Merry Christmas, everyone!

On Freud and Fingers

If you go through all of our pictures, you will notice a pattern: In MOST of them, Darcy has her hands in her mouth and is biting her fingers. I'm not sure why this has developed, but I guess she's never broken out of what Freud called the "oral stage." I have recently tried different techniques to help her fingers (which are now raw and red) to heal. However, with Darcy, you never know what's going to work. One time in an effort to administer some creative correction, I put pepper on her tongue after she was using it to be snide. She looked up at me with excited, wide eyes and exclaimed, "I love that...what is it?" The next day she asked me for some more pepper.

My most recent attempt at healing her fingers was found in the cosmetics aisle at Wal-Mart: exfoliating gloves. When I catch her with her fingers in her mouth, chewing away, I make her put them on.

It seems as though little sister has picked up on her big sister's habits. Gracie, as of late, has found much entertainment in putting her little fingers down her throat and gagging herself. It is not a pretty sight as she loses, what appears to be, half her bottle in the process. Gracie faces a similar punishment when I find her resorting to these bulemic habits...winter gloves. So, here is a picture so I can always remember my girls at this strange stage of development.

Good Report

Room two was the place to be yesterday on the Cardiac Transition Unit as Gracie charmed the nurses with coos, laughs, and smiles.  At 6:00 that morning when she woke up screaming, I thought it would be the longest 4 hours of my life as she had to fast before the procedure.  She really surprised me by calming down and enduring without her bottle (singing some Andrew Peterson to her seemed to help).

Everything went great;  looking at her today you would never know what she went through yesterday.  The next open heart surgery will be sometime in early January.  Thank you to everyone who prayed;  we really feel like we aren't in this alone.

A Trooper

It's 10:00 Am and Gracie is getting ready to go back for an exploratory catheterization. She hasn't eaten since last night, but was amazingly cute and smiley during the prep time. She should be in the cath lab for about two hours, followed by a four hour recovery. Hopefully we will be out of the hospital by this evening.

Pre-Resolution-ing

Lately, I've been goal setting.  This is one of my favorite past times.  Every year I set goals in each domain of health:  emotional, mental, social, physical, and spiritual.

I realize this is a little extreme, but nonetheless...

So, I'm going to just go ahead and share the different things I want to focus on in 2011 as a way to make myself accountable to the blogging world (There couldn't be a better accountability partner, really).

1.  To take out time each week to write more and see where it leads (I'm thinking about changing to a better blog layout but need to talk to my digital media specialist friends about this....you know who you are....I need help and advice).
3.  Improve at photography (insert SHOUT OUT to Kristen Marks here for the photography lesson this week).
4.  Train and see how fast I can run a 5k (not sure which distance I should train for)
5.  Learn to play the guitar
6.  Complete digital scrapbooks from the past 2 years
7.  Have 12 piano lessons with Haley

This is not a complete list.....this is just a brainstorming session that precedes the actual New Years Resolution list.  Does anyone else do this..?

GG

Gracie has a heart Catheterization tomorrow in Charlottesville. After this procedure, they will be able to tell when open heart surgery #2 will be. Please pray for our family's peace and strength, Gracie's recovery, and our marriage as there will be a lot of added stressors to add to the equation. Please also pray for me (Annie) to be able to sleep through the night again.

The Secrets of a Telecommuter

Colby has been working from his home office a lot lately.  I love having him around for breakfast and an occasional lunch break.  It was especially fun to see how he dressed for a skype appointment last week...

New Gracie Tricks!

Gracie is learning to sit-up....

.............well................

...........kind of.....I thought it would be mean to post the picture of the face plant.

She's not sure what to think, but I'm trying to get her used to sitting at the table with us!