Took the weekend off blogging...

Christmas is always a busy time, and this year seems even busier than usual!

Last week, Michael had his orchestra concert. We were especially proud of his performance as part of the Sheridan fiddle group!

Please excuse the darkness, as well as the fact that a very proud daddy was focused on Michael and not on the rest of the group!

Here's the happy quintet!

Thursday was also our fifteenth wedding anniversary!

I got to join the church staff for a lovely Christmas lunch.

On Friday, we got our Christmas tree! We usually get this around our anniversary. We used to wait until Christmas Eve, but it was slim pickings by then. Of course, this is a bit of a funky shaped tree as well.

It was fun to see how much Daniel got into it this year.


A few favorite ornaments:
1. A little knit stocking from my friend Jenn's wedding
2. A mistletoe fairy my husband gave me
3. A wool angel from a Waldorf ornament exchange I did years ago

The whole tree!

Saturday brought 3 basketball games, delivery of Christmas baskets and gifts with the church, some grocery shopping, and a good bit of snow! The on Sunday, the church potluck and Sunday School Christmas pageant.

The three oldest had roles in the play, We Three Kings

and Daniel made his Christmas pageant debut singing Away in the Manger!

He REALLY liked rocking that baby!

And then we feasted.


Today was a mellow day. I've been finishing up some gifts and making ornaments for kids, putting the finishing touches on my meal plan for the week and making plans to get my hair done tomorrow.

Wishing you a peaceful week before Christmas!

Advent Evening Prayer

I posted our morning prayer a few days ago. This is what we've been doing for evening prayer.

First, we make the Sign of the Cross.

Light and peace in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Thanks be to God.

We light the candle(s) on the Advent wreath as we sing, to the tune of the Doxology.
Creator of the stars of night,
Your people's everlasting light,
O Christ, Redeemer of us all,
We pray you hear us when we call.

Come, Sun and Savior, to embrace
Our gloomy world, it's weary race,
As groom to bride, as bride to groom,
The wedding chamber, Mary's womb.

At your great name, O Jesus, now
All knees must bend, all hearts must bow.
All things on earth with one accord
Like those in heav'n shall call you Lord.

Psalm 146
Praise the Lord, my heart!
My whole life give praise.
Let me sing to God
as long as I live.
The Lord keeps faith forever,
giving food to the hungry,
justice to the poor,
freedom to captives.

The Lord opens blind eyes
and straightens the bent,
comforting widows and orphans,
protecting the stranger.
The Lord loves the just
but blocks the path of the wicked.

Zion, praise the Lord!
Your God reigns forever,
from generation to generation.
Hallelujah!

If we didn't read the Scripture or saint's story this morning, we read it now.

Intercessory prayer-- we each take a turn, followed by the Lord's Prayer.

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation.
You bring forth light from darkness.

Rainforest Adventure

Phew! Another year, another vacation church school over and done. Michael was asking everyone what their favorite part was. He seemed a little insulted when I told him my favorite part was dropping everyone off and leaving with the baby. 'Tawsn't necessarily the way it was, though. Several days I ran some errands for supplies and visited with the staff. Plus youth group kids kept stealing Daniel, which made it difficult to get away. One morning, I actually left him there with Chip for a couple hours so I could come home, do laundry, the gardening, supper prep, etc. It's amazing how relaxing even chores can seem when you're doing them child-free!



Sunday night while we were getting ready was a night of firsts for Daniel-- first steps, first pizza!


Chip sent me out to buy decorations. His idea was fake greenery, but good gravy, that's expensive! I bought lots of 77 cent a yard netting instead. Here are the guys fixing up the Amazon River.



And the girls making fishies for our river.


The centerpiece of the room was a paper chain rainforest" canopy." I don't know how well you can see it here, but it was pretty neat!




Nicholas's group singing at the final program.


Katie Grace in the role of Ruth as her class acted out the story of Ruth and Boaz.




Everyone singing with Michael front and center.


A poorly-lit picture of Chip showing off his t-shirt the kids made for him.


Daniel and Bethany.


Daniel trying to tear down the rainforest.

A Week in Review

Three posts today, and no posts last week. It was a rough week, but we did get lots done.

Sunday was Michael's First Communion. Except it wasn't, because in the ELCA, children can technically receive Communion from the time their baptized, so Michael has been receiving since he was around a year old. This was a hard day for me actually, one of the hardest parts of raising Little Lutherans.

This is Michael and his buddy Lukey.


And cake! Everybody loves cake!


Monday was Rosa Parks birthday, and we talked about the life of this wonderful woman.

On Shrove Tuesday, we had pancakes for dinner.

Ash Wednesday was spent getting the house ready for Lent.

It was a rainy, dreary, cold day, and my four little ones and I went to Mater Delarosa to receive ashes at noon. When Father blessed Daniel, Daniel gave him the biggest baby grin, and both Father and Monsignor couldn't help but laugh out loud. By the time we got to the car, Daniel's ashes were pretty much gone. Michael said, "I guess Dust doesn't really stick to babies."

On Thursday, we changed out the Nature Table.

We'll definitely have fun adding more to King Winter's kingdom!

I also couldn't help but notice I had three matching children on Thursday, and I couldn't resist a picture.


On Friday, we traveled about three hours to stay with some college friends. They're also homeschoolers, as you may be able to tell by the great bookshelves. Here are their three girls with our crew.


We spent the night and made our way to our main destination on Saturday- the Benadum theater in Pittsburgh to see The Lion King. I'll blog a little about that separately, I think, but here are some pictures.

The opening curtain and beautiful stage.


And two happy children before the curtain went up. Daniel and Nicholas went with Daddy to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum.


And Katie Grace wanted me to take a picture of the chandelier, because it was pretty.

After the play, we stopped for dinner. A lady came up to us and said, "When I saw them seat a family with four little kids next to us, I almost cried. But your children are very well behaved!" I didn't quite know how to take that!

We left the restaurant around 7 and pulled up in front of our house at 11. We would have gotten home sooner, but we hit horrible fog. I prayed for the last hour of the trip!

The today, I caught Daniel doing this:


Time to dig out the baby gates!

Lutherans Rock

The theme of the Quake was "The Amazing Race".


The theme verse was Hebrews 12:1-2
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.


They're gonna dance for the Lord. The band here is 100 White Flags. See the lead singer/guitarist? She's five months pregnant! Crazy.






The other band was Captive Free. This is the group that came to our church this fall.


Here are Daniel and I with Kelly, the other girls' chaperone


And here's our little youth group baby:

Youth Quake

I am blogging from the Harrisburg Hilton. I'm chaperoning 7 middle-school girls here at the Youth Quake. We have 15 kids here in all. Everyone is having a great time and is being reasonably well behaved. Tomorrow we go home, and they're facing up to the reality that, while here it's easy to put God first, they'll be back to their real lives tomorrow.

The baby is sleeping here on the bed next to me. He didn't care for the music. Every time we went into the ballroom, he would snuggle up against me in the sling. I was hoping he would like the music and dance to it, but it just overwhelmed him. Mostly we hang out in the lobby and he explored the crazy obnoxious hotel carpet.

He's a very blessed little baby. The youth group--girls and boys--love him. He was giving Kyle big sloppy kisses, and he smiles every time Erin comes into view, and he reaches for Mariah. The other night, when he was hugging me and patting me on the back, I realized that he was learning one of the most important lessons of all-how to love.