Since this is our first year with a blog, I found it only fitting to do the written up portion of our Christmas card online. If not to encourage an occasional glimpse at our blog, maybe it will save a few trees?!
What a year 2011 has been for our family! We entered 2011 anxiously awaiting our third, a little girl who was born March 11th, on her big sister Kay's 3rd birthday! Kay and Marae are exactly 3 years 2 hours and 6 minutes apart. Talk about deja vu! Noah and Kay were elated to have their little sister join them and Luke and I couldn't believe God had really blessed us with 3 beautiful kids. When Marae was 3 weeks old we found out through multiple failed hearing tests that Marae was born deaf. Something we later found was caused by the Connexin 26 gene. Luke and I are both recessive carriers, thus with each child we have, there is a 1 in 4 chance
of deafness. Who would have thought?! Marae has profound bilateral sensoneural hearing loss which basically means the fine hair cells in the cochlea are either damaged or not present at birth. These fine hairs are used to transduce sound waves to the auditory nerve. It was pretty hard news to receive at first. Of course now we look back on that day and we realize what an amazing journey God was gifting to us. We quickly decided to embrace whatever lay ahead and trust God as we knew he had a perfect plan for Marae. I can only attribute our sense of peace and Joy to God because only he can bring that in the midst of something like this.
We learned a whole new way of doing things. We didn't use sign but instead took the auditory verbal approach. Marae wore strong powered hearing aids and had about 5 decibels of residual hearing. We quickly got the ball moving for Marae to receive cochlear implants, which basically restores hearing by bypassing the damaged cochlea hair cells and delivering an electrical impulse to the auditory nerve. Pretty amazing and miraculous stuff. November 1st Marae received her first cochlear implant and was able to hear her first real loud and clear sound on November 28th when the first implant was activated. It was a bit overwhelming for her at first, but within a few minutes she began to explore everything around her with a whole new sense. For Luke and I it was about the most amazing thing you can witness as parents. It rivals seeing your baby born. Not many parents are given the opportunity to witness their child first experience hearing, but as you will see in the video at http://youtu.be/m_JB0Yl8M4U, Marae gave us much to be excited about. She is scheduled to receive her second cochlear implant on January 10th. Needless to say, Luke and I have watched God knit every detail of this journey together in the most beautiful and eloquent way. There's really no other way to explain it. With Marae's implants she will enjoy sound, speak like her peers, and has the ability to do whatever she desires in life. The sky is really her limit.
Marae is a sweetheart, strong willed like her sister, and very determined. At 9 months shes already feeding herself and trying to walk. Something I'm not quite ready for. She loves playing with Kay and Noah and spends hours watching and listening to them, crawling back and forth trying to keep up. Perhaps this is why she is trying to walk so soon. Her favorite things to do are bounce/ jump, swing, blow raspberries on your cheeks, and catch either of the cats as they try to quietly sneak past her.
Kay is almost 4 and is attending preschool this year. She goes to an oral school for the deaf or hard of hearing and is a typical hearing peer in her class. The school, Listen and Talk, is the school that also has an early infant program for the auditory verbal approach, which Marae is enrolled in. We thought this was a great way to introduce Kay and Noah into our new world. Besides the school being an absolutely fantastic education experience, Kay has made a lot of friends and has grown a sensitivity to kids just like her sister. It's become so normal to her that she often asks me why she cant have implants. To which we explain to her that some people are born unable to hear and they need new ears to hear but Kay's ears can hear just fine.
Kay has flourished in school and adores her two teachers. She comes home every night excited to show us her picture page which tells us all the learning activities they did. We love seeing her have such a thirst for learning. She is definitely a smart cookie. Kay loves doing art projects, dancing, playing games, dressing up, riding her bike, helping mom take care of baby sister, reading, making projects, playing with her friends, and cooking.
