As we all know, Friday was a tragic, horrifying day in American history. 26 precious lives were stolen away from their loved ones, by a crazy, angry, coward. I watched the news in horror with tears streaming down my face, as most of the country did too. I literally hurt for them. I left work early to finish up some Christmas shopping that day. As I drove through the traffic and walked the aisles of the big stores, I felt guilty, guilty, for going on about my life while others' lives would never be the same again. They would never feel the joy of shopping for their precious children again. I cannot even begin to imagine the depth of their anguish. I shopped quickly, rushing to pick up Colt from his Mimi. I can't imagine never being able to see that precious face again. Ryan was doing some work that evening and I put him to bed alone. He woke up crying a little after he went to sleep and I rushed in there quickly, when another night, I may have let him cry a bit first. He cried twice that night, almost inconsolable and I felt like he could feel the hurt in the world too. I held him, whispering "Shh...it's okay, Mommy's here..." over and over, the whole time crying with him for the mommies and daddies who couldn't console their babies that night. A situation like this would have hurt me before becoming a parent, but since then, knowing the depth of the love of a mother, this rocked me to the core. I don't know what else to say about this, aside from I am broken. Those pictures and faces of those that didn't make it are forever etched on my heart. Rest in the arms of your Maker, sweet babies.
*Wipe tears...*
Okay, Saturday was spent preparing for the Women At Risk, International handmade goods sale we had after church on Sunday. My dear friend, Lindsey, came over to "shop" because she didn't think she could make it to the party (though she did and was a huge help!) and to help me make food to serve. We made huge batches of pasta salad and she made a big batch of spinach dip. The rest of the day was spent trying to keep Colt out of all the stuff I had around the house for the party.
Sunday was the WAR party! Everybody came all at once, in a huge rush. I was so busy doing the "checkout" that I didn't really even get to look around much. My friends, Kristin, Julie, and Lauren also worked their tails off helping people. We manged to raise $1580.21 for the victims of sex trafficking. That is enough to support 1 woman in a safehouse for 6 months or 6 women for 1 month! That's huge!!! So a great big THANK YOU to all who came to shop. Another big THANK YOU to my friends, for it couldn't have been done without them and their hard work. Today, I taped up all the boxes, fixed up the checks and sent it back to Michigan.
Bye bye, boxes!
Last night, we were invited to a Cookie Exchange. Most of you know, I am not a Christmas-y person and I wouldn't have gone if it weren't for the people throwing it. I adore them, so I wanted to go. Honestly though, I completely forgot about that because I was working on the WAR stuff. I remembered yesterday morning about 10 that I was supposed to have 3 dozen cookies baked for this party. Yikes! Colt and I made a run to the grocery store for supplies and walked out with over $100 worth of stuff. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN???? Anyway, we set out to make Candy Cane Cake Batter cookies. They were kind of like sugar cookies with those Candy Cane Hershey's Kisses melted in the center. They sounded amazing! They were not amazing, but they were good. I hoped they would be fluffier and gooey-er (?) but they were kind of flat and a little crunchy. They were probably gooey when they came out of the oven, but they only made 3 dozen, so I was afraid to try one. I'd add the recipe, but it really wasn't worth sharing. Sigh. Oh well. I'm not that much of a baker anyway.
I had a helper. He loved the flour, hated the dough.
I caught Colt and Roxie snuggling yesterday. ;)
I have been meaning to post a picture of the playground in our backyard for a while now. It has been almost finished for about 2 months. There are just a couple of finishing touches that need to be made, but I am not sure they'll ever get finished. Here is the latest picture and Colt about to go down the slide. The box at the bottom of the slide needs some adjustments made to it. My dad suggested filling it with sand, but for some reason Ryan and Jody put wood on it. It isn't really working out. Ha.
To the left of this is the swing part. It is HUGE. The dogs look excited, right?
Today, Ryan took a vacation day to stay home with Colt while I work. This is the first time really that Ryan has been with him alone ALL DAY. He's doing it again on Thursday. I hope after this he understands why I am so very exhausted at the end of the day. My son is a joy to be around, most all of the time, BUT he has way more energy than I do and he never stops. You cannot take your eyes off of him, like most toddlers I am sure. We'll see how this goes. ;)
So. That is pretty much what is going on with the Doolittle family this week. If anything changes, you know I will update. ;) Hope you all have a great week!
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