Medical Update

The boys are doing well!

  Nathan's legs are straight and he is working hard on strengthening them now.  He still sleeps in his wedge and knee immobilizers and will for a while. He has lots of physical therapy each week and we work a lot at home on walking, standing, sit to stand and sit ups to drop blocks in buckets.  He enjoys doing his therapy because he loves the mobility.  Tuesday we had an appointment with his physiatrist, CP doctor.  I discussed with him the desire to have a prosthetic arm extender and Nathan's right arm (the bone is curving a lot and making that arm shorter).  He has a hard time propping while sitting because of the shortened length. We have an appointment with BioTech June 10 for them to begin the process of making Nathan a custom arm extension piece for Nathan.  He should be able to bench sit better and free up his left hand for more function.

 Owen also had an appointment with the physiatrist.  He also has an appointment with BioTech on June 10 to have a custom T.L.S.O. made.  A T.L.S.O. Is a back brace.  This will give some support to his torso.  This should also help relax his arms a bit making them more functional.  An additional plus is this will help reduce the possibility of scoliosis (which lots of kids with dystonic CP get).

  Just to be sure Logan did not feel left out (ha,ha) I took him to the eye doctor yesterday for a check up.  He rubs his eyes a lot and since I wore glasses as a child and Preston does now I just wanted to play it safe and have him checked out.  He is a little far sided but does not need glasses.  He was very happy to hear that report.

Cousin fun!

This week Logan was excited to spend tons of time with his cousin, Evan.  Tuesday they enjoyed a fun night with CiCi, PawPaw and Memommy.  Wednesday afternoon the infamous pair headed to our house for fun times filled with Mario Kart, Transformers, tons of light saber fighting and some angry birds construction/destruction.

Thursday morning we headed to the zoo to meet some friends.  We all had a great time.  All the boys favorites were the play fountains are playground areas.

Friday morning we are planning to enjoy lots of fun at the park before Evan has to head back to Huntsville. 

We are grateful for our fun time with Evan.

Every post is long and few and far between

So, I have gotten really bad about blogging.  Here are some photo updates.

Nathan is doing really well working on his sitting.

Nathan got his casts off last Tuesday!  His legs look fabulous!

Logan with his teacher, Miss Zachow, at his end of the year party.

Logan's kindergarten class.

Nathan's new cochlear implant processor.  It is off the ear!

All 3 boys love bowling.

The boys also love the water area at the park.

Preston and I on our 12th anniversary at Canterbury- where we were married.

Fun night at the park with our little friends Lillian and John Whitten.

Walking home.

First morning run of the summer.

Waiting for Logan to finish swim lessons!

The every day of this awesome family

I am sorry I have not updated in a while.  As everyone, we are busy...especially with it being the end of the school year.  We are all enjoying the extra parties, piano recitals, lots more therapy, etc.

Logan with his piano teacher, Miss Molly.  Logan completed his second year of piano.  He is going to music camp in just a few weeks and will then start year three.

Logan's class put together a wonderful Mother's Day Tea.  I was able to view his portfolio, which was quite impressive, receive a beautiful card and picture frame and enjoy some yummy foods with Logan.  Both of us really enjoyed our time.

The class memorized a poem and also sang several praise songs.

The birthday boy is enjoying a big peanut butter / chocolate milk shake.

The kids had to help too by eating some yummy ice cream.

Harper Boggs and Owen really enjoyed seeing each other.

Logan had to sit right next to Lillian at her birthday party.  He brought a chair up right next to her and just squeezed in.

Logan and Nathan were really enjoying some silly tummy time together at Lillian's party.

Star Wars Logan enjoyed his trip to the park with Mom and Logan.  Dad was home cooking Mother's Day dinner and Nathan was taking a long nap.

This handsome man loved swinging at the park.

Can't forget the star wars picture on the way home from the park.

Nathan was absolutely loving the ball pit in OT this week.  Both boys love it so much we are planning to build a big ball pit in our house.

This is our budding artist!  We are so proud of Logan's love for art and joy in using his talent.  He will be in art camp at his school this summer.  I am really excited to see what he comes up with at the end of that week.  He loves art and is proud of his work.

Owen got really tired on Tuesday.  I wonder why....the agenda for the day

8:00 - 10:00 - therapy

1:00-3:00 - casting appointment for Nathan (Owen came along)

3:00-5:00- therapy

7:00 - Logan's art show

Nathan is doing really well with his recovery.  He is in his 4th pair of casts now and these could be his last.  We will find out on Tuesday he is finished or if they want to do one more week.  His legs are doing really well.  His left one is actually finished with the stretching but his right leg needed a little more...so we casted both.  He is doing really well in physical therapy and we are working hard at home too.  His legs are so straight now.  It is hard to believe how tall he is. 

Owen continues to do really well on his eating.  We are so proud of him.

