4 month old check up and a little more...

I pray that 2013 has been good to y'all so far!  I had every intention of posting tonight with an update on Gracie's 4 month check, as well as a good bit of the emotions that I've been dealing with the past week or so; however, this evening has sucked every bit of energy out of me (more on that in a minute), so this will be short and sweet, but I promise that there is a post in my heart that I want to share with you (when I have a little more energy and brain power).  So... the reason for our increased exhaustion tonight is thanks to our littlest angel Grace!  She has to be the sweetest and most laid back baby that I have ever known.  She hardly fusses and when she does it is for a definite reason, like I'm starving, I have gas, or I'm ready to do something else because the novelty of this swing has worn off :-).  Her fussing starts out as little meow's (hence her nickname Kitty) and as long as you respond to her meow's within a reasonable time, she is happy.  HOWEVER, if she is over due to eat and overly hungry, she will have what we call a FUSS BOMB!  Now this has only happened a hand full of times, but tonight was the absolute worst we have ever experienced.  She went longer than normal between feedings tonight and we really didn't get any meow warnings because she would sleep and then wake up and want to hang out and then go back to sleep, so we messed up by not just feeding her and waiting for her cue....  Well her cue was, bypass all meow's and drop a 40 minute fuss bomb out of nowhere that was full of inconsolable screaming with a blue face!  That's one way to scare the life out of your Mommy and Daddy!  I forgot to mention that on top of being hungry, she had her 4 month old check up today, so she got 2 shots that the Dr warned us would be painful, so to give her Tylenol on a schedule.  Well, we tried to do Tylenol on a schedule, but little miss social was too busy smiling, cooing, and pushing the medicine out of the sides of her mouth (this isn't due to a mommy and daddy that don't know creative medicine giving techniques because after all we give her medicine 6 times a day :-).  Needless to say, she wasn't getting full doses of Tylenol and she was starving, so she brought us to our knees, begging God for wisdom and favor since we were debating taking her to the ER.  By God's grace, after about 40 minutes she calmed down, being bounced and patted on her back by Daddy and watching Tinkerbell up close (literally inches away from the tv).  What ever works, right?

Now for the 4 month old stats!  Drum roll please...  on the "typical" chart she is exactly what Abigail was at this age, 10th% weight and 5th% height.  Now on the "Up's" chart (remember they have a separate chart because they tend to be smaller) she is in the 80th% for weight and 50th% for height (so basically she is a big circle- short and round :-).  I'm so proud of her weight because I always worry if she doesn't finish her whole bottle, while her Daddy takes it all in stride (like everything else).  They have said from the beginning that weight gain is very important in heart babies because lack of gaining weight is a sign of a sick heart and when it comes to surgery, the more tissue they have to work with the better.  Well,  Grace certainly got that memo!  Praise be to God!!!  

Here is the big 4 month old...

Here are some of my favorite pictures from Christmas break (for those that have seen some of these on Facebook, I apologize :-)!

This is one of our new family traditions (as long as Grace can be sold on being the elf), it's called "Gracie Elf" (instead of Elf on the Shelf), we hide Grace somewhere in the house and the kids have to find her and when they do they get the present that she's holding.  We did this on Christmas Adam (the night before Christmas Eve:) and Christmas Eve.  The first night we hid her in one of the baby strollers in the play room and she was holding the game Jenga (I wish I thought to take a picture of her in the stroller, it was precious)...

 The second bight she tried to blend in with the stuffed animals on Abby's bed and she was holding this bird house thing that the kids wanted...

We cheered on the Niners with Lu Lu...

We had a reenactment of the Christmas story with all of the Cousins.  Grace was on her best behavior since she was cast as the star of the show (I guess their wasn't a lot of competition, but she took her role very seriously).  Abigail was thrilled to get to be Mary because she thought it was so special to get to play Grace/baby Jesus' Mommy and then there is Andrew...  He was given the choice to be Joseph, a Wise Man or a Shepard and in typical Andrew fashion he said he wanted to be a sheep.  He also took his part very serious as he allowed his Grandpa to tape cotton balls on his face (this is the same kid that is all kinds of drama when it comes to pulling bandaids off).  All that being said it was a sweet time!

Here is our Daddy's girl with her world class Daddy, just hanging out...

This is one of my favorite pictures because I can't tell who is more excited about Partysaurus Rex...  Andrew or his Grandpa sitting right behind him.  Also, Abigail has learned she needs to have cat like reflexes around her crazy (but so sweet) brother...

 Here are my middle and big angel with their favorite Christmas gift...

We did a lot of snuggling...

 Just being cute...

And snuggling some more...

Abigail had a sleep over with her best friend Ju Ju... 

Last night we had a family movie night and slumber party in the living room to kick off the end of Christmas break and going back to school (of course we didn't know that the paparazzi was taking this picture, but glad he did :-)...

Well, now you're caught up on what we have been up to for the past few weeks.  I look forward to catching you up on some lows and lows (just kidding, there were a few highs) that I have had this past week, as I have been contemplating God's plan for Grace's future (as well as the rest of our family).  The high is simple and unchanging, God is soverign and can only do good (good being defined as what He knows is best case scenario for our sanctification), so what ever His plan is, it will be good! Not easy (because easy doesn't = good) or without pain (because pain draws us to the thrown of grace), but GOOD (in a way that only God can do)!