Dear Lucy

Our friends just found out that their sweet baby, Lucy, has an a autosomal terminal disease called SMA - Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Our hearts are breaking for them. Gracie and I have been "talking" lately and so here is a letter to Lucy from Grace. Please keep Lucy and her family in your prayers!

Dear Lucy,

You are one of my best friends! I wish we could play together more but I guess our mom’s are pretty busy trying to keep us healthy. They are always talking about germs and telling our siblings to “sanitize”…silly mommies! My mommy and I have been talking about you a lot lately. I am sorry you are sick. Mommy was so sad to hear that you have Spinal muscular atrophy. I told her that I already knew you had it and that you had known, too. I know that your mommy and daddy are sad, too. I think that they wish they could take it all away. Lots of people probably feel that way, huh? I remember one time when my mommy was pregnant with me, she was driving in the car alone and she was crying pretty hard. She was sad that I would have Down syndrome. She was worried about how I would feel, worried about how I would be treated, what I would have to go through…worried about a lot of things. But then I told her, “Don’t be sad mommy. I chose this!” She stopped crying then. I remember when you told Heavenly Father and Jesus that you would accept the trial of having SMA. I remember your family agreed, too. Heavenly Father and Jesus knew that your mommy and Daddy are selfless people who give their love to everyone so freely and that they have a lot of faith and strong testimonies. You knew that you would be taken care of, huh? Heavenly Father and Jesus knew it, too. You are so special Lucy! I always loved running around with you in Heaven. We sure did laugh a lot didn’t we? Remember how before we came to Earth, we promised each other that we would see each other again soon? Thanks for keeping your promise. Whenever I see you or think about you, I feel really happy. I don’t know when you will get to go back to Heaven but when you do, do you promise that you will come visit sometimes? I know you will be busy watching over your family and helping Jesus. But I guess you’ll Kind of be able to be like all of the angels that are always around us, huh? I love you Lucy! Thanks for being my friend. I’ll tell everybody I know to pray for you. Don’t forget to tell your mommy and daddy you love them and that you are happy. They’ll be able to hear you, I promise. Goodnight dear Lucy, sweet dreams!

All my love,

Grace

Where's Gracie?

Well, actually, right now she is asleep dreading the biopsy she has to have done tomorrow. She has mild Hirschsprung's Disease (part of her large intestines do not have nerve cells thus causing some wicked constipation). They will be doing a biopsy of some of the intestines to see how much of it is effected. Then, she might have to have surgery to remove the diseased areas. I am praying that the area effected is so small that we can just treat the effects with medicine for the rest of her life. Anyway, "Where's Gracie?" is something that Grant loves to ask. Especially when he has attempted to bury her or build a fort around her.
She is such a good sport. We are lucky she is so good natured. Grant LOVES to build things and he is very precise about where things go. Don't mess with his vision, man. If you do...be prepared for a melt down!
I couldn't get a picture of Grace smiling but she was happy. Well, that is until she had been stuck in there for a long time.
I had to talk Grant in to leaving an area for Gracie to see out. If he had it his way, she would be completely covered.
'Are you serious mom? Can't you just make him stop?!?!'

We Miss You Daddy

To Our Daddy:So we know you have only been gone for 2 days but we are having a really hard time. We MISS you! Blast those recruiting trips! Just tell all of the little BYU wanna be accountants that E&Y is a great place to work and that if they come to CA then all of their wildest dreams will come true. Then just let them know that if they have questions then you are happy to answer them via telephone. Then get your cute, little booty back home!!!! Grant is pretty upset that you went to UT without him and he has requested that you do NOT play with his toys in the basement. We spent most of the day building a loader out of books. You know the game. We also caught a few bad wolves, ran from lions, recaulked the rest of the bathtub (GASP, I know it is Sunday), and built a zoo with blocks. Oh and by the way, the pictures in the post are from January but you can pretend they are from today since it is the same activity and the kids were wearing the exact same thing today. And no, we did not change out of our jammies. (Don't worry folks, we aren't inactive- the kids and I just haven't been to church for a few months in order to keep Grace a bit more healthy). I thought you should also know that Grant gave me a bit of a lecture tonight. It went a little something like this as we were in his bed telling scripture stories.
G: "I wanna rockt (emphasis on the T) in da chair."
m: "No, Grant. We already rocked."
PAUSE
G: "Daddy's the good one."
m: "Huh?"
G: "Daddy's nice. He rockts me in da chair while you wort (work). You are bad."
(My heart broke just a little bit when I heard him say that)
G: "It's not nice when somebody asts you to do somefing and you don't do it. I just wanna rockt. I will rockt by myself. Daddy is the good one. He rockts me when you are worting for Don. You should be nice."
And yes...I "rockt" him. So, hurry home "good one" we need you!

Down Syndrome Awareness Day

"March 21st has been designated by Down Syndrome International as the day to bring awareness to individuals effected by the condition known as Down Syndrome. Dr. Langdon Down originally identified Down Syndrome as he noticed similar characteristics among many patients. Later, Professor Jerome Lejeune identified the cause of Down Syndrome as an extra 21st chromosome. Most individuals have 46 chromosomes in each cell, or 23 pair. Individuals with Down Syndrome have 47 with an extra or 3rd chromosome existing in the 21st pair. Therefore, the condition is also known as trisomy 21 and the date to celebrate world Down Syndrome awareness was chosen to reflect this trisomy (3/21). There are many ways to celebrate world Down Syndrome awareness day by educating, raising funds and advocating for those with Down Syndrome." (http://www.ehow.com/how_4839046_world-down-syndrome-awareness-day.html)I love the crazy things she does with that tongue!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

A leprechaun visited our house last night! He left footprints from Grant's bed into the living room. That's where he forgot his gold! Also, the tricky leprechaun took some of Grant's things and left chocolate in their places. Hopefully, they will be returned before Grant wakes up in the morning!
When Grant woke up he was extremely excited to see the surprise but told his dad, "Those aren't leprechaun footprints! They're paper! Who put them there? Did mommy put them there?" (Smart little stinker!) Luckily, he quickly decided that they were indeed left by a sneaky leprechaun.
Grant was also surprised to see that the leprechaun turned our pancake mix green!
Needless to say, it was a fun day and Grant pretty much overdosed on chocolate.
In the above picture he was dancing around singing, "Gold, gold, gold!"
And then there is Miss Grace. She had a little eye surgery today. She is doing great and is making a speedy recovery. We thought we would spare her though and didn't make her succumb to a photoshoot. But, we have tons of pix of her on the computer so we thought we would stick a few old ones on the blog for your viewing pleasure.
You can't get much cuter than this!
We hope everyone had a fantastic St. Patrick's Day!

Hospitals are NOT hotels

Grace was admitted to the big house a few days ago but we were able to convince the medical staff to let us come home. Hurray! Last week, I had to do CPR on Grace because she stopped breathing. Then a few days later she had a few blue spells and was admitted to Lucile Packard's Children Hospital. She has RSV and pneumonia. Poor little thing. The amazing thing about her is that she keeps on smiling through everything. I do not know how people stay in hospital's for long periods of time...Lacey, my heart aches for you and all you have to go through! Anyway, we are home and looking forward to getting our happy, healthy butterfly back.