~blessings~

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kinley had speech therapy on monday and marylou wanted to retest kinley and her speech. she does this after every "cycle" of sounds. we just finished the first cycle so it was time to test. i was nervous and excited. we have put in SOOOO much work in the last 4 months. it has been amazing as we have seen many new words and feel kinley is able to communicate so much more...but i was anxious to see if it actually showed up in her testing. marylou our slp told us at the beginning of this that the first 4 - 6 months you usually see little results, but in the second 6 months we would really start to see progress. she warned us that she might not even test higher in her speech testing for almost a year. so i was prepared to see that kinley was still WELL below the 1%. my mom was with us on monday so she was able to see and help us test kinley. it was so fun to see kinley be able to know new words as we went through. i was amazed at how well she did, but wondered how the numbers would end up. marylou graded the score sheets and we couldn't have been happier!! 4 months ago kinley was about 7 spots BELOW the 1% for age.....as of monday she was 1 spot below the 2% for her age!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! when marylou was going over the results my mom and i just sat there with tears of joy pouring out of our eyes!! WHAT AN ANSWER TO PRAYER! marylou too was so shocked at her progress!
there have been MANY days i have wanted to give up. to just give in to her apraxia and say the mountain is just to high to climb. we have had MANY days of tears, frustration, sadness...but all those days helped us get where we are today! the days that i feel completely defeated...God gives us the strength to keep going!
the last 4 months in a lot of ways have been the most amazing months of my life. it has been such a gift to see God's hand active in our lives. mark and i knew at the beginning of this journey it was only going to be through God's doing that we could walk this road. we had no idea where we would find the strength, time, energy, money & patience to go up against this severe apraxia. within days of kinley diagnosis he was WORKING HARD on all of these areas for us! he has PROVIDED AND EXCEEDED everything! he has sent many "angels" into our lives to walk along side of us and to encourage us. he as also sent a herd of angels who have sooo graciously given financially to the "help kinley find her voice" fund! we now have a fund started at wells fargo that is there to help with all the costs of kinley's therapy. he has given mark and i EVERYTHING we prayed for. i would never ask for such a diagnosis for my child, but i am thankful for it! seeing the POWER of God ACTIVE in our lives is life changing. i have the gift of not just talking to my children about the love of God and the power of prayer but for them to be LIVING in the middle of it day after day .
we have a LONG road still ahead. i am sure there will be MANY more difficult days & tears. but i am confidant that many years from now we will look back at this time as one of our greatest gifts. the song blessing by lauras story has so touched my heart on this journey. this video always bring tears to my eyes.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CSVqHcdhXQ
thank you all for your amazing love and support on our family! we are so excited to see how much progress kinley is making! you all are blessings to us!