Saturday, May 7, 2016

She's Two!!

Yes, we have had a lot of birthdays lately.  :)  Our four girls all have their birthdays within three weeks of each other!  It is a three week pink for all.  :)

Sooooo...Happy birthday to our little, miracle girl...Kinsley!

I did not know if God would ever bless me with the experience of having an infant again.  He did!

All children are a true blessing from the Lord.  I can not tell you what a huge blessing Kinsley has been to all of us, in our home.  She came to us as a little baby who could hardly even move or see.

She has optic nerve hypoplasia and is missing optic nerves in both eyes.  Her eyes roved back and forth all her waking hours. (nystagmus)  She could not bring her eyes together and track.  She did not respond to light and dark and would not look at anything.  If you brought your hand up close to her eyes, she did not even blink or close them, in a protection response.  Bless her heart.
We soon learned she also had hypoplasia of the corpus collosum (was missing part of the brain bridge between the two half's)  and had hypotonic cerebral palsy.  We prayed and prayed over her and God began to move in big ways for her.  She could not coordinate any of her body movements at all and had to be taught repetitively, all the patterns for rolling over, reaching out, bringing her hands together, holding a toy.. just every skill she needed, had to be taught repetitively.  Hand over hand, all day long, to assist her to learn it and find a place in her brain to retain it and use it.  God helped her and she did.  Every so slowly...she did.

Slowly, she started to bring her eyes together and started to focus on things.  The nystagmus went away.  Slowly she held toys and would look at us and smile.

She is so sweet and gentle natured, everyone loves her.

She had trouble reaching and getting to toys, so I would sit her in the laundry basket and fill it full of toys, so she just had to scoop with her arms and hands to try to get them.

She had so many feeding issues but God helped her conquer them as well.

Ever so slowly, by the grace of God she has blossomed.

She has a very hard time speaking and learning words.  She is going to have to memorize every word she ever says, individually.  She uses mostly sign language but only has a few words still to this day.  But...she test out, cognitively, more than six months ahead of her age.  She stated to potty train herself at a year and a half old.

She knows all her colors and likes to sort, organize and do puzzles.

She loves to dance and thinks she is such a big girl but still takes an occasional nap.

She is growing up fast.

A very girly girl!

She loves watching Blues Clues and Peppa Pig.  She wanted a Peppa cake this year, so my wonderful sister did her thing and made Kinsley her dream cake!  Thank you Aunt "S"

Happy Birthday to our little, sweetest, miracle princess!

All the Glory to God!

May God continue to do a miracle for you in your life and bring it to completion. May you love and serve Him all the days of your life!

James 1:17-18  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.  Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.



Love Dad, mom, Stephen, Antonio, William, Carolyn, Zeke, Elizabeth, Billy, Timothy and baby "A"












God has done a great work in her. 

4 comments:

  1. Happy Birthday Kinsley! She is just darling! I love seeing the pictures we missed while she was busy growing up. She just fits into your family so well. I am happy for you all. I can't believe she's two already, what a blessing!

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    1. Thank you Hadassah! She is such an enjoyable child to have in our home. We all love her dearly. Thank God that He sometimes gives me an easier child to raise in between the harder ones. :) She is a blessing!

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  2. Well here I am catching up again! LOL! I read every post in my e-mail, save them and forget to comment- ugh!
    Kinsley reminds me of Antonio, she has the gift of stealing your heart as he does. God does not give that gift to everyone! I am amazed by her!
    I had a question about her eye sight. In my right eye I had a stroke (clot) that killed the optic nerve. I can look at the sun with that eye (Dr says don't do it LOL!) Any eye tests with bright lights in that eye do not bother that eye. My depth perception is very bad in that eye. Because our brain uses the info from our eyes together, I wear a brown lense over that eye. Otherwise it miscommunicates to my good eye. My good eye's vision becomes worse without the brown lense. My bad eye does not "see" the brown lense at all, so I forget! I also cannot see color with the bad eye at all. So to hear that she's learned her colors makes me curious. All greens and blues look washed out and pale like no color I can describe. Red looks light black.My children with dark skin are easiest to see as light reflects off of their faces. Because I have seen colors and Kinsley has not, I wonder how she thinks of them. At the eye Dr they show a colorful air balloon on a road. Each time testing my "bad" eye first. I'm always surprised and exclaim when they do my good eye- "Oh! it's in color!!!! I think I know how Kinsley's vision is and I will tell you at times its not bad, I can get by- make out things, but if I did not know from seeing them before I lost my vision- it is very hard to see.
    LOVE seeing Kinsley!! (((HUGS))) to all!

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    1. We are not sure how much and what exactly Kinsley can see. I know her eyes never line up unless she is looking perfectly straight ahead at something. Also she has a pretty significant head tilt because she uses primarily her right eye. Which is weird as they say that is the eye with the least amount of optic nerves. She will be going to vision therapy very soon. They are going to do a total work up on each eye and at that time we will know so much more. Like if she has perifrial vision or maybe tunnel? Or how much she does see. I was also very amazed when she started saying her colors. Everything she can do is such a miracle from God. I know she could not see when she came for many months. Just light and dark. Sounds like your vision is very complex as well. It was very interesting for me to read as it might be what Kinsley is going through in some ways. Kinsley and Antonio are very sweet souls and when I look at them I cant help but smile. Praying for you always! Blessings!

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