Christmas 2009

The girls in their Christmas dresses.

We wore our matching pajamas to Grandma's on Christmas Eve.

Our Christmas was just wonderful this year. It was so nice to have Gracie be strong, healthy, and happy this year. Plus she was actually into the excitement of opening presents and being around family, even though she could care less about the presents and just wanted to play with the paper and boxes.

Christmas eve we went up to Jason's parents' house for dinner, games, and a visit from Santa himself! Out of the six grandchildren there, four of them were so frightened by Santa that all they did was scream and cry. The other two, are still too young to really know what was going on. Poor Santa---I hope his feelings weren't hurt.

All the individual families got pictures with Santa. Any guesses on who Santa was?

Grandma sat in for Emily, since she had do work.

We spent Christmas morning at home. I hardly slept, I was too excited to see Morgan's excitement, I love that she can get into the joy, happiness, and magic of the season. In the morning we made Morgan wait for Gracie to wake up before allowing her to go down and see if Santa came. After she asked to go peak for the third time, we decided to wake Grace up and go down. Jason's parents and brother came down to see the girls open gifts, so we were able to get Morgan's reaction on tape. I absolutely love her dance, I thought of editing me out (so just pretend you can't see me), but then you wouldn't see Grace---she got a Mickey Mouse doll in her stocking and if you listen you could hear her excitement.

Traditions

Taking a break from helping with sugar cookies, to dance.



Gracie with a sugar cookie---she liked the frosting!!!

I am so excited that Morgan is old enough now to really get excited about Christmas and actually have fun with some traditions that I am hoping to form. This week we have been busy doing all sorts of fun activites. We made graham cracker houses, snowflakes, and even started making our christmas cookies.

Tonight we headed down to Thanksgiving Point to drive through the holiday light show there, its about a 10 minute drive. We have gone every year since Morgan was born and this year she enjoyed it so much more. We pulled both of the girls out of their carseats and had them on our laps during the drive, both of them squealed in delight at different times, oh it was so much fun to see them enjoy this tradition.

Finally settled in

Gracie's surgery went well, to quote Dr. Pohl, "it went amazingly smooth, I was surprised how easy it was!" I'm glad Grace was able to do something well, :)

We got up to the floor around 4:30pm and Gracie was miserable. With getting acquainted with the nurse and all that follows (ordering formula, medicine, and adding to doctor's orders) Gracie didn't get to rest until 6:30pm. She fell asleep in my arms, slept 40 minutes and then woke up screaming and was inconsolable for the next 45 minutes (the nurse got sidetracked and forgot about Gracie's tylenol, ugh!) We gave her a nice hefty dose of nubain and within 20 minutes she was calm, relaxed and just playing. We then gave her her 8pm meds, along with some loratab and benedryl, we are still waiting to actually feed her, they will start with some pedialyte at 10pm and if she tolerates that we will start a continous drip around 12am (poor thing hasn't had any forumula since 12am today). Provided she does well, they'll watch her till tomorrow afternoon and we should be home by 5pm, depending on the weather.

Here's a picture of my tired little baby (taken because Jay couldn't make it up and wanted to see her)....hopefully she will sleep well

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G-Tube surgery

Here I am yet again...the same day surgery waiting room. Gracie's surgery was scheduled at 2:30pm, but she wasn't taken back till about 3:15pm. It should be a rather short procedure, under an hour. It was interesting today was the first time that Grace has ever freaked out with nurses. During check-in anytime the nurse touched her to assess her she literally screamed at the top of her lungs, I think it is a combination of getting her RSV shot yesterday as well as recognizing the paper that is always on the tables at doctor's offices. Regardless, as soon as we were in the waiting area she perked up and played and laughed the entire wait. There were no tears as I left her at the operating doors...I kind of felt guilty because she has no idea what is happening, and I know she is going to be miserable afterwards. I just have to keep telling myself that this is for both mine and her benefit and soon we will both love it.

I'm so ready, I feel like every time I had to replace her NG I was just torchering her. Earlier this week I had to replace her tube because it was stretched out and leaking all over, as I did it, I thought to myself how happy I was that this would be the last time I would have to fight her, pin her down and just make her so mad. After I was done, I decided to save the lubricant tube---just in case.

Well not 30 minutes later, Gracie started fussing, yep she pulled out the silly tube. As I had to place the NG again she just looked at me with crocodite tears rolling down her cheeks as if to say will you just leave me alone. Oh how thrilled I am to not have to place this tube ever again!!

They should be calling me soon, so I'll update later, since we will be staying the night.

What's been going on?

We are here and have been rather busy this last month. We have been busy with several doctor's appointments, PT visits, and trying to just keep our heads above water. With all things considered we are all doing well. Jason is super busy with the Post Office these days, its hopeful that there are still people out there who are using the US Postal Services, regardless of their bad rep.

Morgan is growing so fast! This holiday season is so fun, she has such excitement and anticipation. She has started coming up with some of the most interesting things and stories, I absolutely love it. Lately she has been talking about how she has babies in her tummy---it's because her aunt just had twins and now she wants to be just like her. Morgan actually got to go and see the twins for the first time yesterday and held both of the babies at once, Morgan literally couldn't stop smiling.

I wish I had some good pictures of Morgan, but she is at that age where she is goofy everytime we pull out the camera.

Gracie is doing really well, though we didn't get the news we had hoped for after her cath, I really think that it still helped her. It seems as if Gracie has begun to excel in areas that she hasn't before, mostly physically. At 16 months Grace is finally sitting up on her own and for the most part enjoying it. She doesn't know how to get in to the sitting position, or really out of it. When she has had enough she just starts screaming until we lay her down. Gracie is rolling all over the place and actually is doing some back scooting and tummy scooting. She isn't doing the army crawl, she is still too weak in her arms to drag her weight. I'm in the process of trying to make a device similar to a "Johnny Jumper" that puts Grace on all fours, allowing her to bounce around and allowing me to get down with her and play with her face to face while she is in that position.

We found out Gracie does not have scoliosis!!!! We also found out that her lung pressures are borderline, meaning if we don't get them lowered she will possibly not be a candidate for the third open heart surgery---fontan. But other than her pressures, from a cardiac stand point she is doing ok and now she just has to gain weight. We hope that by getting her the G-tube she will start gaining weight. Her surgery is Friday, and hopefully there will be no complications and we will be home Saturday. Since Gracie is just getting the g- tube and not a Nissen, the procedure is actually quite simple.

And as for me, I'm doing ok. I feel busy and overwhelmed, but that is nothing new. I'm grateful that I have Jason, though we are facing so many trials that cause us to wonder when will we ever get a break, having him to remind me of what really matters and how despite everything, we are loved by a Heavenly Father whose Plan is far more than just the normal day to day.