Christmas Shoeboxes

Okay it’s already 9:30 p.m. and I’m just now starting this blog, so I’m just going to basically do a giant photo dump with very little riding, because it’s pregnant lady is exhausted!

Emerson was in a great mood this morning at school drop off, because she was very excited that Grammy & Grandmommie were coming to pick her up this afternoon!

I had a whole wheat English muffin for breakfast on my way to work, and brought delicious apples and caramel for a morning snack. I ate one around 9:00, and ate the second one for my after lunch dessert, and it was sooo good with the caramel! And I started another Kindle book from the library today.

Emerson got picked up early from school today around 3:00 p.m., and went straight out to Grammy’s house for some afternoon play time.

Jeff and I drove out to their house after work, and we all had dinner together. And they gave Emerson a few gifts they got her on their little getaway to Jacksonville and St Augustine earlier this week, including this Flagler College t-shirt, from my alma mater, and a new stuffed dino from IKEA!

And then we spent about an hour putting together a ton of boxes for Operation Christmas Child. (My mom is spearheading that effort for our church this year.) Normally, everyone fills up their own box and brings them back, but because of all the covid stuff this year, we accepted monetary donations from members who didn’t want to go out and shop themselves, and my mom did the shopping for them. Her and my grandmother cleaned out two or three different Dollar Tree stores up on the north side of town the last few days, and with all the stuff they got, we filled up 64 boxes tonight! And we’re still not done!

Papa and Emmie played in the back playroom for a little while when we first got started on the boxes, but before long she wanted to join in too, and jumped right in helping fill up boxes herself, dressed up as a princess!

Here’s all 64 boxes we put together tonight, for both boys and girls of all ages. We have plenty more empty boxes to fill, but we actually ran out of stuff! So Mama plans to go to another few Dollar trees around town tomorrow to stock up on more things with the remaining donation money they have, and then we’ll go back over to their house again tomorrow to fill up as many more boxes as we can!

We stayed over there late tonight finishing up our project, so it was straight to bed once we finally got home. Emerson tried to claim she wasn’t tired, but I know she was asleep within seconds after I left her room after lullabies.

When I was about her age, grand mommy and granddaddy bought me this cheetah, and I’ve saved it ever since. Emerson loves it now too, and wanted to hold it to sleep with tonight, since unfortunately we left her new dinosaur at Grammy’s house. But Grammy put the new dinosaur in her bed to take good care of it, and sent us a picture to appease Emerson.

As usual whenever I say I’m not going to write much, I end up writing just the same amount as always. But I did get this done pretty quickly, however it’s almost 9:45 by now, and it’s definitely almost my bedtime now too. Happy Friday the 13th friends!