MONDAY, 10/15/07

AAAggghhhh........what a whirlwind of a month we've had and I'm sorry but I still can't post any pictures! Our "good" laptop died on us and that is where we uploaded all the pictures to last week! We're sure hoping & praying that it just needs a new battery pack! I'm using the keyboard from our broken screen laptop that Scott is running to our PC monitor! Talk about being creative! Anyway, we started moving things into our house on 9/24; only 9 days after we brought Gracie home from the hospital. We are about half unpacked but pretty much completely disorganized and totally frazzled!! We had a scare at Gracie's post-op follow-up...she had a bunch of fluid that had pooled up in the lining of her left lung again. They told us to come back in 5 days and if it wasn't clearing up then we would have to take her back to Spokane for a catheter procedure to drain it again. We prayed hard and asked many of you to pray hard too and God answered our prayers!! When we took her back almost ALL of the fluid was gone!!!! She has another apt. next Wed. and if it's still cleared up then I think she will be taken off the lasix medication. She is doing fabulous!!! She started trying to walk again pretty much as soon as we got her home from the hospital and is now walking more than she is crawling. She has gained another pound since surgery so is now 19 pounds. This is still quite small for her age, 18 months next week, but she is gaining weight much quicker now. Her hair has grown a little but we're considering Rogaine--hee, hee. We realized when we got her home from surgery that she had EIGHT teeth that were breaking through and she never acted fussy at all!!! What a trooper! She has learned to say duh (done) & baa (bye) in addition to her other words and can point to the parts on her face. She totally understands English now and follows directions really well unless she doesn't want to of course. Kaleb, Lucas and Chloe are so good with her and make her laugh all the time. The biggest issue is with Chloe wanting to coddle and baby her and Gracie will have NONE of that!!! She does get quite jealous if we are giving any of them our full attention but they are mostly very patient and foriving of that. She definitely has a stubborn streek like most toddlers but she is a very playful, happy, fun-loving and sweet little angel.