyler Sue. Happy Birthday Sweet Pea.

It’s been a little over two months now since our little angel passed away. Whenever we think of her, we remind ourselves of the great things Skyler taught us. She taught us to live everyday like it is our last, not waste a moment with those we love and appreciate all the things we have in life. And every day around us, we see little reminders of Skyler, including her beautiful little garden. Her garden continuously blooms and attracts wildlife.

Skyler’s garden attracted so many birds, that two weeks ago, we discovered this beautiful nest in one of our hanging plants. Inside the nest were two eggs. We later discovered the birds that made this nest were purple finches.

We made sure to be extra careful in watering the hanging plants. We also avoid walking through our front porch, so we don’t scare away the Mama bird. And a week after, we checked again to see three more eggs (five total).

And just three days ago, two eggs are already hatched. And yesterday, two more eggs hatched!

This is the first time we ever had a bird’s nest around our home. This is such a great blessing, and we can’t help but think of Skyler’s spirit attracting all these beautiful things, from endless blooms to new life in our yard.

Featured video: We took this video of Skyler last April 28, 2012, (wearing the Cardinals outfit her Grandpa Joe gave her). After taking a series of photos, Mom turned on the “nature sound feature” of her chair. Skyler was so focused on the birds hanging from her chair, almost seems like she knows this is the sound of birds chirping.

Latest update: All eggs are hatched, Dad took a short clip of  the baby finches, check it out here.

If you need to describe an angel’s face, you don’t need to write a description, all you need is a link to this video.

Mom just found this “gold” in our huge archive of unpublished videos. This video was taken one week after Skyler’s gastrostomy surgery (3/20/12).

Somehow Mom thinks Skyler’s spirit guided her to create this video. The audio in this video is called “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring by Bach“. We originally didn’t know the title of this song, we just heard this song because of a Music CD we played during Skyler’s early NICU days.

Just a week after Skyler Sue passed away, we went to church and heard this song randomly played – it instantly reminded us of Skyler (and we still didn’t know the title of this song). And today, while Mom was working on converting this video, she decided to add music to it. The first music she clicked in her audio library was this song. The title was so fitting and it also matches the exact length of this clip.

Skyler Sue is really amazing, she always finds a way to communicate with us. And again, she made us aware that she is ALWAYS with us.

On Sunday, May 13th we made the heartbreaking decision to let Skyler pass away. It’s been a little over 12 hours now since she passed and so far the pain has been excruciating. Even though it hurts to be at home without her, we know we made the right decision.

Skyler’s condition quickly deteriorated once she reached the Pediatric ICU in Tulsa. We both thought that maybe we’d be lucky enough to have a few more days…maybe even weeks with her, but after learning about her kidney failure, collapsed lungs, further brain damage and soon to be failing liver…there was really just one choice to make. There was no way we could stand by and watch her suffer while having unrealistic goals of her making any kind of livable recovery.

We’re very fortunate that her closest family members were all there in the end and able to say one last goodbye. Once her life support was removed she passed very quickly and with very little pain, fittingly in her Mother’s arms. We had always hoped for her to live at least a few years, but instead she lasted just 3 months & 4 days. Overall, she spent most of her life in a hospital (1 in Arkansas, 1 in Oklahoma), but her longest stay in any one place was at home with her family. We can only hope that our home…her home is where her spirit will live on forever.

We will miss you Skyler Sue and despite your limitations, you were always perfect to us. You filled us with more joy in 3+ months than we will have in a lifetime. You’ve taught us to appreciate every day we’re given and to show love & affection to those who matter the most. The pain of losing you will never go away, but we take comfort in knowing that you’re in a better place now, where you can spread your wings and live up to your full potential.

So goodbye Skyler…Sweet Pea, Little Princess, Our Angel…your memory will never fade and knowing that we will see you again someday is enough to keep us going.