Dear family and friends,
As we write this letter, it is currently snowing, dropping near negative temperatures, and Nick and I have Irving Berlin’s White Christmas on in the background while we sip egg nog. We sure would love to say that we had nothing more on our to do list, that we were kicking back and reflecting on the year, and that we had filled our holiday season to the brim of all of our favorite things…
Alas, time hasn’t let us – or, we haven’t quite mastered the art of making sure to – slow down. I think we can count on one hand the number of movies we’ve actually been able to watch together since our entire world shifted to another axis called ‘Henry!’ (Fun fact; did you know Irving Berlin is one source (of 3!) of Henry’s middle namesake?! :))
We are admittedly not feeling nearly as ready for Christmas this year. We’ve had to scale way back on account of having much less free time while chasing Henry around and trying to keep up with life. Being first time parents has truly been a wild adventure, and we are still learning how to be us, how to manage our household, and how to make time for the things that matter most. We’ve grown in our ability to leave the house before 11 am (yay!) and now only forget the diaper bag occasionally. 🙂
We’ve had a big year of many many milestones: Henry was rolling over at 3 months, laughing at 4 months, had his first water experience at the Lugo Lake House at 6 months, sitting up and eating his first solids at 6 months, had his first flight at 9 months, his first tooth at 10 months, his first overnight with grandparents at 10 months while we celebrated my 10 year Pharmacy school reunion(!), and,…. whew,…. is now very near to walking!!
Other big things this year: Kelsi celebrated 10 years working for Norton Healthcare, and we’ve made major headway on our basement renovation! We sadly lost our sweet girl, Isabella on Nick’s birthday this year, so that was especially hard for us all.
Of all the messy moments we’ve stumbled through in 2022, nothing has quite had the biggest impact as when we started the year. A week after our last Christmas vacation, Nick lost his job. It was very unexpected, but we can now say it was the most valuable gift our family could have had for Henry’s care. This blessing in disguise allowed for Henry to be home with his dad, who is the absolute best father. And dad got a break nearly every week with the wonderful help of Debbie (Nick’s aunt) and Mike (Nick’s dad)! We simply could not have gotten through the tough weeks and unknown without them.
The newest news we can share with hope for the New Year: Nick has received a job offer, and now we are eagerly looking for childcare, which will be an entirely new game for us! Things do keep changing constantly!
May we all continue to soak up as much of our favorite things this season as we can. We love you all! We know the days are so busy and there are so many demands, but we sure do love hearing from you and just plain and simple miss our friends and family. Please keep in touch and let us know how your holidays went!