Sleeping through the night...

I am sure I will now jinx us, but Grace has slept through the night the last two nights. Last night the best by far sleeping from about 10-7. I woke up a couple of times worried about her and went and checked on her and made sure she was breathing and she was fine. The last time she did this she was only two months old and that didn't last long. We are hoping she continues to sleep so well because it was nice for us too! Maybe it is the new pajamas, maybe she is just growing up and knowing that mommy needs sleep too. Either way I love it. I found her on Thursday morning sleeping away with her butt in the air.

Last week we got a book from Aunty K - Berenstein Bears - Aunty K's favorite books while growing up. While reading to Grace she thought it was more fun to eat the book. Any and everything goes in her mouth these days. Those teeth ought to pop up anyday now.

We have been working on Grace learning how to use a cup. She loves to drink water and is somewhat getting the hang of it. Of course in the end she mostly just likes to bang the cup on her tray.

And here is just some general cuteness.

And finally I loaded the videos onto our compter. Grace's new favorite thing to do is blow raspberries - while she is eating dinner of course. I am starting to think we should wear bibs too! Hopefully this works.

Otherwise life in our world is pretty normal. We stared her eye drops and she has gotten smart already and fights me tooth and nail in the morning when I try to put the drop in. No sign that it is working yet, but hopefully it will soon and that she won't fight me so much to get it in!

This week we will work on building her highchair that Grandma G got her - thank you mom - and getting her new car seat installed in my car - hopefully it isn't to difficult.

Have a great weekend!

Eye Checkup Update

Grace saw Dr. Braverman yesterday to check on how her glasses are working out. It looks like her prescription is about right now for where it needs to be for her to see out of her right eye. Unfortunately the patching we have been doing isn't working very well mostly because Grace won't tolerate for it long. We now have to "medically patch" her. This basically means we have to put eye drops into her good eye to blur her vision to make her use (and get her brain used to) bad eye. If this doesn't work after 3 months we are looking at another surgery to move the muscle to bring her eye more center which would make her eye look more normal, but also have it be a bit easier for her brain to know to use that eye and that it can see now. After 7 months of not using it, I am not surprised that we now have to endure this adventure.

The pharmacy didn't have the drops yesterday so we will probably start this treatment either tomorrow or Saturday. Here is hoping she does okay with it and doesn't lose it too much. And that is works! I would love to not have her endure another surgery. Sadly, my mother intuition tells me this surgery will happen anyway for some reason.

Otherwise we get a break from this doctor for 3 months. I would love one whole month where she doesn't have to see any doctor, but it appears that might not happen until April since we have an appointment next month with the retina specialist again to have him check her too. Oh well - it might happen someday!

A time to be grateful.

A local radio station (Alice 105,9) we listen to does a charity event called 36 hours for kids every year.  This event benefits the Children's Hospital here in Denver - where Grace had her 5 surgeries and we still go to for clinic visits. Last year we decided to donate as hopefully gaining good karma that our child would never have to go there - unfortunately she has.  Brian & I feel very grateful to have a place that is as renowned as the Children's Hospital to take Grace too for treatment to get sight out of her right eye. Her treatment there has been phenomenal. Even when we had to spend the night with her at the hospital after the first surgery it was amazing to see the care she was getting and the concern they had for us as parents making sure we were doing okay.

For these 36 hours they are sharing different stories of children who have had care at the hospital. Many of these stories are about heart defects and cancer. It really makes you take a step back and realize that we should be thankful for our healthy child and that thankfully Grace hasn't been there for anything life threatening.

If you have some spare money or want to make a tax deductible donation we would love it. You can even do it in honor of Grace. This is one non-profit we will stand behind for a long time. We joke that we donate all the time with our monthly payment plan check, but really we happily donated some money this year and are grateful we can due to both of us still having our jobs.

Learn why this is a great organization. Why give?

Donate Now

Happy 7 month Birthday Grace!

Feet - I love my feet!

Back to Normal

The antibiotics have kicked in and Grace is getting back to her old self. It has been nice to have our happy baby back who plays and laughs and gives you great big smiles. Here is one fun shot taken while she was still under the weather. Huckleberry was very nice to oblige while Grace took a ride.

And here are some geezy smiles she has had while playing lately. So flipping cute!

In other news, Brian took Huck to get his staples out from his accident, but the vet only took about 10 of them out and left the rest in to do some more healing, but this time they didn't wrap them up which meant Huck has had to wear a cone the last few days. Huck is not happy about it.

Poor guy keeps running into things. Brian took him to the vet tonight to see about getting the rest of his staples out. The staples are out and he can take a break from the cone if he doesn't lick his wound to much. Something tells me we will be putting that collar back on because he loves to lick.

On Valentine's Day we woke up to some snow and spent the day cleaning/disinfecting the house of germs now that everyone is almost healthy again. I made homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs as well as brownies for dessert. Once we got the house clean we spent the rest of the day relaxing. Grace wants to know if you will be her Valentine?

And finally going through recent photos I realized there is hardly any of me with Grace. Makes sense since I am the primary photo taker, but Brian captured this one on  Saturday - I have to say it is my new favorite of me and my darling little girl.

Coming up this week is a visit with Grace's eye doctor to check out how the glasses are working out. And I plan to finally figure out how to load the videos we have been taking of Grace on our new video camera we got from Santa. Stay tuned.

Vote for Grace!

I entered her in a contest to get on a magazine cover and I think you can win scholarship money as well. Let's face it, when she gets to college it is going to be expensive so mine as well try and win a little for her. Click on the link below to vote for her.

Vote Now

First Ear Infection

Grace started with her a cold a little over a week ago. The first trip to the doctor, they said it was just a cold. This time around they found an ear infection - her first. So now she is on antibiotics and still pretty cranky. We are home again today and I am hoping she recovers quickly and gets back to being a happy baby. I hate seeing her so sad. I am just glad we finally know what is going on with her. She was even feeling so sick and tired that she fell asleep playing.

But like mom and dad she does like to watch TV while not feeling so hot.

Now Brian & I are not feeling so hot, so hopefully our colds pass quickly. We are ready to have a healthy house again.

In other news, Huck got injured this week. He was out running with another neighbor dog, jumped off a ledge and cut his leg open. We couldn't get the bleeding to stop so Brian took him to the vet - 15 staples later he was home.

We are hoping for a much quieter rest of the month with everyone being healthy and no more visits to doctors or vets!

Being cute is rough!

Grace continues to adjust to her glasses and is now much better about not taking them off her face, except when she is tired. We took her out to the mall this weekend to try out our new stroller and I can't even tell you how many people walked by and were like oh look at that cute baby with glasses - she was a celebrity. I think it is nice to know that our child can make people smile -  makes the world a better place.

This last week we started to give Grace a teething biscuit to "gum" if you will while she has her dinner. The doctor recommended this so that she starts getting used to picking up food off her tray. She isn't quite sure what to think of it yet, but she is getting the concept of putting it in her mouth.

Grace has been great about going to sleep on her own. We have had a few tough nights recently though with her waking more. She appears to maybe have a little cold and/or is teething so we are hoping that her sleeping longer stretches will come back soon. And that she isn't so cranky! Little thing is so fragile right now. Here is hoping the tooth comes in soon or this cold goes away! Here is Grace holding her little bear. It is so cute to see her roll over and hold him to go to sleep.

And finally just some cuteness while she takes a bath. She is sitting pretty well these days, but is still wobbly so when we tried it out in the tub my hand was nearby just in case she fell back.

Check out her little buddha belly - so cute!

Have a great week!