Neeley Family Blog

Sadly, on Tuesday, December 11th, a man went into my mall at work and opened fire in the Food Court Area.  He killed 2 innocent people, injured another and then killed himself.  There were around 10,000 people in the mall at the time.  I was not working that day.  I was home with the kids when this all happened, but very well could have been there had circumstances changed.  We are short handed at work right now, so I could have been called in that day.  I was also planning to go do some Christmas shopping, but decided I would wait till Brad came home from work to do it instead.  We also had just been there the night before to see Santa (all 5 of us). There were quite a few of my co-workers in the store though. All the stores in the mall went into Lock down.  We close all of our gates and usher all employees and customers to a secure location in the store.  They remained there for over 2 hours before authorities came to say they could lea...

The kids are soooo ready for Christmas!  They started their lists for Santa before Thanksgiving.  They wanted decorations up right after Thanksgiving (I think this is the earliest we have gotten them up before).  Brayden made a chain countdown at school.  Each morning he pulls off one link and is counting down the days till Christmas. We got our tree the first weekend in December.  We of course, went out to my parent's house and picked out our perfect match this year.  The boys also chose a small tree for their room (as they have done the last couple years).  We made a trip to see Santa before he got too busy and left to return to the North Pole. Waiting in line.... And....Brylee wanted no part of sitting on Santa's lap or even getting close to him.     We have added a new family tradition of Elf on a Shelf.  If you have little ones, you really should have an elf.  They are so much fun! You get to name your elf, ...