The Henson Family Blog

Jon and Sarah were here to visit for a couple days on their "way back" to South Carolina (from Pennsylvania). The cousins loved playing together.

While they were here, we took them up to see Niagara Falls. It was there that we saw the fattest squirrels we've ever seen (and we've seen a lots of squirrels at Bob Jones!). It's no wonder they were so fat, though...they were eating out of the trash cans!

When Garth's parents were here over the Christmas holidays, they brought the kids some adorable little candies from Singapore. These candies are gumdrops that are hand decorated like little animals (see picture below from left to right -- lamb, rabbit, pig, cat). The kids have enjoyed this treat and we've made it last by only giving them one every other day or so. We thought they understood where these candies were from until the other day, Sarah asked "Dad, why does your company make candies?" Garth looked at her with a puzzled face and she said, "Synacor...why does Synacor make candy?" (Synacor is the name of the company where Garth works.) Suddenly it clicked...she thought the candies were from Synacor...instead of Singapore. After we finished laughing, Garth explained to her where they were from and that he does not sit at work decorating candies!!

Rachel turns 3 weeks old tomorrow. She had a checkup today and has gained a pound (she now weighs 9 pounds, 9 1/2 ounces). She's also grown 2 inches...for a length of 23 1/4"!! Perhaps she will support us in our old age as a star basketball player...or perhaps she will have problems finding a husband taller than her!! She has also outgrown her newborn socks, so our "little girl" is taking after her daddy in that regard as well. Here are some recent pictures.

Benjamin is our child with the most active imagination. You honestly just never know what he's going to come up with next. It's hilarious just to sit back and watch his little mind think up what he's going to do.

The other day, I was working in the kitchen and I heard a loud noise behind me. I turned around and there is Benjamin...

I asked him what in the world he was doing and he said, "I'm a chair." He walked around the dining room and part of the living room in this chair, folding himself up and then unfolding himself.

Then here's a picture that my parents took of him, wearing my dad's glasses.

He and Sarah like to play dress up and here's a picture of him being a Ninja.

Then my sister sent the kids some red, green, and blue color tablets for their baths. The other day, I asked Benjamin what color bath he wanted and he said, "I want purple!" I said, "Well, we don't have purple. Pick again." He said, "No, no...I want a blue one and a red one to make purple!" Silly me...of course my SON would want a PURPLE bath!

It's been a while since I've posted on here and to those of you who check daily, sorry about that! I try to update our blog at least every other day, but lately I have just had to concentrate on getting sleep when I can. We are receiving a nice fresh batch of snow today. Last week it was up into the 60s and we took advantage of that and took a 2 mile walk! Now we are reminded that we are in Buffalo and it is winter. There's about 5 inches on the ground and it's still falling.

Rachel continues to grow like crazy. Here are a couple recent pictures.

Benjamin & Sarah are starting to show signs of being tired of being inside. Their favorite question is "Mom, what can I do?"

Rachel has had some issues with her stomach and has not been able to keep much formula down for the last week. I will write more about the series of events in a later post, but for now just want to ask for your prayers for Rachel. She had to have surgery on a muscle that leads from her stomach to her intestines. Her condition is called Pyloric Stenosis. She had the surgery last night around 7:00 and came through it just fine. I'm home for a nap and a shower before heading back to the hospital. Garth is at the hospital with Rachel right now. Pray that Rachel will be able to keep her formula down as we start slowly increasing the amounts she is eating. Also pray for rest for Garth and me as we are pretty tired right now. We hope to be able to bring Rachel home either late tonight (Monday) or sometime tomorrow (Tuesday). Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!

I never imagined that we'd be bringing Rachel home from the hospital twice before she was even 2 months old! The doctor gave her a "good behavior award" and told us we could bring her on home this afternoon. She is eating well and has returned to her normal, sweet self. She is very content once again and does not cry from hunger and pain! Thank you for your prayers. Please continue to pray for her healing. She has 3 small incisions on her tummy that should be healed in about a week. Also, pray that she continues to eat well and can get back onto a normal schedule again. Hopefully tomorrow I will have time to tell a few of the stories from this 24 hour period in our lives. For now, I will just say that the Lord is GOOD!

