As you can imagine, I have several pictures from Christmas I am anxious to post!  However, I am confined to dial-up right now, so I'll stick to the blog and post pictures next week.

 

I love to read on many of my friends' blogs about all the cute little things their kids say.  This week, I thought I would just post a few we have heard recently.

 

When Ella is feeling full after eating a big meal, she says "I'm all stuffed up!"

 

On Christmas Sunday morning, a man was doing a monologue as John the Baptist.  He was talking about the trees not producing fruit being cut down and thrown into the fire.  Ella looked at me and said, "What did he say, Mommy?"  I said, "He's just pretending to be someone out of the Bible."  She shook her head at me and said, "He said he was going to throw us into the choir!"

 

After opening gifts with Jeff's family on Christmas Eve, Ella said, "I need a drink!  I'm really thirsty because I opened so many gifts!" 

 

Lucy has done her share of talking this week as well.  When she gets up in the morning, if Ella is not right there in the room, she starts saying, "Ella? Ella? Ella?" over and over until she finds her.  I think it's so sweet.  She has also begun putting two words togther!  She says, "all done," "no more," "I know," "hi, Mama," "go bye-bye," and other combos.  Some of the words she says most often are "puppy," "drink," "no-no," "night-night," and "please."

 

We shouldn't be surprised that Lucy talks so much.  When we first saw her on the ultrasound and the technician told us she was a girl, we saw her little jaw opening and closing.  Jeff said, "Great, she's talking already."  Isn't he blessed to be living with three females?!

 

I hope you are enjoying this wonderful holiday season as much as we are!  More next week!

Well, for all we did this past week, I don't have many pictures to show for it!  Here are a few highlights:

 

On Tuesday night, Jeff and I got to have a date night - for free!  My parents came to watch the girls as we went to dinner and a concert.  Dinner at the Olive Garden was provided thanks to a birthday gift card Jeff received from my brother's family in November.  The free concert was the Annie Moses Band at a local church.  This was our second time to see them perform live and they are phenomenal!!  I highly recommend them to anyone who ever has a chance to see them.  They are a family of eight, all incredibly gifted and trained musicians, along with a drummer and bass player from outside the family.  They play all sorts of styles from classical to bluegrass to jazz.  And many of them switch back and forth between more than one instrument, as well as having beautiful voices.  The dad of this family is Bill Wolaver, a well-known piano composer and arranger.  Jeff and I have both played several of his pieces before.  This concert happened to be an all-Christmas concert, as they have a new Christmas album this year.  We had a wonderful time!

 

Sunday evening was the Adult Choir's Christmas Program at church.  Jeff and I have both been dealing with a lingering cough/throat thing, so we weren't at our best as far as singing solos that night, but God helped us through it.  It was a very nice evening.  None of our family was able to be there that night, hence no pictures to post.

 

Monday night was Jeff's Christmas concert at school.  All three of his choirs performed, and I accompanied on the piano.  Jeff did a wonderful job and had prepared the kids well, but the immaturity of some of the students ended up putting a damper on the whole night.  We didn't come away with that feeling of accomplishment we normally like to have after a concert.  They could have done better.  I know Jeff didn't stay disappointed for long, though, when he remembered that there were only a couple days left until break!  We managed to get one picture after the concert, but none during.

 

Ella and Lucy have both been in and out of the Dr.'s office way more than we would have liked over the past six weeks.  Each girl has had multiple rounds of antibiotics, ear infections, and eye infections.  The Dr. thinks they just keep passing it back and forth.  We are praying they will be healthy for Christmas! 

 

And to all of you reading, I wish you a very Merry Christmas!  May you celebrate JESUS this Christmas and always!

Ella while riding in the van this week:  "Okay, Mommy.  You're going to turn right up here, then go a few blogs and turn left."  I had to chuckle.  Blogs are a normal part of her world!  My how things have changed!

