Allison has done it again!

Derrek's sister Allison took these great pictures of Libbs and Brookles.

Thanks Alli, you're the best!

Merry Christmas

Four Years of Memories

Silly girl!
Ready for Winter

2nd Birthday
2nd Halloween

I think she is mad...

Christmas

Great smile!

The "First Cast"

3rd Halloween

Look closely at her toes

Don't I look pretty?

Easter

Bear Lake

First time on Santa's lap

November 2004

Sleepy girl.

Too cute

First solid foods

This picture is very special to me. My Dad sure loved his little Brookles. This picture was taken right before he got sick. This is how I remember my dad. I know that he has watched his Brookles grow from Heaven and that he is very proud of her and watches over her.

Blessing Day

Darling smile

1st Halloween

At the zoo

Sisters

Just look at those teeth

Little "Stink Bug"

Hello sunshine

First time in Bear Lake

"I am stuck, but I am still happpy"

Happy Birthday Brookles

So once again I am a bit late in my posting, but I am sure you all understand. Brookles had a birthday on the 23rd. It is so hard to believe that she is four all ready. It seems like just yesterday she was snuggling in my arms. As most people know, Brookles is addicted to Sponge Bob. Surprise, surprise, we had a Sponge Bob Birthday. We started off the day with breakfast in bed and presents from us and Bubba. She loved her Mariposa Barbie and Sponge Bob jammies from Mom and Dad and Bubba gave her a Sponge Bob Beanie Baby. Then at church, she was very excited when they sang Happy birthday to her in Primary. We had the Bitner family over for dinner and cake. She had a great day and told me that she can't wait till her next birthday.

In honor of Brookles, I looked through my photo files and have posted some memorable moments from the past four years. Hope you all enjoy the walk down memory lane.

Update

Once again I am in trouble for not updating anyone about Libby.

So sorry.

Libbs has now had three appointments with her therapist.

She is really doing well.

Her head shape has improved dramatically.

She is not completely round yet but she is getting better.

At her last appointment, (Monday morning) Lisa said that she thinks that we have loosened up the tight side and now we really need to focus on strengthening the loose side.

She is doing much better on her tummy and sometimes she does not mind playing there for longer than 30 seconds.

Her range of motion to the left side is almost there.

She is now lacking only about 5 degrees with only slight hesitation.

Thank you to all the prayers and kind words of encouragement.

We truly feel so blessed!

She Won!

Bubba won Reflections! (This would be where the mom gets to brag about her amazing daughter.) We got to go to the awards assembly at the school and it was so cute when she won. Her division was K-2 and there were tons of entries in the 3D division. They announced all the participants first, (everyone got a small trophy) Jenn's name was not called and she began to look a bit nervous. Next were the two awards of merit and two honorable mentions, again her name was not called. At this point she is looking very worried thinking to herself that she did not win anything. Then they announced her name and one other as the two winners that get to move on to the council level. We are so proud of her! She did such an amazing job. What is really fun is that she is already talking about ideas for next year and what category she wants to enter. I have no idea when we will hear anything about the next level but you can bet that I will do a post about it.

Libby Update

OK so let me first say sorry for not informing everyone about our troubles with Libbs other than the post that I did on Halloween. I really thought that we had told the families about it before then.

So here is the update:

We went to our appointment at Primary Children's on Tuesday. We met our therapist. Her name is Lisa and she is just a cute little thing. (You know you are getting old when your children's medical team are younger than you are, or at least look like they are.) Anyway, she did a full exam on her and determined that she has Left Muscular Torticollis and Plagiocephaly. At this point her Plagiocephaly (un-round or mis-shaped head) is not bad enough for a helmet but they are going to continue to watch it. They have a ranking system that they use; 1-7 is mild, 8-14 is moderate, and 15+ is severe. Libby was measured at an 8. It looks to us like it has kind-of got a bit better since we started sleeping her on her side like her pediatrician told us to. So hopefully that will work and we will not have to do the helmet thing. As for her Torticollis, we have physical therapy once a week for awhile and we have stretches that we have to do with her twice a day. As you can see in the pictures, she does not like doing her stretches very much. Poor little thing. We also had to buy this cushion thing that we have to use in her car seat that makes it so that she can't flop her head over to the side. She also needs to learn to like her tummy. Lisa wants her on her tummy as much as possible which is kind of hard with her reflux but she is actually getting much better at it. We have even caught her looking over her left shoulder all on her own and that never happened before. We have our next therapy appointment on Monday night.

"Side Bending Stretch"

Libby does not like the "Side Bending Stretch" very much.
"Rotation Stretch"

Libby does not like the "Rotation Stretch" very much either.

We were given the following "medical explanation" and information about Torticollis and Plagiocephaly from Libby's therapist.

Congenital Muscular Torticollis is a condition in which a child's head is tilted to one side and turned toward the opposite side. It is caused by having tight muscles on one side of the neck and weak muscles on the other side of the neck.

Plagiocephaly is a condition in which a child's head is not shaped correctly. these conditions may be noticed:

* The back or side of the head may be flattened.

* The forehead and cheek may bulge on one side.

* One eye may appear larger than the other.

* The ear on the flattened side may be pushed forward.

* The jaw may be tilted.

We received a copy of the letter that the therapist sent to Libby's pediatrician. The following is an excerpt from that letter.

"Libby has a left torticollis due to left side tightness and right side weakness of the cervical muscles. Libby's head shape displays moderate plagiocephaly consistent with left toticollis. There is right sided flattening of the occiput and parietal bones as well as bossing of the frontal bones. An asymmetry index of 8 mm is present. Developmentally, Libby is doing well with the exception of low tolerance to tummy time and decreased prop on tummy."

Well, I hope that my novel of a post has helped clear up some of the confusion and the unknown for our families. We are certainly learning a lot throughout this whole deal. I will try harder to keep everyone informed and up to date.

Reflections 2008

Bubba entered Reflections for the first time. The theme this year was "Wow". She entered the 3D Art category. She named her sculpture, "Happy Birthday Tyrannosauros Rex". I know that it looks like someone helped her but I can honestly say that she did it all by herself. Didn't she do a great job! I am so proud of her! She is such a talented little girl. It looks like she got the "Bitner Art Gene". Turn in day was Thursday. I am not sure when we will find out how she did but I will be sure and post the results so that I can brag about how amazing my daughter is and how proud I am of her. (That is my right as her mother, right?) Good job Bubbs!