Today, there was such a senseless shooting tragedy in the US taking the lives of 20 young kids. I think when you are a parent or especially close to a child, you immediately personalize any such event. It makes it that much more real. I’m not sure how I would cope, and pray I never have to. Surely, only the Lord, can comfort such a loss.

There is a part of me that feels guilty posting pictures of my kids happy and healthy when so many children lost their lives, but it’s also times like this that really give you pause and remind you to cherish every minute that you do have, no matter how momentous the occasion.

Maybe its sad irony, the subject of this post, yet this week Cailee had her Christmas school performance. As you can imagine it was adorable. The expressions on some of these kids faces while they were performing was absolutely priceless, and even though my daughter was yawning throughout the entire presentation, she was still a star in my eyes.

It’s also crazy to see how much she has grown in the last year, not only in stature but also in intellect – today she surprised me by writing out my name, JJ’s and Connor’s name, alongside her own.

After the performance, the kids were treated to a sugar-laced party. I was actually responsible for snacks this time. I had thought I would be creative and make snowman popcorn balls. They looked easy enough online – well, think again – I enlisted JJ’s help and at midnight we were burning popcorn, making the worst shaped balls and trying to figure out how to secure candy eyes, noses, and more to these snowmen. The next morning I had a sinking feeling about them and Cailee dashed all my hopes when she told me they couldn’t be snowmen because they weren’t white. But even though I thought it was an epic fail – the kids all seemed thrilled to receive one and while Cailee never ate one – Connor thoroughly enjoyed his popcorn balls (because I am not sure that you could really qualify them as snowmen)

This is one of my favorite pictures of Cailee and her hands-down best friend Grayson. Notice his pose.

Now, I do have to brag for a minute. Outside of Cailee’s classroom is all their Christmas artwork and the teacher has told us that she is really letting the kids be creative with their artwork, letting them draw, create what they want. I was most impressed to see Cailee’s art is actually pretty good. Look at her snowman and then compare it to everyone else’s – I must say the others resemble the snowman I made.