Happy Birthday Trace!! & Thomas!!

My baby is 5, I can't believe it!  This past year has probably been his best so far.  He's worked so hard this year which has lead to some great developmental progress.  Thank you to all Trace's therapists and teachers for never giving up on my baby and challenging him every week.  His health has been at an all time best this year too.  Thanks to his wonderful doctors and nurses who make sure he's receiving the best care and treatment possible.  Trace has managed to stay out of the hospital and healthy for the longest streak ever.  This is most exciting!!  It has really given me hope.  I live everyday of my life to make his better and seeing it finally get better is AMAZING!

We celebrated his birthday this weekend with lots of friends and family at Chuck E. Cheese.  Trace loves CEC!  This was by far the best birthday ever - he interacted with CEC, played lots of games, opened presents, ate some pizza and for the first time ever blew out his own birthday candle!!  If you can't tell I'm super excited about that and think I even yelled it out with excitement that day.  It's all about the little things right?? 

We also took family photos this weekend with Stephanie k Photography.  We were unable to do them last year because Trace was admitted to the hospital and I never rescheduled as it took him a while to totally recover.  Despite Trace not being very cooperative, constantly moving, and our family being the traveling circus it is, I have some truly amazing photos.  Stephanie is one talented photographer!  Her love for photography really shines in her work.  In her words - there are the funny moments and the serious moments and the sweet moments and they are all real and they are all a story about your family.  A huge THANK YOU!! to Stephanie k Photography for giving us these beautiful pictures which will tell our story forever.  And for her generosity in donating her fees to help fight Mitochondrial Disease.  Thank you again sweet friend!

After family photos we headed out to the christmas tree farm.  We decided we would start this new tradition for our family.  I'm happy we did because it was a lot of fun!  Trace loved the hayride and helped daddy cut down the tree.  Well he helped by rubbing dirt in Daddy's hair as he was cutting the tree.  I thought it was funny, Daddy did too, well probably not as much as I did :-) 

As far as Trace's December 13th, he spent it getting casted and fitted for ground reaction ankle foot orthotics.  Not something I want for him.  We've tried AFOs before and they were really hard for Trace to walk in and caused him to fall down a lot.  I hope he does better this time and they don't hinder his ability to get around.  It took him 5 years to get himself around good and I don't want to see him struggle.  His orthopedic doc is proud of how he has compensated for all of his disabilities, but feels he really needs the ground reactive AFOs.  Regardless of all the AFO stuff I was able to spend the day with sweet baby.  Happy Birthday Mister! 

Since Thomas was lucky enough to receive the best birthday gift ever 5 years ago, he doesn't get much attention anymore on December 13th.  So here are birthday wishes for my sweet husband, best friend and the best Daddy ever - HAPPY BIRTHDAY THOMAS!!  Wishing we could spend it together, but I'll see you soon my love. 

Hope, Love, Courage &Faith,

Laurie