Carpenters Est. 2005: Keeping Busy

Our little family has been keeping very busy these last few months. Lots of new things! Scotty is now a little walker. :) He rules the house and is all over the place. Together with Penny this place is chaos, but it is fun. They sure play well together most of the time and make me laugh daily. Scotty also knows quite a few signs and words. He is able to get his point across very easily of what he wants :) He also finally got some teeth. He now has 5 and is working on a few more as I type. My kids always seem to teeth all at once, instead of being spread out.
Penny started a new therapy group in May. She now has therapy 4 days a week for 3 hours a day!!! I am exhausted just thinking about it. She is adjusting really well. She is extra tired since starting and usually squeezes in a nap when I pick her up :)

Penny and Daddy all dressed up for the tea party :)

Penny had a little tea party at her therapy group the other day. They invited the parents and the kiddos did a fashion show for us. Then set the table and poured us some juice. It was so much fun and so cute to see all the kids. Penny did excellent. She new exactly how to set the table and new all the songs they sang. I am so proud of her and all she continues to accomplish.

Setting the table at the tea party

She is also the proud owner of a Theratog suite. We are trying to help her torticollis so we took an alternative approach since the other option was a neck brace and we weren't ready to go there yet. As a reminder: Penny was diagnosed with torticollis as an infant. He head tilts to the right due to her muscles being too tight on one side. If she concentrates really hard and with a little support she is able to keep her neck in the correct position. We have been doing specific thereapy for her neck, stretches, and excersies to help with it but we haven't seen improvement in a while so that is where the theratog suite comes into play. This suite is worn under her clothes, it is a tank top and a pair of shorts. It functions by being strapped down fairly tight and keeping her body in the correct alignment, we have extra straps around her hips to keep those in line and the suite is snug around the torso reminding her of those muscles. So far we have seen improvement in lots of areas since wearing this suite. She is getting stronger and her body is in a better position. He head tilt is improving as well. It is not perfect but most of the time she is keeping it straight. So we are hopeful this suite will continue to work and make improvements. Penny isn't real fond of wearing it and fights me when we have to put it on in the morning also diaper changes take twice as long now, but we are both learning to tolerate it :)
We also registered Penny for developmental preschool. She will start in the fall!!! I am not so sure I am ready to have her gone all day long yet (with therapy and school combined) but I have all summer to get used to the idea. I know being around other kids and being in a structured environment is going to help Penny make big improvements in all areas. With that though process it is easier to adjust to the idea :)

Penny loves slides- This one was really fast but she did it 3 times all by herslef!!!!

Also if you look close you can see a little of the theratog suite.

This Summer is already booked full with lots of fun plans. We are going to go Cherry Picking again because we loved that last year! We have a couple of trips planned to go back home to visit. My parents have invited us to a couple of concerts and James has some fishing and hiking trips planned. I am so excited the warm weather has arrived, along with the flowers and green grass. We are going to play hard this summer and just enjoy being with each other :) Will be back soon with more stories...