Playing Catch Up

We've been busy this summer, so I am playing catch up with this post!  


At the end of June, we helped celebrate Grace's friend and future husband Walker's first birthday!  He had a splash party, and we had so much fun!

 Making a splash!

 The birthday boy was busy splashing too!

I recently got to see one of my oldest friends, Lauren.  When I say "oldest," I mean we met in the seventh grade in Coach Murphy's class (17 or 18 years ago!).  We surprised Lauren at her work!  It was great to see her!  Please pray for Lauren, her husband Chris, and their baby Evan.  At 20 weeks pregnant (in April), they found out that Evan has anencephaly.  Her blog is http://funtimeswithshearow.blogspot.com/. 


We celebrated Independence Day by spending time with family and friends.  We went to Pickwick, went swimming, and had a fish fry.  Grace enjoyed the fried fish and all the good sides that came with it!  We enjoyed celebrating Independence Day as we remembered what the day is about, celebrating our country's freedom!

 Grace was posing

My twin sister Kristen and me

 Also since my last post, I turned the big 3-0!  I worked on my birthday, so we forgot to take pictures.  :(  I celebrated by spending time with family, getting taken out to dinner by Lyndsey and Suzanne, enjoying lunch and cake thanks to my coworkers, and getting visited at work by Chad and Grace!  This is going to be a GOOD decade!  :)


Grace has been doing great in therapy!  First of all, she is almost there with crawling!  Our newest focus is teaching her to get into the crawl position on her own and keeping her legs at a 90 degree angle to her body while in the crawl position (she likes to have her legs/knees/feet under her like a frog).  She got really upset in PT this week (and last week), but she did really good.  Our PT wants Grace to be able to get into the crawl position on her own by next week!  We have a lot of work to do, but I know she can do it!  She also did great in OT last week!  Our newest focus there is teaching her to pull objects to herself by pulling the string that is attached to them.  Make sense?  Apparently this is a big skill to learn.  I think she'll do it very soon!  We also saw our ST last week (we only see her as needed).  Grace continues to have issues with taking in liquids in any way other than her bottles.  I was hoping we could start teaching her to drink through a straw, but our ST says we are not ready for that yet.  We will continue what we are currently doing (teaching her to drink at the edge of a cup) and get her less sensitive to things on/in her mouth.  


This past weekend, Chad and I had our first date night in a long time, and we decided to take a family picture before our date!  We also took pictures of the cousins on Sunday after church.  Enjoy!

 Grace was busy trying to take her shoes and socks off

 Pretty girl in her dress from Aunt Susie all the way from Thailand!

Ok, I think that about catches you up!  Please continue to pray for Grace!  There is a list of prayer requests on the right side of my blog.  Thank you!

I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. Isaiah 46:4

Crawling Update Take 2

So, we didn't quite meet our goal of crawling unassisted by the time we saw our PT again.  But, Grace did the best she's ever done for crawling in PT yesterday!  Here's the proof :)  You can hear me say "Oh, wow" in the background.  Ha!  I'm very proud of my baby girl! 

Crawling Update

Grace did her first few UNASSISTED crawls in PT this morning!  It was a "breakthrough," as our PT said! We were so excited!  Grace celebrated by throwing a big, old-fashioned fit.  :(  Oh well.  I hope this is the beginning of her crawling on her own!  Please pray that by the next time we see our PT (2 weeks from today bc she will be out of town next week), that GRACE WILL BE CRAWLING!  We have a lot of work to do in order to get there.  Our PT told me to "shove crawling down Grace's throat".  Please pray for strength, perseverance, and motivation. 

Thank you! 

Grace is 15 months old!

Wow...time is flying by!  Our baby girl is 15 months old!  When did this happen?  I just blinked!

Grace is doing great!  She is big cousin to baby Lydia.  Her personality grows and grows with every new day.  She is silly, feisty, funny, smart, stubborn, and sweet.

She is eating like a big kid these days.  She eats pretty much everything we do.  We are still working on increasing her liquid intake and weaning her from her beloved bottles.  She still take 2 bottles a day, and we will slowly work to take those away.  She still will not use a sippy cup (she drinks from the edge of a cup), but she doesn't totally refuse it now.  This is a small step in the right direction.  We are still working on self feeding.  We are so not there yet, but I know she will learn this skill when she's ready.  For now, I just feed her like a momma bird!  :)

Grace is so close to crawling on her own.  She just can't figure out her arms.  She reaches for everything these days, so the motivation is there (finally).  The newest skill we are working on is pulling up.  She really is doing well with this, and she is getting stronger and stronger.  Our PT says we will stay with crawling/pulling up for a while.  There is a lot of development that happens with these skills, so we will hold off on walking for a while.  I can't wait to see her cute diaper booty crawling around my house!  Hello, baby proofing! 

Grace is doing great with OT.  She is consistently holding objects for 15 seconds and using both hands to hold a rattle at midline.  These were her long term goals, and they are met!  Our OT is working on her new plan of care with harder goals.  Grace is also easily putting her paci in her mouth, using both hands together very well, and transferring objects from hand to hand.  She also is getting better at not putting objects behind her.  The newest things we are working on is putting objects back in a bowl, taking rings off/putting them back on her ring stacker, and playing with shaving cream/whipped cream.

