Holiday fun continued...

So after our visits with Santa and all of the Christmas parties at school -- well actually, they are called "holiday" parties, but I'm a rebel and still call them CHRISTmas parties -- we continued our fun!  John and I attended our first Ugly Sweater party! It was so fun and guess what?!?!?!

John came home with the 1st Place trophy!  I think is was the pants that gave him the edge!!!!

December 14th brought some of the most horrible news that I've ever seen or heard....the Sandy Hook shooting.  Actually, I didn't really know all of the details until Monday the 17th, because I didn't want to watch the news while the kids were home.  But I still have't been able to find the right words to express my thoughts on this tragedy!  My heart breaks for everyone involved and all I can do is feel blessed to have my healthy kiddos right here by my side!  After I let the news soak in and the kids heard an abbreviated version at school, I wanted to do something to honor the sweet little souls that were now in Heaven.  So, the kids and I made tin foil hearts, Sam and Lily wrote the names of the new angels and we hung them in our front yard Crabapple tree from bright colored strings.

The pictures don't really do it justice,but at night, the hearts shimmered from the street lights and it was beautiful!

Our next adventure was going to downtown ATL to the Coca Cola corporate offices with my friend, Pam.  She works there and asked us if we wanted to join she and her boys for lunch at the company cafeteria and to look at all of the decorations!  Well, of course we did!!! So, we headed in town and had a great time!

Lily always making herself comfortable with a group of boys!

Taking care of a little business.  (Psst -- if you are nice, I'll let you know the secret formula!)

Great decorations!

Beautiful tree!

Yes, there are unlimited Coke products everywhere and yes the kids were in Heaven!  Thanks Pam for including us!

The week before (after the news of the Sandy Hook shooting) we found out that one of our neighbors had been hit by a car at the entrance to our neighborhood.  She was in the ICU for several days, but sadly didn't make it.  So our neighborhood, along with other neighborhoods in the area coordinated a night of luminaries for the Sandy Hook victims and for our neighborhood, in honor of our neighbor.  It was a crazy afternoon of filling paper bags with cat litter and candles and then placing them around the curbs, but the result was beautiful!  (And actually, when you have a gaggle of young kids and form an assembly line, anything seems possible!)  

Our next adventures will take us to Alabama, Tennessee and into the Georgia Capital.  So keep on reading.....

Nonstop~

Laurie