Ocularcutaneous albinism

Last Tuesday we took Amy to the opthamalogist. Our eye doctor in Kuna had suggested a couple of years ago that Amy may have a type of albinism that affects your eyes. I mentioned it to her pediatrician at her checkup last fall and she thought that it would be a good idea to have her looked at by a specialist before giving her that label her whole life.

So we took her to see the pediatric opthamalogist in town. She confirmed to us that Amy has Ocularcutaneous albinism. This type of albinism affects your eyes, hair and skin. She has a mild case of it. Many times they have nystagmus (eyes that jerk back and forth), eyes that look red from slits in the irises, very poor vision, and no pigment in the hair or skin. Amy has gold hair (like Rapunzel as she says), creamy white skin, no nystagmus, blue eyes and fair vision. She will most likely never have sharp vision because a part of her eyes that brings the sharpness to vision was not fully developed. The doctor said that if you were going to have albinism then having someone like Amy would be the way to go since it is mild. She will also have to be very careful of being in the sun and will have to where sun screen. (Really, that is not a surprise.) Also she is sensitive to light, but she uses transition lenses so that seems to help.

She is still our beautiful Amy. I can't help but think there are probably a lot of people out there with this and don't even know it.

Tooth Fairy visits again

Amy has lost a lot of teeth now. This time she was wrestling with her dad and the tooth was lost. She was so worried that the tooth fairy wouldn't know that she had lost her tooth so she wrote this letter on her white board and put it by the front door. She spelled tooth 3 different ways. I thought it was cute. The tooth fairy did come. Her tooth was found a few days later and she tried to double dip the tooth fairy. I told her that the fairy would know, but she still tried.

Amy without any front teeth.

Parker keeps wiggling his teeth, but to his dismay they are not loose yet. He had to get his picture taken as well.

Giant chair

When we were in Utah we had to stop at Cabella's. They had these giant chairs you could buy. It was fun to take pictures of the kids in it.

Visit to Utah

In January we had the opportunity to go to Utah for Hope's baby blessing. We also stopped and saw my sister and her family. They will be moving to Louisanna in March.

My kids with their cousins Hailey and Tyler.

Our newest niece. She is such a cutie.

Family picture without Parker. He fell asleep in the car and so we let him sleep during the blessing.

Parker really enjoyed feeding her.

Amy had her chance as well.

Real Meaning of Christmas

Today in Young Women's Sis. Gifford shared this video. It is so cute. I showed it to my kids and they really enjoyed it as well. It is always nice to be reminded of the real meaning of Christmas, especially the last week when I am running around trying to get last minute things done. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. Hopefully I can get caught up on my blog after Christmas. I am really behind. Sorry the side is cut off for some reason. I can't figure out how to fix it. I guess my blog is not wide screen. :)

Amy's birthday spotlight

Amy's kindergarten spotlight. In preschool the teacher told the class everything, but in kindergarten she held a little pretend microphone and told the class everything. She did great and was so excited.

Things I like barbies, dancing and singing
My favorite story or book is about science.
I am special because she is nice and shows gratitude.
My favorite animal is a seahorse and a seal.

Her teacher Mrs. Hellman is helping her.

Swimming Lessons

We decided to put the kids in swimming lessons this year. We did the end of the year and it overlapped school by a week. It probably wasn't the best plan because the kids were really tired. The nice thing was Amy was in a class by herself and Parker was with two other little boys. Sometimes their teachers would work together on some things, but it was still a great teacher/student ratio. The place I took them did 2 week swimming lessons in the evenings, which is great for those of us that work. Swimming lessons were from 7-7:30. They both did really well. Amy went from not wanting to put her face in the water to swimming with her head in the water and floating on her back. Parker didn't want to put his face in the water, but by the end he was putting his face in a blowing bubbles. He just need to work on doing the kicking at the same time.

Parker looks a little scared in the picture, but he was really pretty good at doing the floating with his instructor.

Amy floating.

Learning how the swim with life jackets.