Other random facts about our 15 month old:
-she wears size 18-24 month clothes and size 5 diapers
-she loves our dog, Maddy
-she is working on saying momma consistently at the moment
-she loves her toy piano, ring stacker, baby, beads, bowl, rattles
-she enjoys watching Dora, Veggie Tales, and Sesame Street
-her new favorite game is "Ride the Little Horsey"
-she takes at least one nap a day, sometimes two
-she loves her blankie and pacis
-she enjoys bathtime and loves playing with her bath toys
-she loves "reading" books
-she recently found the edge of the bed
-she loves being outside

I think that catches everyone up on our precious little one.  Enjoy some pictures!  :)

 Meeting cousin Lydia

This was at the fetal medicine reunion.  Grace loved the Braves' mascot!

Sweet punkin

P.S.  I promise I take more pictures of my child...they are just usually on my i phone!

Lydia is HOME!

My niece Lydia is home as of yesterday!  We are so happy that our "Golden family" is all back together!

Lydia is doing well.  She will be on medications for at least a year, and several doctors following her.  But she is just acting like a regular little newborn!  This is a big change from even just a week ago when I was her nurse!

As we learned in Vacation Bible School last night, nothing is too difficult for our God!  We taught the kids (third and fourth graders) the story in Joshua 3 and 4, when the river stood still.  Of course, as always, I learned so much through the Bible story as well (maybe even more than the kids)!  In this Scripture, Joshua selected 12 men, one man from each tribe of Israel.  He told the men: "The priests will carry the ark of the covenant to lead the people.  When the feet of the priests touch the Jordan River, the waters will stop flowing and stand up to make a path through the river."

The Israelites followed the priests to the bank of the Jordan River.  As the priests walked into the river, the water stopped flowing.  The water piled up, making a dry path to the other shore.  The priests stood in the same spot until all the Israelites were safely on the other side of the river.  Joshua told the 12 men whom he had selected to each take a stone from the middle of the river.  He instructed the men to carry the stones on their shoulders to the place where they would camp for the night.  Joshua also set up 12 stones where the priests had stood.  Once the priests had crossed and stepped onto the shore, the river began to flow again.

The Israelites camped near Jericho that night.  They made a memorial with the 12 stones from the river.  Joshua told the people that the stone memorial would serve as a reminder to the people and future generations of God's power.

Joshua 4: 24 "He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God."

I love that the waters stopped flowing when the feet of the priests touched the Jordan River.  God tested their faith.  I can't imagine what they were thinking.  I know I what I would be thinking.  Couldn't the waters have stopped flowing when they got close to the river?!  Our God knew they needed to experience His power in this way...their feet had to touch it.

I also love that their path was dry!  They didn't cross at ankle height.  They didn't cross by wading.  The path wasn't even damp!  It was dry!  Our God is POWERFUL!

Our God is STILL powerful TODAY!  He has taught me this over and over again, but of course the best example in my life came on March 4, 2011 in a 7 pound, 1 ounce bundle of baby. 

Every life is a miracle.  Every life is precious and helps us to know and experience God's power.

Here's another example of God's power!  This is a picture of Lydia at HOME!  Praise God!

Lydia Transition Update

Lydia has now been in the transition unit of our children's hospital since Sunday.  She continues to make progress!  I actually got to be her nurse the past two days, and it was my honor! 


Here are the updates from her mom, Lori.

Monday: Lydia had another good night!  She got moved to another unit yesterday.  She is still being monitored, and access is still pretty restricted, but it's a step closer to home!  She still has a lot of goals to meet before then, but it feels good to know we are on the right track.  I came home to give Jaycie some much needed attention while Jason stayed with the baby girl last night.  Jaycie has been a real trooper, but is having a hard time only having one of us home at the time.  Thank you all for your continued prayers!  So thankful for each day.

Tuesday: Lydia seemed to have a good night last night.  Trying to adjust the dose of seizure medicine she is on, and they are doing an EEG now to determine seizure activity level.  She was more awake last night which was so sweet.  I'm ready to hear her cry, see her eat, do the things a baby is supposed to do, but I know those things will come in time.  Thank you for your continued prayers for Lydia and our family!

Wednesday: Lydia had another good night.  She took a bottle!!  If she can maintain a good eating schedule they will stop tube feedings.  We are seeing progress every day!  Still no word on EEG results from yesterday, and we are still trying to get all seizure meds balanced.  The Lord's definitely got some big plans for this little girl!


Thank you SO much for your prayers for this precious little girl and our family!  We are blessed with great prayer friends!

Here are some pictures of our sweet Lydia! 

 Look mom, no oxygen---wide awake in the middle of the night

 Sweet family of four

Eating by mouth and loving it

Lydia PICU Day 3

Lydia had a great night with her mom and dad!  She is not changing by leaps and bounds, but she made a couple of steps in a very positive direction last night.  The doctors remain positive about how she is doing!  We want to thank you for the prayers.  Lori and Jason say they feel comforted by them and are seeing them working!

This is my prayer in the battle, when triumph is still on its way; I am a CONQUEROR and co-heir with Christ!  So firm on His promise I'll stand!

I will bring praise! I WILL BRING PRAISE!  No weapon formed against me shall remain.  I will rejoice!  I will declare God is my VICTORY and HE IS HERE!