Rejoice

This is a week of celebration for our little family of 3. We received an incredible (to us) Christmas gift, a direct answer to prayer. You see, Karis had a plugged tear duct since birth - if you look closely in pictures, you can see that her left eye is often moist or weepy. Not a big deal, her pediatrician said it would probably clear up between 9 - 12 months. By Karis's 1 year check up her eye was weepy as ever and even got infected for the first time. So . . . off to the opthamologist we went, and she strongly recommended surgery. It was up to us, the biggest negative was having to put her "under" with anesthegia. While not a huge deal (I fully realize this is small potatoes compared to MANY health concerns other people face - but this was also just our reality), we really didn't want to do that and we started praying for healing (another huge topic that I won't get into here). 

Like I said, shortly after her check-up her eye got very infected. What I thought was pink eye was actually turning into something worse called periorbital cellulitis. I took her in to the doctor one day from a "mother's intuition" feeling, and the doctor didn't alarm us but was quite quick to give her a hefty antibiotic shot and wanted to see us right away the next day. Later I found out that many such cases end up needing to be hospitalized! We felt so blessed to have caught it early enough, and medicine cleared up the infection. As a side note, Karis was still so amazingly happy even though her eyes looked miserable, it reminded me of her deep joyful temperament and that she really doesn't complain much! As her eyes cleared up, it seemed that the weeping cleared up too. Finally, after about 4 weeks of her eye not weeping at all . . . we canceled the surgery. All this to say, the surgery was supposed to be today, December 16th. So, we had a par-tay! At YUM, of course. Karis got a bite of God's goodness in the form of a cookie. I can't wait to tell her one day how God cares about even our smallest concerns - yes, many people have it much worse, but He takes care of us always. He gave us all a tremendous gift in the unplugging of her tear duct, and we are rejoicing!

My prayer always is that when things happen (probably worse things) and we don't receive the healing that we pray for . . . that we will still celebrate the goodness that surrounds us and the gifts we enjoy every day. For today we're celebrating! I mean really, any excuse to go to YUM, right? My bro and his girlfriend M were able to join us, and we sneaked in a Christmas celebration as well, finishing the night watching The Family Stone (such a sad movie, but I can't help but love it - I think sad movies remind me to be thankful and remember all I have to be happy for). 

Karis gave us a gift this week as well. We went to her 15 month check-up and she is thriving beautifully (I feel like those check-ups are my "mom test", so I'm always grateful when they go well!). After talking to her pediatrician, I was affirmed that we could do a little bit of "sleep training" (since Karis had an ear infection a few weeks ago she got used to getting up several times a night). Anyways, this week she started sleeping all the way through the night and we're very thankful. Again, little things that mean so much. 

Bro, M & K post gift exchange. So cute. M has been a great gift to us this year as well! 

Loving her new book of nursery rhymes

Monkey-ing around any chance she gets