Merry Christmas!! Here is a summary of our year.
We continued to settle into our new house and do lots of improvement projects, such as laying new tile throughout almost the whole house. We, of course, did this ourselves. And thanks to good advice from Guy (Marilee's Dad), it turned out nice.
Our stake (larger Church geographic area) formed a new ward (single congregation) that we are in the boundaries for. So that has been fun to help build an entirely new ward from scratch and help support the efforts and callings that needed to be filled. We didn't do much to help, but it was cool to be a part of it! We really love the medical community and our respite providers.
Eli's Birthday
Evan's Wiggle Theme Birthday - The car was built by Christina Hernandez and her husband!
Nancy Jacques painted these portraits for the kids as a gift to hospice patients. She is amazing.
Evan is half way through 2nd grade and still enjoying school. He gets to sleep in each morning and come an hour or two late for school and then ride the bus home. He is very happy and loving. He can still eat a little bit of food by mouth, but that is getting much harder for him now. The bulk of his nutrition comes through the feeding tube. Overall, he is doing very well. He is so fun!
Loves his school friends!
Eli stays home with mom as he has for the past few years and enjoys his regular visitors and daily care. He responds to music, being read to and cuddled with. He is overall staying healthy, but continues to struggle with GM1 progression. His body just doesn't work in many ways like it used to. We take good care of him and continue to enjoy him every day. He probably sees angels on a daily basis, who knows! He is such a sweet boy.
Often very sleepy during the day
Jan 2019
Laya is in 7th grade now and really enjoying her small community school. She enjoys helping out at all the events at school. She loves to listen to music, read Rick Riordan books, keep a messy room :) and she loves her dogs! She was involved in theater and two musicals this last year along with Centerstage Singers (the youth singing group Marilee directs). She is a blast!
She's just a little crazy
Centerstage performance at the fair - April 2019
June 2019 Creative Dramatics performance, Laya was the "director"
Always creating something
Visiting Great Grandma Rae on her trip to Utah
So much fun in the pool!
On a hike with Dad
"A Ghost Tale for Mr. Dickens" Magic Tree House Collection
Laya was a main character "Annie" for the first half of the musical.
Laya singing a solo at the Zoo Lights Centerstage Performance
Halloween 2019
Writing music
U of A football game
Brad has been diligent at work, traveling more often than before and also working on projects around the house on the weekends. He enjoys learning more about photography and videography as he's been helping Marilee with her music projects. He loves to chat with Laya, watch movies with the family, take the dogs for walks and cuddle with the boys.
Brad was nominated again to be an engineer with "Honors" so here we are at awards night.
Photography
We are grateful for this beautiful time of year to celebrate Jesus Christ and wish you all peace and joy.
💗The Leishmans
