The Children's Museum

This week, my mom and I took Grey and two of his cousins to the Grand Rapid's Children's Museum He LOVED it! He has been borrowing a wheelchair from his PT and he had the best time zooming around! He also had on his KAFOs so if there was something that he could stand at...he did!! Here are just a few pictures from our day!

Here he is enjoying the giant lite brite!

He is learning his shapes...so we heard "ti-angle" for the next 20 minutes!

Here he is standing at the bubble table and the sand table...such a big boy!!

What a cutie!!

I hope you all are enjoying your spring!! We are off to Florida next week and can't wait for some warm weather!!

Much love from the Gibbs'!!

A picture worth a thousand words...

To those not living in the SB world, this picture may not mean much. To me, this picture means more than I can say.


The scar (which you can barely see)
The standing
The undies


I knew there would be a scar, I hoped that there would be standing, and I had no idea if he would ever wear undies.

I know that his bladder can change anytime, so right now, we are so thankful about this huge milestone.

He's basically Superman. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY!!

Happy Birthday to the best Daddy around!!



We Love You!!!

Love,
Leigh and Grey

Grey's new gear...

Today, Grey got his very first pair of KAFOs (knee ankle foot orthoses). These are braces that go above his knee and can be locked so that the knee has complete support when standing. I spent many nights worrying and debating weather or not we should stick with his GRAFOS (ground-reaction ankle foot orthoses) or take the leap and go with KAFOs. So far I am THRILLED with our decision! Grey's quads are extremely weak and it is nearly impossible for him to stand for any length of time without some sort of support for his knees, and trying to walk...forget about it. His knees would just buckle. We have been using knee immobilizers for months and for standing and walking they have been working pretty well, although they were getting much too small and we knew we didn't have much time left with them.

Grey with his knee immobilizers on

So, I went in to talk with Gabe...the most amazing orthotics guy around and he showed me something that I didn't even know existed. It's a KAFO that can turn back into a GRAFO...amazing.

See how it attaches near the ankle? Awesome.

At that point, it was a no-brainer. We knew that these were the braces for Grey! Before I show you what his new braces look like, I thought that we could take a stroll down memory lane and reminisce a little about his past AFOs...

Can you even handle this picture? I can't.

Grey got his first teensy tiny pair when he was just 3 months old. He had a curve to his foot, that if left untreated...would just get "curvier" so we strapped these bad boys on for about 20-22 hours a day and voila! his feet were (and still are) straight and beautiful!

I'm not sure what's cuter...the tiny AFOs or those chubby little legs!

Next came a pair that he only wore at night. This pair was to help with his plantar flexion (basically they pointed his foot down).

Here we are putting them on

and here he is just being cute. :)

Next he got his "standing AFOs" this was the first pair to help with standing.

Who is this kid?

snacks are always a good motivator

He also figured out how to take this pair off

His next pair were GRAFOS....they give a bit more support at the knee, you can tell in these pictures that there is an insert that goes above his knee in the front.


Next, it was time for the casting of his new KAFOs...here is Gabe doing what he does best...

Grey's just keeping himself busy with the IPOD

And there you have it!!

How did we get from so little to...so big...so fast???

Grey at therapy...standing so tall!

Grey with his brand spakin' new KAFOs!!

I heart life

A few days ago Grey got a new t-shirt...

...and he loves it.

Blizzard Sledding

Last weekend the weather was beautiful! so nice in fact that i got out Grey's swing and hooked it up and we went for a swing! Great i thought, spring is almost here. Well, the next day we got like 10 inches of snow in an afternoon... *sigh. oh well, Grey and I decided we'd get some sledding in. Leigh joined us as the field photographer.

As you can see it was coming down pretty hard. Grey loved it. (so did I)






Let's hope the next time i'm pushing grey down that hill, it's sunny and he's rolling down on grass.

love,
Andy, Leigh, Grey

Grey's 2nd Birthday

It's hard to believe that last weekend our little gibblet turned 2! Here's some pictures of how the day went.

First off i made him pancakes, and this time we didn't even" trick" him by mixing sweet potato puree in with it, it was just straight Mrs Butterworth! haha he loved it and i attempted to make a "2" with the batter...not bad.
We had a pretty lo-key morning just playing and hanging out, grey really liked his decorations and was asking often to kiss Elmo (the ballon)

here's the birthday boy before his party.and the cake...it fit into the theme of the party...yep you guessed it ELMO!
grey quickly tried to sneak a taste of his cake...
Naturally he had to have the piece with his own name on it.
After cake and ice cream it was on to presents, and grey was pretty excited to open them.
Here's grey trying to "magic doodle" his arm while rocking out his new guitar.
Heres Grey and his cous Evan, he must think evans' ear is the on button.
He got a new elmo video and was watching it with pop.
After a very exciting and eventful day, here he is relaxing with mommy.

Onto the next day...before all the snow melted we hit up the hill at grandma and pop's house and we took grey for a ride. Lets just say the run was intense, but that didn't stop us, Grey laughed the whole way down. (so did i) :)




And finally heres a little video that highlights some of the birthday events!


love from the Gibbs'