2nd shot!

Emily received her 2nd vaccine shot on Sunday and handled it like a champ. So far, she has not had much for side effects, if any. She is still looking forward to the sleepover with her best friend in a few weeks and we are still working on getting her back to in-person school after the holiday break. 

In other news, Emily is thrilled that Christmas season is here. We finished putting the tree up this weekend and got the house fully decorated. Right on schedule, our elf arrived and has been quietly observing us from various vantage points around the house. Emily has her Christmas list pulled together and we have started thinking about what she might like to get for Abbie and Dad.

The Vaccine is Here!

After waiting and waiting, the vaccine for the 5-11 year old crowd is finally here. We are very excited to get Emily on her way back to a more normal life. She got her first dose yesterday and did great with it. She said that it barely hurt. When she went to bed last night, her arm was a little sore, but other than that, she was feeling fine.

Before

Of course, we were all so excited that we all went with her to her appointment. Abbie and I made her nuts by obsessively snapping photos - LOL.

During

 

After her shot, we wandered around the CVS for a few minutes to make sure that she didn't have a reaction and she picked out some sparkly blue nail polish for herself. I figured that would be a nice post-shot treat for her.

After

Her second shot will be on November 28th and she will be fully protected by December 12th. We already have a sleepover scheduled for her and her best friend on December 17th. What a nice way to kick off the Christmas break!

Trick or Treat

As you may recall, Halloween is Emily's favorite holiday, which is not that surprising, given her interest in scary things, magic, etc. Her greatest wish was to celebrate her favorite holiday with her best friend, Ansel. Unfortunately, Ansel's family has a long-standing tradition of going trick-or-treating with another family, so Emily was out of luck . . . or so she thought! It turns out that Ansel decided to surprise Emily this year by choosing to go trick-or-treating with her rather than the family that she normally goes with. It was a big secret and Ansel didn't tell Emily until the day before. Emily was super-excited. 

The girls decided that they wanted to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood, so Abbie and I walked them around to a bunch of houses. Emily was a sorceress and Ansel was a character from The Hunger Games. It was a beautiful night and they had a blast. We felt like Emily was pretty protected in her N95, so at the end of the night the girls gave each other a huge hug for the first time since the pandemic started. For both of them, that was the biggest treat of the night. :)

As for other Halloween festivities, we made pumpkin spice cakes in the skull muffin tins on Saturday. It was a new recipe and they turned out great! I expect that we will make that recipe again over the next few weeks. On Sunday we carved pumpkins and Emily's turned out super-cute.

She decided to carve a heart into the back and to make the top into a sun. I had never thought of the sun idea before and it looked really great all lit up. It also gave the candle plenty of oxygen, so she got a great glow.

As for other events, Emily continues to be a trooper about online school. It is not easy for either of us and she really wants to get back to in-person classes as soon as possible. We are expecting good news on the vaccine later this week, but it is not clear that schools will be willing to admit her mid-year, so we'll have to see how it goes. 

In the meantime, online classes leaves her lots of flexibility in her schedule. She can sleep as late as she wants and has plenty of time to work on her drawing in the afternoons. We found an art teacher on Fiverr recently and arranged for her to have a 30 minute Zoom art lesson with him. She loved it. He was super-nice and gave her some helpful tricks of the trade. Above is one of her latest drawings in honor of Halloween. :)