In September...

We went to the zoo with Chris' mom Kathy AKA  "am-a ka ka, no no am-a coo coo." The origin of the name has a long story.

  

We went to Swiss Days in Midway and stayed at the Homestead with my mom, sister Erin and her step-daughter Hannah (Erin gets married later in the post) and my sister-in law Terra. Note to self: FIND A SITTER FOR BROOKS NEXT YEAR. Swimming was "fun"-ish again with Brooks but Swiss days was AWFUL with him. Overall it was a fun time. 

  

We went to the State Fair with Ben, Terra, Beck and my Mom. Brooks loved the big yellow slide, thanks uncle Ben! There was a huge robot at the entrance that totally freaked Brooks out. He still talks about how he cried when he saw it and how bad the robot scared him. In this pic Brooks is wearing a corrective brace on his left foot. He's doing AMAZING but still has a little muscle weakness and increased tone on his left side. He struggles with fine motor skills with his left hand too. Hopefully when he grows out of this brace he won't need another. Fingers crossed. He actually likes it and calls it his boot. There's a kid in his early intervention class that wears them on both feet and Brooks thinks it's pretty cool that they have "same-same boots." The problem with increased muscle tone after a brain injury is that tone is dynamic. It changes as he grows. We notice different nuances in his gate after growth spurts and they usually calm down after a while. Currently he drops and turns in his left foot, which he used to trip on ALL the time, not so much anymore. He also has what looks like a limp cause his left hip muscles are really stiff and he doesn't relax them enough when we walks. None of this keeps him from running, jumping and climbing and I couldn't be more grateful.

 He LOVED riding the pony.

 Brooks loves it when his Uncle Ben will rough him up.

My sister Erin got married. We had fun taking pictures while we waited for them to get dressed. 

 My super stylish and HOT husband.

 We didn't coordinate our purple and silver very well.

 The bride and groom. This was the best pic I got. Hopefully the real photographer got some good ones.