I've run out of ideas for clever Post Titles...

Grace has been opening her eyes a lot more today.  Looking at her Mama and Daddy and trying hard to focus on us.  She'll turn her little head at the sound of our voices and squeeze our fingers.  Its sweet, but also heart breaking to see her so vulnerable and helpless.  I'm definitely very anxious for when I will be able to hold her in my arms again...although, I don't think she will really be content until she is in Daddy's arms again...there's nothing quite as enjoyable for her as a Daddy cuddle, (but I totally understand....there is definitely something special about Topher cuddles...)
Daxton and his parents gave Grace this beautiful little Willow Tree figurine.  It couldn't be more perfect if we had had it commissioned esp. for her.  It is of a little girl holding a beautiful golden heart...as if Grace is holding her beautiful new gift...her gold medal.  Thank you SO much.
Topher and I love black and white pictures...and when you take a shot of her cute little toes in B&W, it just doesn't get much cuter than that.
Hopefully all this tape and the ventilator will be gone in a couple of days.  They actually tried a spontaneous trial off the ventilator this morning and she did amazingly well.  They plan on doing another trial this afternoon and again this evening.  If both of them go as well as this morning's, she could be off the ventilator as early as tomorrow!! (knock on wood...)

If she takes a little longer than that though, that is just fine.  We want her to have a nice, slow recovery, and don't want to push her too far too quickly.  Whatever pace she needs to take is just fine. We just feel so lucky to have her, and so lucky and blessed that she was able to receive this immense gift.

So aside from all the cute pictures, Grace is doing relatively well today.  We went to the Sacrament Mtg. held here at the hospital, (which was wonderful as usual) and then went in to see her right afterwards.  They were trying for a couple hours or so to get a new Arterial Line in.  This line is similar to an I.V. but goes into an artery instead of a vein and it measures a continual blood pressure.  They can also draw her blood labs and gases from it as well...however, her Art lines haven't been staying in well the past couple days, and they have been in her groin, which supposedly is a spot that can easily get infected.  So, they were trying to put one in her wrist or ankle, but neither worked.  They re-threaded the one in her groin, but its working very sporadically.  They've been trying to draw blood labs through her right atrial line instead, and this morning discovered a clot in the blood that was sent to the Lab....

At the moment, they're trying to determine if it clotted from sitting in the lab too long, or if they pulled the clot out of her right atrium...or what exactly happened.  Hopefully the clot was not in her atrium, because that would be very unexpected and not such good news considering this is a brand new beautiful healthy heart.

Please pray hard for her today that there isn't a possible large speed bump in her road to recovery.  All her levels have been stable, so it would be very unexpected...but who knows.  

Other than that, Gracey truly does continue to amaze her nurses, Doctors and especially her parents.  She constantly is a reminder of her amazingly strong spirit.  And never once has she shown any signs of slowing down or giving up.  Granted she has amazingly strong family on both sides, and amazing examples of strong women.  She was named after her wonderfully stubborn, faithful and strong Oma, and she has definitely lived up to her name and much more. She has many more examples of faith and strength throughout both lines of her family, and I am so happy that she will be able to live a life learning from all of them and teaching a little of her own as well.

Thank you for your prayers! Keep em' coming!!

Love you all! Have a wonderful Sabbath!

the Andersens