Happy Holidays!

Let's get one thing straight: Christmas is about Christ, so I don't replace "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays;" however, since I haven't blogged since before Thanksgiving, "Happy Holidays" is in order!

Thanksgiving with our families was great. Emma loved on everyone, and everyone loved on her. She thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with my sister - the two of them really bonded. And of course, Anissa brought Emma a special little early Christmas gift:



Emma enjoyed sorting through the Black Friday sale papers with Mama Jane:



She also is looking forward to spending the Christmas holidays in all her Christmas clothes. I'm pretty sure she has enough holiday-wear for every day until Christmas. This is her mini-Santa outfit for starters:





My mom, my sister, and I went to the Gaffney outlets on Thursday night and shopped all night. It wasn't NEARLY as busy as last year. Emma and her daddy had some great quality time together Thursday night and Friday. I was naturally exhausted on Friday, and, lucky for me, the only time that Russell wasn't home was during Emma's long nap. So I shopped all night and morning and napped with Emma during the afternoon - beautiful.

Emma has been sleeping much better at night and has started babbling a little, too. Instead of long, drawn-out, monotone sounds, she's moving her mouth and tongue and varying the pitch of her voice. It's the sweetest thing I've ever heard.

Our little girl went for her third ophthalmologist visit this week, and the doctor informed us that Emma is still farsighted...and it still has nothing to do with spina bifida. The time has now come for glasses - her eyes still cross sometimes, usually just one eye at a time, and the glasses will eventually help that. We had to order them this week, and, unfortunately, they're kinda plain. I was interested in thinner, metal frames but had hoped to at least get them in pink or purple...no luck - it was either bronze or silver. Silver it is, and they'll be here by Christmas. Emma tried on the floor models, but I use the word "tried" loosely. They were barely on her face for 5 seconds before she was pulling on them. Insurance will only cover the kind that has side pieces that wrap around her ears. I know that sounds weird, but it doesn't look bad. One problem, though, is the frames will be a tad bit long on the sides, but she can't go smaller because of the lens size she needs. We'll just see how all this works out.

One very interesting thing the doctor told us is that nearsightedness never goes away; however, children actually CAN grow out of farsightedness. Can, NOT will...so we'll pray for these glasses to correct Emma's farsightedness. You may be wondering how the doctor knows how to prescribe Emma's glasses. He explained it to us like this: at a shoe store, the salespeople have instruments to measure feet; the pediatric ophthalmologist has instruments to measure how light is refracted through infants' eyes. Easy enough, if you're a pediatric ophthalmologist.

Yesterday Emma spent all day (and I mean, ALL DAY) shopping at the Holiday Fair here in Greenville with Nan, Mama Jan, and Aunt Eva (my mom and 2 of her neighbors). Apparently, Emma had the time of her life. From what I understand, Emma wasn't as interested in the people as she was in the "stuff" and the environment. So she is being trained early for a career as a buyer/personal shopper or an interior designer. Fine with me, as long as she's happy. And boy was she happy yesterday. During Emma's whole day of shopping, she only napped for about 10 minutes.

I didn't get a single present wrapped over the Thanksgiving holiday, but my husband has really stepped up to the plate this year with decorating. I was wondering how I would get it all accomplished with a child who is slightly more needy and cranky in the evening when I actually have time to decorate, but Russell morphed into the holiday version of Superman. So now I CAN focus on wrapping gifts and giving Emma lots of scrap paper to play with (see Black Friday ad pictures above again).