House picture post

Our Deck, the guys did a great job with it!

Living room

Living room

Mud room

Dining room

Kitchen

Office

Guest bedroom

The room we never use anymore :)

Guest room #2

Vince's Room

Vince's Room

Our Bedroom

Our Bedroom

Here are the pictures of our house. It has been so great traveling as much as we have this summer, but it did not really allow us much time to do stuff like this, sorry it took so long.

Love,

Nick, Andrea, and Vince

HUGE stuff today!

Vince started to CRAWL (army crawl)! The last couple of weeks he has been rolling really well and has become pretty mobile with it, but up to this point he has not gone forward. Today we were playing and he rolled onto his belly and went after a roll of toilet paper. It was like all of the sudden he just put it all together. The rest of the day he practiced by going after things he is not supposed to, like doors and the computer, and by the end of the day was doing pretty good. He is not getting up on his knees yet, but he is trying. It is so great to see him do this, especially since there have been therapists out there who have not been positive about him ever doing it. Here is a video of him in action.

Great Things

Hanging out in Colorado

Our only picture all together in Colorado, we were in Vail, just about to head to the airport.

He had this muffin in Colorado and thought it was the best thing ever.

So tired

Ready for a boat ride

Enjoying the Lake with Dad
One Year photo's

He was not too sure about this bear

So Vince has been doing some great things lately. We have had so many first in the last couple of weeks it is amazing. I will go back a little ways though.

In May Vince's Neurologist decided to take him off of phenobarb because he had not had a seizure since right after his first shunt surgery, his EEG came back normal, and the blood that was in his brain looks like it has dissolved. We did it very slowly. He was on 6 mL a day and we took 1 mL away each week, so it took 5 weeks. We did not notice anything that different with him at first but as we got lower and lower we started to notice that he was waking up screaming and after a couple of doctors appointments it was decided that he was going though withdrawals. I don't think either of us realized how strong the stuff really was. We had been told by a few people that sometimes when kids come off of the medicine they can do new things and Vince happened to be one of those. Two days after he was off of it he started to stand. At first it was very short but as the summer has gone on he has gotten stronger and stronger and now can do it for a couple of minutes at a time. He loves it to, he gets the biggest smile and is so excited when we stand. We do it a lot during the day and he even points to the couch to stand at this point.

This summer Vince has gotten a lot of teeth. He now has nine and a few more are very close. He got three of his teeth all in one day, numbers 7, 8, and 9. He had a little bit of a hard time with it but not too bad.

Vince has also started pivoting on his tummy and scooting back a little bit. Today he even started wiggle on his tummy and tried to go forward, so I think crawling is in our near future. We are very excited. It is like all of the sudden he has had this explosion of movement.

Vince also got AFO's last week. They are ankle and foot orthotics. When Vince stands he has weak ankles and needs a little help building the correct muscles. I have not taken any pictures of him in them yet, but I will soon. He does not seem to mind them and he can stand even better in them which he loves.

He is also developed quite the personality. He is so goofy and silly. He also lets you know when things are not going as he wants. We have even witnessed his first tantrum. While skyping with Nick he really wanted the computer and had a complete meltdown. It was very surprising and a little funny at the same time.

Vince is still shy around people, but is doing much better. I think with all of the positive gatherings this summer it has helped him a lot.

Well, that is a lot of info for one day, I will continue at another time.

Love,
Nick, Andrea, and Vince

Our New House

So I hoped to get to this sooner than this week, but my Grandpa passed away last week and I spent some extra time with my family last week and did not have internet access.

Anyhow getting to our house, we moved in the weekend before Memorial day weekend and have been enjoying it ever since. Although we have been gone a lot of weekends this summer we have made it feel like home. I think Vince enjoys having more room too.

A couple of weekends after we moved in Nick's parents came back down and the boys built a great deck that we have gotten a lot of use out of. You can see the lake from the corner of it and it is very pretty.

Our biggest project this summer has been grass. When we moved in there were just a bunch of weeds and rocks. I never realized how long it takes, but we are getting there.

We still have little things to do here and there, but from what I am told that is all part of home ownership, but so far it has been great. We are looking forward to fall so we can enjoy it even more.

I thought I was going to put pictures in this post, but when I looked at the pictures we have I could not find any of it all complete with our stuff in it. I will do a picture post very soon.

We hope that you are all enjoying August.

Love,
Nick, Andrea, and Vince