Catching up...

Our lives have been crazy lately, with Abby starting school and stuff, but I felt like I should record a few things for posterity and for my sanity! It's been a while since I have posted anything about Phoebe's arm and foot, so I'll start there. After 2.5 months of wearing her special shoes, the doctors at Shriner's said, "She's graduating from 23 hours a day to nights and naps!" Hooray!!!!!So now she basically wears her shoes at night while she sleeps and has total freedom all day..except when she has a therapist visit (which is basically 3 times a week) or when I torture her by making her stand at the couch or kneel to play, or make her use her right hand for anything she doesn't want to use it for! She is army crawling in her own way, by using her left arm and the top of her right wrist. She does NOT like to stretch that wrist out and it is almost impossible to get her to put any kind of pressure on it by pushing down on the palm of her hand. She is definitely feisty and has figured out how to do things in her own way. She has been to a neurologist about that arm and they will be doing an MRI of both her brain and her spine tomorrow, which should help us see what could have caused these things and what we can possibly do surgically...or not do surgically! This MRI will be the second time she's been under anesthesia, which is not something we want to put her (or ourselves)through if we can avoid it, so we'll see. There are two main possibilities according to the neurologist--either her nerves were damaged somehow in the womb or she had a perinatal stroke. The doctor really doesn't think it's either one, though, so we'll just have to wait. I guess to me, it doesn't really matter how it happened. I just want to know how we can get best use of her arm and foot and help her be able to use them as normally as possible! We'll keep you all up-to-date!

If I want to get this post done before next year, I better just leave it at that for now! New subject next time! Here are some recent photos of the girls!

Josh's friend, Tiffany, from work, invited us to her wedding and asked Josh to be the videographer! It was in a beautiful little country church, followed by a reception in the fellowship hall.

Yikes! I can't remember why she was smiling so big. Cute, but almost creepy!

Phoebe always smile like this when Abby plays with her! She LOVES her big sis!

We headed up to Anderson to camp with Josh's family! It was a welcome getaway from some of the Florence craziness!

Phoebe was so cute in her little bed inside the tent! This was what I saw when I woke up that morning!


I forgot how much I disliked the red dirt in the Upstate! Everything was covered in it when we got home! But the kids had a ball getting all messy--they also went fishing, on boat rides and swam a TON!

OREOS!!!!!!

Phoebe's flexible hips! She does the splits all the time! In fact, to get from her tummy to sitting or vice versa, she just brings her legs to the front or back like she has no hips at all!

A modest bath shot--they are VERY into bubble baths!! Bring on the luxury...already princesses!