Noah is now 2 1/2 and what a jewel he is! He is both my sweet snugly little boy and my brave heroic protector. I feel as if the moment he turned 2, he became ALL boy. He turns everything into a sword or some sort of weapon. He loves to wrestle and our biggest challenge is trying to explain to him why it's not okay to wrestle Marae to the floor. Our house has endured many new scratches and dings from his many make believe battles, but in a house full of girls, its a nice change. Noah isn't yet old enough to attend the Listen and Talk preschool so we are doing a co-op all boys preschool group with some of the moms from church. Since most of the boys have older sisters, we have tried to make this preschool time all about raising boys up to be men. So we've talked about the role of protector and visited places like the fire station, dressed them up in armor while talking about the armor of God, and we even have had a few battles with swords. Noah is very sweet. He loves playing football and soccer... or anything with a ball! He enjoys playing with Kay and for a while his favorite thing was to make cakes in his play kitchen. He likes painting, hide and seek, art projects, cooking, reading, wrestling, racing cars, playing with friends, and showing Marae how to do all of the above.
Luke has almost reached his 6th year at Boeing as a mechanical engineer structural analyst. He is one of two guys doing all the stage lighting at church... something that allows him to be a bit creative. He joined a co-ed outdoor soccer league in the spring but has been out this winter with a knee that just needed some time to recover. He keeps busy with his men's bible study group. They frequently like to meet on Alki Beach during the warmer months where they long board while they study the Bible?! Not sure how that one works. ;)
I am keeping busy just trying to keep up with Luke and the kids. I spend a lot of my time running from one place to the next, but I'm having fun while I'm at it. I still enjoy my Tuesday morning women's bible study, Friday morning MOPS (mothers of preschoolers), and some girl time with my girl friends here and there. Marae has us busy with her AV Therapy on Wednesday mornings and I frequent Children's hospital to meet up with her amazing Audiology/CI team. I still find time to do some sewing, crocheting, baking, scrap booking, and other various activities and am looking forward to getting involved with the music at church in 2012.
May 2012 be a year full of blessings!
Luke, Katie, Kay, Noah, and Marae Rust
What a year 2011 has been for our family! We entered 2011 anxiously awaiting our third, a little girl who was born March 11th, on her big sister Kay's 3rd birthday! Kay and Marae are exactly 3 years 2 hours and 6 minutes apart. Talk about deja vu! Noah and Kay were elated to have their little sister join them and Luke and I couldn't believe God had really blessed us with 3 beautiful kids. When Marae was 3 weeks old we found out through multiple failed hearing tests that Marae was born deaf. Something we later found was caused by the Connexin 26 gene. Luke and I are both recessive carriers, thus with each child we have, there is a 1 in 4 chance
of deafness. Who would have thought?! Marae has profound bilateral sensoneural hearing loss which basically means the fine hair cells in the cochlea are either damaged or not present at birth. These fine hairs are used to transduce sound waves to the auditory nerve. It was pretty hard news to receive at first. Of course now we look back on that day and we realize what an amazing journey God was gifting to us. We quickly decided to embrace whatever lay ahead and trust God as we knew he had a perfect plan for Marae. I can only attribute our sense of peace and Joy to God because only he can bring that in the midst of something like this.
We learned a whole new way of doing things. We didn't use sign but instead took the auditory verbal approach. Marae wore strong powered hearing aids and had about 5 decibels of residual hearing. We quickly got the ball moving for Marae to receive cochlear implants, which basically restores hearing by bypassing the damaged cochlea hair cells and delivering an electrical impulse to the auditory nerve. Pretty amazing and miraculous stuff. November 1st Marae received her first cochlear implant and was able to hear her first real loud and clear sound on November 28th when the first implant was activated. It was a bit overwhelming for her at first, but within a few minutes she began to explore everything around her with a whole new sense. For Luke and I it was about the most amazing thing you can witness as parents. It rivals seeing your baby born. Not many parents are given the opportunity to witness their child first experience hearing, but as you will see in the video at http://youtu.be/m_JB0Yl8M4U, Marae gave us much to be excited about. She is scheduled to receive her second cochlear implant on January 10th. Needless to say, Luke and I have watched God knit every detail of this journey together in the most beautiful and eloquent way. There's really no other way to explain it. With Marae's implants she will enjoy sound, speak like her peers, and has the ability to do whatever she desires in life. The sky is really her limit.
