Merry Christmas, Matty Brown(ing)!

Actually it was a very merry Christmas for Matty Browning, the rest of the Brownings, Murpheys and Fussells, too. As we got about 1/2 way up the mountain we could start seeing leftover piles of snow off the side of the road, til by the time we got to Apple Mountain, there were at least 3 inches everywhere. It was our very own little winter wonderland. We took advantage of it while it lasted, with tons of sledding (check out the videos below!)

Christmas Eve was pretty low key, the men folk (minus Matty) took turns shoveling the ice from the driveway, Mom and Hudson made a gingerbread house and the kids each got to open a gift. Hudson got an awesome video camera from his other grandmother, Matty got a magnadoodle and my parents truly outdid themselves with their gifts to Jen and me. In front of our house in Macon is a gorgeous old Mulberry tree, at least 125 years old. It's as much a part of our home as the house itself. But sadly it's slowly dying and as a way to preserve its place in our hearts, Mom and Dad had a wood turner create original pieces of art from cuts off of our old Mulberry. They are so gorgeous! We'll always treasure our precious tree now, even if it doesn't last forever.



After a mean game of Pictionary and we were all in bed, and even though none of us were really home-home, Santa found us anyway, Matty and Hudson especially. We were all shocked there was any floorspace left to walk on after the paper storm ripped through the house!

We all loved our presents, but mostly we loved the time we were able to spend together. This was a very unique Christmas for us. Not at anyone's full time home, but together at our home away from home. It's been a pretty hard 2009 for our family, like many other families I know of. Lots of struggles this year for so many it seems. I can't think of a better way to have spent this Christmas, to bid farewell to 2009 and ring in what I know will be a much brighter 2010.

Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy New Year!

Christmas in Highlands: The Videos

This was the first day of our white Christmas experience in Highlands. This was just a few moments after the three of us arrived and the sleds were already out and everyone was tearing up the neighbor's driveway.

It turned out to be a good thing we got a few hours of sledding in when we did, because the weather warmed just enough for it to not only not snow again, but to melt away the few inches we had. But these were some fun hours, I know we'll always remember!

Hudson starts us off...

Like mother, like son: Jen...into the bushes!

Not that I can talk...at all...

Close up of Bop's butt...sorry Daddy, "zoom in" and "zoom out" are right beside each other on this thing...

Jen and I realized we'd never been sledding with our Mom before this day...this is me and Mom taking a turn...very cool :)

Ben shows us all how it's done...

Ben takes Matty down a hill just the right size for a little guy.

Matty had more fun doing this with his Daddy. After my turn, he looked at me and said, "Daddy?"

But as much as Matty liked sledding fast with Daddy, he also liked it nice and easy with Hudsey.

After our afternoon of sledding, there were still lots of fun times to be had, and Matty was an endless source of entertainment of course!

Here he is belting out his favorite tune for us...

Whenever Mom and Dad would have a glass of wine when Jen and I were little, they always said somehow the two of us ended up being the ones who got buzzed. I think we can see the tradition continues with this generation. Matty is crackin' himself up blowing zrbtts on Dad's ottoman.

Dreaming of a White Christmas

It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas...and a white Christmas at that! A few weeks ago, we ventured back to our home-away-from-home for the annual Highlands-Cashiers Christmas parade. In 6 years we've never been and I thought Matty would surely enjoy the festivities. We awoke that Saturday morning to a gorgeous blanket of snow on the ground, flakes still falling and crystalline trees as fas as the eye could see! It was so exciting! I drew open the curtains and Matty just said "woooowwwww!!"

The parade that followed was awfully cold but worth the cold noses and hot chocolate. Parade stars included the town's mayor, the high school homecoming court, the garden club, assorted dogs from the Humane Society, antique cars, and a frightening looking tooth fairy! Such hokey small town fun for a moment I thought I was in that Chevy Chase movie "Funny Farm!" However, amidst the cloggers and waves, I was truly moved by the old army Jeep, the aging war veteran in full uniform in the passenger seat and the sign which read: "This WWII Jeep went from Normandy to Berlin."

In spite of the cold, Matty loved the firetrucks and the dogs, but mostly the little snowman prize he was handed during the parade. This little snowman has become one of our most prized possessions and Matty's proudly named him "Tummy." Now all snowmen are "Tummy" and I think it's about the cutest thing I've ever heard in my life!

I wish I'd known the snow wouldn't even last until we made it back home, I would have ventured out to take some snapshots. By naptime it was almost all gone and we weren't able to break in the new sled...hopefully Christmas will be a different story!

"My First Book" Project

This was a cool project that I did for work, and I'm really proud of the success we had with it and I wanted to share!

Our Cape Town, South Africa office came up with the idea to take stock photography books, that litter ad agencies and are now useless because of online libraries, and turn them into children's books for kids from disadvantaged backgrounds. The President of our North America offices then challenged every JWT office worldwide to take their idea and make it their own.

We partnered with the Boys and Girls Club of Norcross and arranged to help rebuild their library, which was literally a closet with the door taken off, broken shelves and only a few books. So several of us wrote orginal children's stories, cut out pictures that complimented them, and had them hard bound.

But we wanted to do more for these kids. So we collected almost 200 gently used books and $200 with which we bought more brand new books for their library. When we showed up with our boxes and boxes, they were completely overwhelmed!

This short video illustrates part of what we were able to do. The video itself was also was fun to put together. I never get to be creative at work, but this video was my baby...enjoy!!

My First Book Project