A weeks worth of updates...

A week's worth of updates…  Grace had her second cardiology appointment on Wednesday.  I wasn't able to attend because it wasn't first thing in the morning and I had to work.  It's always hard for me to take, trust, and rest with information that is filtered through my amazing, outstanding, world class, and basically phenomenal husband (and Daddy) because I like to hear things with my own two ears and ask a thousand questions :-), however, it sounds like our wonderful cardiologist is still blown away by how different and great Grace's heart sounds!  Praise the Lord!  It just so happens that our old cardiologist (remember, she broke my heart a number of times and didn't do a very good job of making us feel like we had options or even a say in Grace's care, however, God used her in our lives in a big way :-) was the one reading echo's on Wednesday, so she got to see Grace's new and improved WHOLE ticker (not half a heart).  We trust that God can, will, and has used our journey as a teachable moment for us and so many others (in the medical field and otherwise)!

Drunk Grace after her sedated echo...

For the first time in 4 months…  Grace slept through the night 3 nights this week!  You know that the first words out of my mouth when our morning alarm went off was "David!  Hurry!  Go make sure Grace is still breathing!!!"  We continue to praise the Lord for such a welcome and wonderful break through!

We went to a fundraiser at Andrew's school, that we look forward to every year, and Grace couldn't decide if she loved Swatson the Skeeter's mascot (she waved to him all night) or if she was terrified of him (she was mortified if he got too close, check out her face in the pic).  

Both Abigail and Andrew are anti getting their face painted for some reason, but Abigail had a heart painted on her face for Grace (it was truly a sacrificial act :-).

I've had the pleasure of co-coaching Abigail's cheerleading team, beginning the past couple of weeks, and they performed their first pom routine at the game yesterday.  I'm so proud of these girls…

In case you can't tell, Abby is the little one in the front :-)

Andrew was a little, or a lot, distracted the first half of his basketball game, but after a pep talk from daddy, he did FANTASTIC the second half!  So proud of him!

Andrew and I continue to battle this annoying cough that gets worse every time the weather changes, which is so very frustrating (especially living in Texas where it is literally freezing and then the next day in the 70's), but I keep trying to tell myself that the coughing is a good ab work out, so that pretty much counts as going to the gym, right?  Will you please pray for health for our family, especially Grace, because she likes to give her germaphobe momma a near heartache with her desire to lick restaurant tables, etc.  When we try to redirect her, she gives us a rascally smile and tries to do it again.  Lord give us the strength and patience to parent this sweet and rascally angel :-).

We have spent the weekend watching old (HILARIOUS) videos of the kids, having light saber wars, making paper airplanes, family movie night (we watched Hook, one of our favorite movies), leading worship for the Children's Ministry, and we are looking forward to watching the Super Bowl, but can't decide who to root for :-/.  We agreed that we will let Grace decide once the game starts.  We will get behind whatever team Grace cheers for first.

Speaking of Grace and cheering, I LOVE that a number of cheer gyms have a special needs cheer squad and NCA cheer competitions even have a special needs cheer division.  SAY WHAT?!?!  Between the Sparkle Effect (the program that helps organize special needs cheer squads at public high schools) and these All Star cheer gyms that I recently learned about, I can barely contain my excitement.  Check out the video of these fierce and precious cheerleaders that I found on YouTube…

Hey Village!  Not a day goes by that we don't talk about y'all as a family, pray for you, and praise God for you.  Will you please pray that Grace continues to sleep through the night, that her liver enzymes get back into normal range by her next blood test in 2 weeks (they think the reason that they went out of whack is because she had a cold, we hope that's all that it was), that she will be interested in eating people food again, her vomiting would stop, that she will take off in her crawling, etc (she's been on sternal precaution for the past 8 weeks making it difficult to work on crawling, etc), that she and the rest of the family would be healthy, and of course that her heart stays healthy.  I know that's a pretty full prayer list, but I wanted to to make sure to share everything on my heart.  Even if you just pray for one of these items, we would be super grateful!  THANK YOU SO MUCH, SWEET VILLAGE!!!