Henry is two years old!!

Henry is officially 2 years old and, similar to his first birthday, we had quite a bit to celebrate! We feel fortunate that Henry has blessed us with another year of wonderful- ups and downs included. Even more we are grateful he is surrounded by such wonderful support and love in you all. No better present around, that is for sure:)

Henry continues to progress with his recovery though at times continues on the "two steps forward and one back" dance. I think we're finally over the symptoms of withdraw from the withdraw medications, though a lingering cough, congestion and a little nausea have affected Henry's energy, sleeping and eating. For a good week Henry was having problems staying asleep starting last week and at worst would wake up every hour throughout the night crying. This went on for four days, and lots of missing sleep later we called our pediatrician a bit panicked. Thankfully she is a wonderful doctor and comforted us by confiming he was doing "ok" and that with time the symptoms would resolve (and they have!). Throughout the challenges he continues to be very consolable and can be distracted with toys/music/videos and, of course, good old fashioned snuggling (the hospital magic continues:). So, we're just working on helping Henry shake this cough. Did I mention he's has been an absolute trooper through it all?

Despite all this Henry has been playing great and we've seen a ton of smiles and heard lots of wonderful giggles. His vocabulary is really picking up too, with new appearances of "bunny", "hop", "milk", "car ride", and "___'s house" (most commonly GoGo's, CoCo's, GG's or Momma's house when we're driving around town- smart man!). We've been working on the Christmas themed words though they all seem to start with "s", which Henry is not saying quite yet. So instead of "snow", we hear "no" (accompanied by lots of pointing to the snowman in our living room for proof)! We're trying to get "anta", "tocking" and "leigh" on board too, so stay tuned:)


Henry had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and we all can't wait to continue the celebration through next month. Below is a picture of Henry's good friend and one of my grandmothers, Anna Mae, who made him smile with her kindness... pretty wonderful stuff! We will travel to see both of our families over Christmas (PJ's below helped us begin to ring in the season:) and likely eat a ridiculous amount of food and cookies (speaking for myself of course:). We wish you all a wonderful holiday season with a happy new year ahead!

Much love,

Kate and Julie