Marae is a sweetheart, strong willed like her sister, and very determined. At 9 months shes already feeding herself and trying to walk. Something I'm not quite ready for. She loves playing with Kay and Noah and spends hours watching and listening to them, crawling back and forth trying to keep up. Perhaps this is why she is trying to walk so soon. Her favorite things to do are bounce/ jump, swing, blow raspberries on your cheeks, and catch either of the cats as they try to quietly sneak past her.
Kay is almost 4 and is attending preschool this year. She goes to an oral school for the deaf or hard of hearing and is a typical hearing peer in her class. The school, Listen and Talk, is the school that also has an early infant program for the auditory verbal approach, which Marae is enrolled in. We thought this was a great way to introduce Kay and Noah into our new world. Besides the school being an absolutely fantastic education experience, Kay has made a lot of friends and has grown a sensitivity to kids just like her sister. It's become so normal to her that she often asks me why she cant have implants. To which we explain to her that some people are born unable to hear and they need new ears to hear but Kay's ears can hear just fine.
Kay has flourished in school and adores her two teachers. She comes home every night excited to show us her picture page which tells us all the learning activities they did. We love seeing her have such a thirst for learning. She is definitely a smart cookie. Kay loves doing art projects, dancing, playing games, dressing up, riding her bike, helping mom take care of baby sister, reading, making projects, playing with her friends, and cooking.
Noah is now 2 1/2 and what a jewel he is! He is both my sweet snugly little boy and my brave heroic protector. I feel as if the moment he turned 2, he became ALL boy. He turns everything into a sword or some sort of weapon. He loves to wrestle and our biggest challenge is trying to explain to him why it's not okay to wrestle Marae to the floor. Our house has endured many new scratches and dings from his many make believe battles, but in a house full of girls, its a nice change. Noah isn't yet old enough to attend the Listen and Talk preschool so we are doing a co-op all boys preschool group with some of the moms from church. Since most of the boys have older sisters, we have tried to make this preschool time all about raising boys up to be men. So we've talked about the role of protector and visited places like the fire station, dressed them up in armor while talking about the armor of God, and we even have had a few battles with swords. Noah is very sweet. He loves playing football and soccer... or anything with a ball! He enjoys playing with Kay and for a while his favorite thing was to make cakes in his play kitchen. He likes painting, hide and seek, art projects, cooking, reading, wrestling, racing cars, playing with friends, and showing Marae how to do all of the above.
Luke has almost reached his 6th year at Boeing as a mechanical engineer structural analyst. He is one of two guys doing all the stage lighting at church... something that allows him to be a bit creative. He joined a co-ed outdoor soccer league in the spring but has been out this winter with a knee that just needed some time to recover. He keeps busy with his men's bible study group. They frequently like to meet on Alki Beach during the warmer months where they long board while they study the Bible?! Not sure how that one works. ;)
I am keeping busy just trying to keep up with Luke and the kids. I spend a lot of my time running from one place to the next, but I'm having fun while I'm at it. I still enjoy my Tuesday morning women's bible study, Friday morning MOPS (mothers of preschoolers), and some girl time with my girl friends here and there. Marae has us busy with her AV Therapy on Wednesday mornings and I frequent Children's hospital to meet up with her amazing Audiology/CI team. I still find time to do some sewing, crocheting, baking, scrap booking, and other various activities and am looking forward to getting involved with the music at church in 2012.
May 2012 be a year full of blessings!
Luke, Katie, Kay, Noah, and Marae Rust
