Happy Birthday, Audrey!

We are so happy to celebrate Audrey's 2nd birthday today! Audrey has had a busy and courageous life in such a short time!

Audrey is doing really well since the heart surgery in August! She loves crawling all around and standing up to just about anything. She takes time to laugh at her brother (when he's not pulling her hair) and continues to say 'brubba'. She loves music, hats, lights, bouncing, and spinning. She still LOVES her Johnny jump up, where she dances and spins to music from the iPod. She'll let us know if she approves of a song or not. Lately her favorites are Alabama (daddy's influence), ABBA (I don't know how she got into this!), and Chipmunks Christmas music.

Austin adores his sister and watches her, follows her, attacks her, at every opportunity. We've seen her learn from him too: she now gets into cupboards and drawers. She also seems to eat a bit better since they eat side by side.

We look forard to seeing them interact more and more this next year!

Audrey enjoyed great visits with both grandparents this fall. We were able to go to California for a nice long visit. Audrey loved playing and pouring water into the ocean with her cousins and Aunt Holly. Austin liked eating sand. In Denver, we had an early birthday celebration with the Strasser Grandparents.

Medically, Audrey is doing quite well. Her heart is ticking away happily. Her lungs were not 100% after the surgery because they'd had so much 'blood overload' before the surgery. We have her on a special medication that helps this problem and we may be able to discontinue it after 6 months; we hope so, as it's side effects are irritability and insomnia!!! We've been advised to get fitted for some special foot supports that will fit in her shoes. These should help Audrey balance better so that she can walk sooner. We also got new eyeglasses this last month. Audrey looks so grown up and smart in her new glasses! We think it helps her see better. When we put them on her for the first time, she looked around at us and at the room and started smiling and laughing. It's neat to see her seeing a little better.

Thank you for all of your interest and support!