Festival of Lessons and Carols

Auriana in her choir robe

This evening Tyler and Auriana performed at our church's Festival of Lessons and Carols. It was a lovely evening, and they both did beautifully. I was especially proud of how they managed to stay still and be interested in all the music. 

Before the service I took all the children outside to get their picture on the front steps. 

(I won't be showing any of the other children because I didn't ask their parents permission.:o) 

Trust me though, they were an angelic group.  

All of them. 

Except maybe one. 

I love Calvin and Hobbes cartoons. I grew up cracking up over the trouble that boy could get into, and his take on it all was Perfect! 

My favorite Calvin and Hobbs strips are the ones where his mother is desperately trying to get Calvin to make at least ONE decent face for their family picture or his school pictures.

 I wonder why?

Love, Laughter, and Little Boy Hijinks,

Wendi

One of our Advent Traditions

From Deepest, Darkest, Winter's Night,

Comes the Sun's Returning Light.

This is the verse that I wrote to begin our newest Advent traditon. I'm supposed to say it as we start lighting the candles but I haven't yet. :o)

Instead we've been using this lovely song.....

In the Advent Garden,

Dark the Night Below,

Earth is waiting, waiting, waiting,

For the Stars to glow.

Once we have the candles lit we read from Tiptoes Lightly. Since we have the littles I've been repeating the story at least once. They really enjoy hearing the same story over and over. We read the Festival of Stones on Sunday and we've pulled lots of our stones to the table with us when we light our candles.

Then we go around the table and each person gets to choose a song for us to sing. I thought this would be a nice way to teach the littles the Christmas songs I love. But it is looking like I'm going to have to make a new rule that it has to be a Christmas song.:o) Kissy keeps singing Mary had a little lamb, and Ronan is choosing Jesus Loves Me or the ABC's. I just keep singing Christmas songs during the day and hoping that they'll fall in love with them enough that they start choosing them at night. 

Either way, our Home is filling up with Christmas Cheer.

 And I suppose that THAT is exactly what I was going for.