Owen's awesome eating continues

Owen did it! He ate pancakes for breakfast, Cheerios for a snack at church, grilled cheese for lunch and roasted veggies over rice for dinner. We are so proud of his awesome eating!

Nathan update

I am sorry I have not given a Nathan update in a while. Nathan is doing really well! It is amazing how much straighter his legs are now. His ortho doc cleared him for the next 9 months. Nothing big will happen in 9 months, he just wants to see his progress. Every Tuesday afternoon for the next few weeks Nathan goes in for a new cast. These casts are continuing to stretch his calf muscles. We have a few more weeks to go before they are stretched to their ideal amount. Nathan did really, really well in the three physical therapy appointments this week. He will have lots of PT appointments for the next couple of weeks to make sure we get the most out of his surgery. He is enjoying more and more gait trainer time every day. He is also working on sitting by himself.

Owen eats

Yesterday Owen accompanied me to Logan's after school play time with his classmates at McDonalds. I decided to give him a couple of Logan's french fries. He sucked on them and slowly ate them. I was pretty excited. Then last night we decided to take a trip to the Galleria to get Preston a new pair of shoes and a new sound system for our living room. I was about to start dinner and Logan asked if we could get pizza. We decided to get the pizza, since we very rarely do, and just eat it on the way. I made a dinner for Nathan and Owen and thought we would feed them in the food court. On the way Owen kept telling me "bite". I took a slice of pizza and held it up to his mouth and to my surprise he ate the entire thing! With each meal we keep offering him new things. Today for lunch was chicken nuggets and dinner was meat balls. Tomorrow morning we are going to try pancakes. I think the removal of his tonsils has greatly improved his eating! We are so excited.

Weekend Getaway

Preston was in Orlando and Miami last week for work.  In Orlando he lead some training for their office there.  He then drove to Miami where he spoke at a BIM conference.  He finished the conference Thursday afternoon and I flew down to Fort Lauderdale to meet him.  We figured since it was only a few weeks before our anniversary this would be a good time for some alone time fun.  We rented an electric blue Mustang convertible and headed down to Key West.  We stayed in the Sheraton Suites and had the best time.  Friday morning we made reservations to go snorkeling.  Neither one of us had ever gone before so we were really pumped.  The snorkel company was on the other side of the island, 3.3 miles away. So, we got up a little earlier and walked over there.  It was lots of fun to see the different sites, eat a yummy local breakfast and just enjoy the beautiful weather.  We, along with 106 of our closest friends for those 3 hours, had the absolute best time.  We sailed about 7 miles off shore to the third largest barrier reef in the world.  The water was chilly and we had 10-15 mile an hour winds so it made the water a little choppy.  The best advice our snorkel instructor gave was just to relax.  When floating with our heads watching the sea life below, it was so relaxing and peaceful.  When you came up to the surface for an reason, that is when it got bumpy.  Snorkeling was tons of fun and I would definitely do it again.

 After our adventure we decided to walk around and find some lunch.  We were looking for a place with Cuban sandwiches and came across an organic restaurant, Help Yourself.  The food their was incredible.  I had the Indian Summer salad and Preston had lasagna.

 We found a local bike shop and rented bikes for the next 24 hours.  Once we got used to riding our bikes an roads with cars and sidewalks with people we had a wonderful time.  That is definitely the mode of transportation.

 One of the places we stopped was the southernmost point.  That was pretty fun to see.  We tried to see Cuba...but we could not.

 We also visited mile marker 0.

 We visited this old beautiful naval fort.  It was lots of fun to see so many items still in place.

 We thought it was pretty neat to see all of the tress growing bent.

 There was a really fun air show Thursday night in Mallory Square.  There were tons of boats who were play fighting with the airplanes, who where dropping lots and lots of toilet paper roles.  It was so fun to watch.

 Saturday morning I had a delicious fruit bowl at a little local shop.  It was awesome.

 Our friends Jennifer and Michael flew down and spent the day with us.  The boys are proud of their manly breakfast.

 We had lots of fun taking silly pictures on the beach.  Preston and I are not lay on the beach fans, so we spent very little time on the beach.  We loved spending all our time on outdoor activities.

 Saturday night we decided to stay somewhere a little closer to Fort Lauderdale.  We decided to book a hotel on Ocean Blvd in South Beach Miami.  When we first stopped by to check in the place was quite the party scene.  We went and had dinner and dropped off Jennifer and Michael at their hotel and got back to South Beach about midnight.  The place had really calmed down a good bit.  We took a nice run that morning...and their were not many people out at all.  By the time we were leaving to go to the airport about 10 you could see the place filling back up again.

We had a wonderful time on this trip and were so glad we were able to get away for a bit.  A special thanks to my parents for watching Nathan and Owen and to Preston's Dad and step-mom for watching Logan all weekend.