It's all becoming so real now that we have a date...

While still technically tentative...  WE HAVE A SURGERY DATE!!!  We are waiting for scheduling to call to confirm the dates that they tentatively gave us last week are official, but at this point it looks like we will have pre-op on Monday, October 7th, MRI and Heart Catheter on Tuesday, October 8th and then surgery on Thursday, October 10th.  Now that we have dates, our flights out there, hotel booked, etc, it is starting to feel so real!  There really isn't a ton of planning that we can do outside of getting ourselves and Grace to Boston because there is no telling what the road will be like once we are there.  They say to plan on Grace being in the hospital for 2-3 months, so it's hard for me to wrap my mind (and heart) around the uncertainty of her recovery, being split up as a family, the kids starting a new school year during all the craziness (nothing can be more crazy than my water breaking just after dropping Abigail off on her FIRST day of Kindergarten last year), the financial side of this journey as a whole, etc, so we continue to cling tightly to the Lord trusting in His provision and relying on the prayers of our village to sustain us!  And the roller coaster continues, but here are some recent highlights that can been seen while on this crazy, but amazing roller coaster...

Grace is babbling more, but her vocabulary has exploded over the past couple weeks as she has put consonants and vowels together (some of our favorites include ma ma and da da... :-).  She can also wave, give high fives (this isn't a new trick, but it's still worth mentioning), and sign "all done." Since eating isn't her favorite activity (I don't know how that can be the case because the Lord knows it's my favorite activity) she likes to try to tell us that she's all done after just a few bites, but after we count down her bites when she's almost done (2 more bites, now 1 more bite), she is quick to remind us that she is "all done."  She puts her arms out when she wants to be picked up and puts her arms out for hugs (another one of my favorites :-).  She can sit up on her own and she's getting closer to crawling (she can get to where she wants to go, but hasn't quite figured out how to put all of the pieces to crawling together, yet).  These milestones may not sound super impressive for an almost 12 month old, but for a 12 month old with Up's and having been through 2 major open heart surgeries, we feel like they are certainly worth celebrating!!!  Praise the Lord for such a sweet view from all the loops and big drops of our divinely designed roller coaster....  Hey!  Maybe we should name our roller coaster...

We have our next cardiology appointment on Tuesday of this week.  Will you please pray that everything looks good/stable?  I have to admit, I always go into these appointments with a little fear that something will concern her Dr's enough to say that we need to be admitted to the hospital here or go to Boston sooner for surgery.

Praying that you and your family are having a great weekend and enjoying the view from your roller coaster (we all have one, right?).

Abigail is such an amazing big sister for so many reasons, but one of the sweetest is the way that she sings to Grace.  Here she is singing Grace, her favorite song "Amazing Grace."

Andrew is always kissing on his baby sister...

Here is Gracie and her best friend/Daddy today at the movies.  We went to see Planes.  Super cute movie by the way...