A Bittersweet Easter

This weekend was the anniversary of our son, George McGregor Hohl's death. He died after just 5 months of pregnancy. After it happened, people I knew for years came out and told me that something similar happened to them and I never even knew about it and many times, the family never even discussed it either. I thought it so tragic that children lost before their lives really began were so hidden in their family's lives when so much good could come out of teaching children about the plan of God and that they have someone so special and perfect waiting for them in heaven. So, I vowed to keep him alive in our lives to keep us all on the straight and narrow and even help us all understand the concept of loving someone who we've never met, like ancestors and even our Savior, Jesus Christ. Since just about every other child we hang out with gets to talk about brothers and sisters, I have tried to teach Henry that he does have a brother and occasionally I show Henry the drawing of Georgie and some of his photos. I tell him that it's his little brother, Georgie, hoping that he will someday understand what I'm trying to say. On Sunday we decided to pull out the recording we made of his memorial service and go through the photos, which made us cry a few tears, but we got through it without too much drama until we took Henry into the music room and looked at his drawing together. Justin was holding Henry and he asked him who it was and he said in his sweet, angelic voice, "that's Georgie" and then after a few seconds he said, pointing at him, "brother," and that's when I totally lost it and sobbed as hard as I did during months following his death. I wish so much that Henry could be enjoying having his little brother Georgie around right now. He would be just learning how to crawl and interact with Henry. All day long Henry calls out for his friends and cousins and it is apparent that Henry really craves interaction with the people he loves, and I know he loves his little brother. We still miss our darling boy, Georgie, and we're counting down the days until we will be with him forever.

Our Little Adventurer

Every day is such an adventure with Henry. I am more excited than ever to do all the fun activities this summer that we have missed over the winter. Now that Henry is more self sufficient and more capable, he can learn to swim, go on long hikes, help me with the gardening, and maybe even learn to ride a bike with training wheels. I seriously can't wait!


Justin has had some much needed time off which has allowed us to play outside when the sun is shining. Justin went sledding with Henry down our neighbor's back hill after our last big snowstorm. We also went on our favorite river walk/hike and found a tributary that we hadn't seen before that had a great waterfall and just enough water for Henry to be able to climb up it. Henry has great rock climbing skills and even though he was freezing cold and totally drenched, he never cried and was more focused and content on what he was doing than I've seen him in a long time. Henry cought a little moth that I think had barely hatched because it wasn't moving much, but it was alive and Henry noticed it on a rock and gently picked it up to show us. We also found a baby centipede in the base of our lime tree which we played with and it was really fun. Henry wanted me to "put it in the grass," which was actually the carpet. That boy really needs to get outside more! When the sun went down, we had to drag him out of the river and luckily we weren't far from our car because as soon as Henry was out of the water, he quickly felt how cold he was and we ended up taking him over to Kaitlin and Wee-o's house with no pants or shoes on. lol!

Henry and Wee-o, his favorite cousin, went to the Aviary one day and then to the park to play since it was about 70 degrees outside. I love the random warm days! They had so much fun together. It's so funny to see their different personalities because when Henry gets around his buddies, he doesn't listen and likes to show off, so he ran through the muddy baseball diamond and stepped in every puddle until he was disgustingly dirty, while Wee-o wanted me to carry him across every muddy spot and after playing at the park for an hour, had not one speck of dirt on his clothes. haha! I also tried to get the boys to feed the birds at the aviary and both of them were afraid of them at first, but Henry ended up warming up to them and even though they were biting him a little bit, he still tried his hardest to pick them up. lol! Wee-o spent most of his time avoiding the birds at all costs. They are a good balance to each other. We all are predicting they will room together at BYU someday and I'm also predicting that Henry will bring a little spontanious adventure into Wee-o's life, while Wee-o will prevent Henry from getting himself killed! haha.

Oh, cute story, I was playing with Henry today at the park and I hit my head pretty hard on an overhead bar and I was saying "owie" when Henry came over to me and said, "happened, happened?" with a concerned look on his face and I told him that mommy hit her head and he said in the sweetest voice, "it's okay, it's okay mommy, kiss, kiss?" and I leaned down and he kissed the top of my head. I was so touched that I almost cried. He is such a sweet and thoughtful boy....sometimes:)

Henry turns TWO!

I have been so busy lately that I've slacked on posting things on the blog and now I have material for at least three posts. I'll just start with Henry's Birthday party. So as you may know, I spent the last two months making over Henry's room into an outer space themed room which I revealed to him during his Birthday party with all his friends watching. When he walked in, he screamed for joy, turned in a circle did a little dance and yelled, "woh!" I couldn't have been happier and Henry LOVES being in his new room and in his new twin bed. His party was a zoo train party, mainly because I got this really cute zoo train cupcake mold from my sister-in-law and I had to put it to good use. We had a fabulous party and Henry got a ton of really fun gifts. I also painted his old white rocking horse to look like a zebra and now he rides it even more often. I made a DVD of the last year to show everyone as well and at the end we had some footage of him skiing before his Birthday and loving it! The hilight of the party was Henry blowing out his candles. Instead of a nice blow, he put his lips together and blew/spit them out. I put one candle on every train piece so he had nine candles to blow out and it was hilarious! I'll try to put the video up. Anyway, Happy Birthday Henry! We love you so much!