 

This weekend, we were blessed to have the company of two families from our church in our home.  We are really enjoying getting to know these special people.  On Friday night, we enjoyed a Papa Murphy's pizza meal with Jwain, Kris, Marina, Samuel, Ruthie, and Anneli!  I was excited to live in a home where we finally have the space to open our dining room table up big and have a party of 10 fit comfortably around it!  After dinner, I got some pics of the kids singing along with a Christmas CD on the karaoke machine.  Lucy Claus made an appearance as well.  We had hot cocoa, candles burning, homemade dessert, music, and laughter around the Christmas tree...some of the most wonderful things that come to mind when I think of Christmas.

 

We had more hot cocoa and more dessert on Saturday night after Ella's dress rehearsal/pizza party at church when our friends Jason, Lynne, Hannah, and Emily came over.  (Hannah and Emily are pictured in the group of girls at the church.)  Jason is the music director at our church.  Lynne is a stay-at-home mom, an accomplished pianist, and leads the children's choir.  They have two girls.  The more we get to know them, the more we find in common with them!  Our girls get along great and we hope to find more opportunities to spend time with them in the future.

 

Sunday night was Ella's first church Christmas program.  The pre-school choir (led by our friends, Jwain and Kris, above) sang and did sign language for "Give Thanks," sang and jingled bells to "Jingle Bells," sang the first verse of "Away in a Manger" with the children's choir, and sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" with everyone at the very end of the program.  Also, each child in Ella's choir carried in a box with a different symbol of Christmas inside.  Ella's was the last box and contained a plastic baby Jesus.  She opened her box, but wouldn't speak into the microphone.  Thankfully, this was her only bit of shyness.  We were concerned by how she had acted in practice a few times that she would freeze up and not open her mouth on stage (even though she knows every word and action and sings them loud and clear at home!).  She did great, though.  She smiled beautifully, sang, did the actions, and behaved like an angel throughout the bigger kids performance.  We were so proud of her.

 

I have agreed to teach the 3rd-5th grade children's choir beginning in January.  After teaching K-4 music for four years in Illinois, and assisting with K-5 and 3-5 children's choirs at our church in Louisville for three years, I am looking forward to using my gifts in that way again.  Lynne (mentioned above) will continue to teach the K-2 kids and we will work together for Easter/Christmas performances.

 

Christmas shopping is about 75% done!  It's the most wonderful, busiest, stressful, joyful time of the year!

The first set of pictures this week is of my nephew, Bradyn, playing basketball.  Ella, Lucy, and I got to see him play on Thursday night.  Unfortunately, we were pretty late, but what playing we did see was really good!  The JV and Varsity both won their games!  His dad, my brother Todd, is the coach.  Ella thought it was way too loud in the gym, so she spent most of the evening playing games in the cafeteria with my niece, Cassidy.  I was happy to get to see Todd and Bradyn in action.  Bradyn is in 5th grade and I think he has a lot of potential, especially with his dad coaching him these next few years.

 

Then the next night, on Friday, Jeff joined us and we got to see my niece, Brooke, in a community production of "Miracle on 34th Street."  Brooke played the role of the photographer and sang in the chorus.  She did great!  We weren't allowed to take pictures during the performance, but I got a few before and after.  Jeff and I were impressed with the quality of the whole production, especially for the smaller venue it was in.  Everyone was impressed with how Ella behaved SO WELL for the entire 2 1/2 hour performance!  We were so proud of her.  Thankfully, Lucy was being cared for and asleep at that point.  She never would have made it.

 

I also wanted to include a picture of our enormous Christmas tree!  Jeff's uncle moved to a different house and didn't have need for this tree, so he gave it to us.  It is 9 feet tall!  Our house has a very tall ceiling in the front room, so we had a place for it, but wow, is it big!  It took us 3 days to get the thing put together and decorated, but it really is pretty.  We still haven't put the garland on yet, but hopefully that will be done soon.  Ella has helped decorate several trees this year, including the three shown in the pictures.  She is having fun putting up the parts of the nativity on her advent calendar.  It's making more sense to her this year.  She can see Christmas getting closer as she puts up another piece each day.  She is so excited.  This Sunday night, she will be performing in her first church Christmas program.  The pre-school Children's Choir is singing 3 songs before the bigger kids do their play.  She knows the songs well, but whether or not she actually sings them and does the actions when she's up in front of people is yet to be seen.

 

Enjoy the season!