Neighbors and a Heavy Heart

Things have been busy...behind with posts once again.

One of our Christmas activities (last week) was to make Christmas ornaments.  I failed to plan ahead, but we came up with a last-minute, free craft that I thought turned out cute.  We picked up a handful of sticks from the back yard and broke them into various lengths.  I think Alexee was really tired after school because she cried and said that arranging the sticks in the right order (according to length) was "the hardest thing she'd ever had to do".  :( And I was trying to make things fun!?  I found a jar of buttons in the laundry room to use as "ornaments" on the stick-trees, and we hot glued them on, along with a ribbon to hang them with.

Rhett's 

Crosby's

Alexee's

(She chose mostly pink buttons.)

*****

Neighborhood brunch, 12/14

At this point in the day on Friday, I had not heard about the horrible, unthinkable tragedy in Newtown, CT.  My neighbor hosted a lovely holiday brunch for the ladies on our street that morning, and we had a lot of tasty food and a fun time visiting with each other.  I took sausage casserole and a new recipe for cinnamon French toast that I tried from Pinterest.

Lindsey had her home decorated so pretty.

Really thankful for such sweet neighbors!

Lisa, Sarah, Lindsey, Silvana, Becky, Laura, Jennifer and Farzana

After leaving Lindsey's house, I came home and gathered up some gifts that I needed to ship, left for the post office then went to the kids' school to watch Alexee's class while her teacher attended the staff luncheon at 1:00.  I still had not seen or heard any news, and no one mentioned it while I was there.   Several of the little girls asked if they could draw on their dry-erase boards.  Some of the students told me this wasn't allowed except during centers time, others said it was fine.  Since it seemed to keep a few of them busy, I decided it would surely be okay this time.

I asked the girls to each draw a snowman, so they went right to work and drew some great pictures.

When Mrs. D got back it was almost time for dismissal so Alexee left with me, and we went to wait in the lobby for Rhett's class.  As we waited, I opened Facebook, and of course the very first thing I read was about the shocking news from Sandy Hook.  Just too heart-breaking to try to put into words.  As I looked back through the pictures I'd taken in A's classroom that afternoon, I cried and cried.  I was SO VERY THANKFUL to have my sweet children in the car with me--ready to go see my sister and her family.

My heart is broken for those families that lost loved-ones last Friday.  I'm praying for strength for them in the days ahead.