A little late but...

Christmas was WONDERFUL!!!Gracie was able to get out of the hospital for the entire day (from 10am-8pm) and go over to the Ronald McDonald House. She really enjoyed herself, opening presents and eating the yummy foods. By the way, she is eating normal food again, with no real problems. She is still drinking the thickened liquids however, because she still chokes sometimes on the thinner stuff.

We got a TON of presents. Thank you so much to EVERYONE who sent us a card, a picture, or a gift. Gracie had great fun opening everything...her favorites are her Get Well Baby and her Baby Cinderella. The Get Well baby (she doesn't have a name yet) came with a stethoscope, thermometer, medicine, etc. She loves to listen to her heart beat and change her diaper. It is so cute...she'll put the stethoscope on and say "Ba- bum, ba-bum". It's made things a little bit easier with procedures, but not completely. She is deathly afraid of gloves...she cries and shakes and says "no, don't put on the gloves!" as soon as she sees them. My sweet girl...she associates them with having her blood drawn and taking nasty medicine.

While we were at the RMH she played with a little boy named Joshua quite a bit. Joshua is 7 years old and has a myriad of health issues, including mild mental retardation. He is in a wheelchair also, and she would try to chase him around the house. He goes pretty quickly...I am seeing a future of chasing her around A LOT!

Christmas evening, a family from our home church, the Rodrigues' stopped in. They were on the way to his mothers house, and thought of us. It really changed the whole day for me. As nice as it was to have her out of the hospital, it was still hard not to be at home. I tried really hard not to be, but I was still a bit down. She lit up like the Christmas tree when she saw the family. The 2nd youngest, Tessie is in Gracie's Sunday School class. Grace was THRILLED to see her. I have not seen so many smiles from her since before the stroke. Jill and the kids sang some Christmas carols, which made all of the other House residents really happy. They did a great job, coming in impromptu and singing for us.

Here are a few pictures from the past few days. One thing I HAVE noticed is that Gracie doesn't like to have her picture taken like she used to. She used to start smiling and saying cheese well before the camera was out of it's case. Now I have to coax her just to look at me.