COEUR d'ALENE - After decorating the children's section of Forest Cemetery on Monday, the Preston family sent balloons to heaven in remembrance of daughter and sister Jovi.

Jovi died unexpectedly in 2012 when she was 16 weeks old. Monday would have been her third birthday.

"We're celebrating the life she lived instead of focusing on the bad," said Molly, Jovi's mother. "Obviously, it's a sad day but we want to make the best of it in celebration of her life. It was very good while she was here."

In celebration of the anniversary, Molly, her husband Daniel and their children Cash and Lila performed random acts of kindness on the day and invited friends and family to do the same.

"Jovi brought so much good, joy and love to our family and friends in her 116 days here that we want to share that love around the world," the J is for Jovi Facebook page states.

Liz Montgomery, executive director of the Inland Northwest SIDS Foundation, said not too many years ago it wasn't considered socially proper to discuss sudden infant death syndrome or sleep-related infant deaths.

The regional SIDS group wasn't even founded until 2012.

But, thanks to impacted families opening up to discuss and share their tragedies, social media and government's desire to standardize and improve data collected at infant death scenes, huge strides have been made on awareness of SIDS and sudden unexpected infant death (SUID), Montgomery said.

"We just woke up," Montgomery said. "It was pretty taboo to talk about death, let alone infant deaths. But our generation has said, 'Yeah, it's OK to talk about it because, you know what, it hurts and affects a lot of people."

The foundation, which has posted the names and photos of 40 area infants who have died unexpectedly, offers support and education for families.

Montgomery is encouraged about the new federal law requiring states to follow the same protocol to determine the cause of infant deaths.

"It's important because now we'll be able to know our true SIDS deaths and that will help our researchers," she said. "Right now every county does something different and every state does something different."

SUID is a broad category referring infant deaths, and SIDS is a sub-category of that. For a death to be considered caused by SIDS, the baby has to be found on its back in its crib with no health history. The autopsy and toxicology reports also have to be inconclusive.

"A true SIDS death is actually extremely rare," Montgomery said.

Montgomery said she wishes she would had the education on SUID and SIDS that families are just now receiving when her son Mason died when he was 5 months old.

Mason died on the couch at a friend and babysitter's house and Montgomery declined to bring over a portable crib when the babysitter asked.

"I said, 'Oh, he's fine taking a nap on the coach,'" she said. "Had I known what I know now there's no way I'd let him sleep on a couch because babies can roll into the back cushions. I just had no idea."

But, despite the strides in awareness, education and research, Montgomery said there's a lot of room for improvement in our area.

"We've had nine infant deaths this winter in our area and the entire state averages about 20 a year," she said, adding that the foundation receives referrals to assist affected families. "That makes us sad, but it also recharges us. We need to bring even more awareness to the problem."

Montgomery said families such as the Prestons - and about 900 friends and others who said they'd support them by also doing random acts of kindness in remembrance of Jovi - are encouraging.

This was the second year the Prestons invited folks to participate during the anniversary of Jovi's birthday.

"I've been blown away at the support," Molly said.

Daniel said the love for others while remembering Jovi has helped him cope with the tragedy.

"You always think that your kids will bury you, not the other way around," he said softly. "But we've also felt a lot of grace and peace from people who have helped us."