The Glenn

That's the name of the surgery Gracie is having tomorrow morning. For the curious reader you can go check it out. For the rest of you, it will suffice to say that it is a 4-5 hour open-heart surgical procedure that will help Gracie maintain a tolerable Oxygen saturation in her blood for the next couple of years. If all goes well, we should be looking at a 4-6 day stay at UVA Hospital in Charlottesville, VA. Stay tuned for updates throughout the day and thank you for your support and prayers.

Arranged Friendship

This is Gracie's BFF, Ainsley (Josh and Jadey Burke's daughter), who came over to play. She was born less than a month after Gracie. I think--by default--they will be friends for life.

Pros and Cons of Homeschooling

PROs
1.  Being able to spend cold mornings inside by the fireplace talking about Egypt, mummies, souls, pyramids, and the afterlife.  (Yes, we still have our Christmas tree up.  Don't judge me.)
CONs
1.  Having a mountain of unused toilet paper on the bathroom floor for the next week.

Thank you, Aunt Jennie...

...for my new Jumper. As you can see, It's giving me a good workout. Soon I'll have strong neck muscles and not almost fall out of the leg holes!

The wife of a preacher-man

Yup...I married a good one.  If you want, you can even listen to Colby's messages at the church website.  Type in Esther into the search box at the bottom of the page to listen to his sermon on the book of Esther, otherwise you'll see the most recent one (on one of the hardest books of the Bible, Zechariah) there in the audio files.

Here's to 2010

I am pretty happy with my digital scrapbook for this year;  however, I wanted to rearrange the page order and couldn't figure out how to do it.  It allows for some creativity, but conveniently allows you to choose a page layout and background.  Lots of options.  You can finish an entire year of scrap booking in...approximately...6-10 hours (depending on how much of a perfectionist you are).  I think that's worth it!
Here's the link: The Best of 2010

Happy New Year

The tradition continues...

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.