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers on behalf of Rachel. I had 58 visitors to my blog yesterday so I know that many of you are concerned for her! She is doing very well. She still hasn't vomited at all after eating since her surgery. She is eating normally once again and was only up once last night. Pyloric Stenosis occurs most frequently in firstborn males. The surgeons said it is very rare that they do this operation on a baby girl. The operation consisted of three incisions (one through her belly button and then two above that on either side). They go in and make an incision in the pickle-shaped muscle that joins the stomach to the intestines in order for food to be able to pass through. This condition develops in infants 4-6 weeks old. Children are not born with it. They don't have any idea what causes it. There are many blessings that occurred at the hospital on Sunday and Monday. Here are just a couple:

1) Normally, when a child is taken to the emergency with this "throwing up", they go through a series of blood work and other tests to rule out reflux before they will even test for Pyloric Stenosis. However, when we arrived at the hospital yesterday, they had already called in an ultrasound technician because of another issue they had to test in a little boy. So they decided to go ahead and do the ultrasound on Rachel's stomach and try to rule that out. The ultrasound revealed that she did indeed have Pyloric Stenosis so Rachel didn't have to even have any of the other tests or lab work done!

2) Once it was determined that Rachel would require surgery, we were told that it would either be late Sunday night or Monday morning before they would operate since this wasn't considered an emergency situation. However, about 30 minutes later they came back and said that there was an opening in the schedule Sunday night so they would be doing the surgery then. Rachel was called into surgery at 7:00 on Sunday night which was a blessing, too! Our evening church service begins at 7:00, so our entire church family was praying for our little girl as she went into surgery. Many others (literally around the world) were praying as well. The hardest part for me was watching someone that I had met just 10 minutes ago walk away with my baby girl!! Talk about separation anxiety!! The surgeons and nurses were wonderful, though, and somehow even got the impression that I was a nurse...that's a long story! ;-)

3) As parents of 3 kids, we had to figure out what we were going to do with Benjamin and Sarah while we were at the hospital with Rachel. We sure miss family at times like this! The Lord worked again in this area. Some friends from church had told me just Sunday morning to give them a call sometime this week and let them know when they could come watch the kids so that I could take a nap. We called them yesterday afternoon to see if they could come and get Benjamin and Sarah instead. Not only did they watch the kids overnight, they also made us a meal for supper tonight so that I don't have to cook.

The Lord indeed did "exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think". We praise Him for bringing Rachel through the surgery with no complications. It makes our little girl even more special now than she already was!

There's no point in waking up before 2 or 3 in the morning. At that time, there are few distractions and your parents will be able to devote their full attention to you, you, you.

Save the monster poops for the times when they try to make you wear one of those brand new frilly and ridiculous-looking outfits.

The more your parents paid for the toy, the less fun it is to play with.

No one over the age of 7 has any sense of humor.

All you need to know about geography can be reduced to this: near Mom and Dad, good; not near Mom and Dad, very, very bad.

Fun challenge: See how many of your fingers and toes you can wedge into your mouth at the same time.

If you don't want to eat what they try to feed you, simply spit it all over them. If that fails to discourage them, wait an hour and then spit it all over their car.

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This is how Benjamin plays Uno. Everything he does somehow involves his robotic arm.

Rachel saw the surgeon this morning and her incisions are healing very well. She still has some pain when doing a bowel movement (straining against the incision in her belly button), but that will diminish over time. She weighs nearly 12 pounds and is lifting her head really well. She's also losing the hair on the top of her head!

Sarah got her hair cut today! Here are some before and after pictures:

And here are some pictures of Benjamin's playdough activity this weekend:

Garth is being considered for a promotion at work. It's a position that he stumbled across this past weekend online that he decided to go ahead and apply for. The responsibilities fit him a little better and it would give him the opportunity to do more of what he loves to do. I won't go into all the technical details because I don't even understand it all. He's already had to take 3 tests, all of which he scored very high on. The next step is an interview with the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) and 3 other people on Tuesday at 10:30. Please pray for him!