Living Life and Having Fun!!

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It has been a week and a half of God's grace in our home since coming home from the hospital. Things could not be going better. Sara is thriving and literally doing new things each day. We are continually amazed and have no one to thank more than our great gracious God!

Sara is starting to sit up more and more on her own. We still basically have to support her, but she not only is doing more on her own, but wants to. Just yesterday she doesn't just want to lay on the floor on in a bouncy seat, but be up and looking around. She is standing much stronger with us holding her hands. Her head is much steadier with little wobble. She is constantly interacting with all of us, smiling, laughing, looking, screaming, cooing, making new cute noises. She just discovered her feet yesterday and loves them. She can almost roll over from back to stomach. She does great with long stretches of tummy time. She is teething and drooling everywhere. She is eating prunes, plums, and apples now and loving it, wanting more. She is drinking 6-7oz of formula about 6 times a day and is over 15lbs now.

And best of all, are you ready for this........... she sleeps all night. Now you want to talk about the grace of God. His favor to us, not because we deserve it or have earned it, but His favor simply because He is gracious and it gives Him great glory. Certainly it is expressed ultimately through Christ and the cross dying for our sins, offering us the gift of salvation. But I would contend behind that we most see His grace in our family in Sara sleeping all night.

All sleeping sarcasm aside, this is just a weird thing for us. Neither of our girls ever did that, sometimes to this day. To put a child in her bed around 10 and not get her out till 7 is a genuine gift to us we are very thankful for. Every now and then we have to go pat her or reinsert her paci (plug and pat is what we call it), but for the most part we are in la la land all night. Now, if Jennifer and I would only go to bed instead of staying up enjoying spending some time together again around a bowl of popcorn and the idiot box we might actually get some rest.

The neurosurgeon is amazed at her progress. On the day of the surgery he told us he wanted to see us every two weeks. We find out later this is because he did not think she would be doing that well because of what he saw on the CT scans. Less than two weeks after the surgery he said that would not be necessary. He is amazed at her progress and how good she looks. IN fact, he held her and spun around to see if her eyes would track left to right, back and forth because there was nothing to focus on. And they did. She is seeing great, doing great. This is just very cool for us to enjoy. It's like our family has been recharged and reborn.

Her sisters are really getting a kick out of Sara, all the laughing and smiling. She is like a smile machine, look at her, say something and cha ching! SMILE. In fact, the other night Jennifer was bathing her and she was sitting her up to wash her back and she kind of slipped. So Jennifer instinctively said - whoop, kind of loud and high pitched. Sara just started giggling. Jennifer of course made the sound again - Sara busted out laughing again. All of this was while the rest of us were still at church Wednesday night and by the time we got home she was still in the tub, and the laugh fest was almost over. It is so neat to enjoy those little experiences of having a baby that we haven't really had the previous 8 months.

Thanks so much for your prayers, things are going great and we are soaking in all in. To the praise of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

"That you may tell the next generation that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us forever."
Psalm 48:13b-14


Hey mommy, you one funny lady


Tummy time!



Sitting Up

Hanging out in Dad's hammock

Standing!

Weird week in Louisiana, Saints win Super Bowl and Snowstorm