The Greatest Christmas Pageant EVER

Last night was our church's Children's Christmas Play. The children's department worked so hard and tirelessly to make sure it was an event worth remembering! Anyone that can get that many children to perform and act good for an 1 1/2 to 2hrs has my admiration any day. We attend a church that has around 3000 in attendance, so there was a lot of children in the play! Our 3 oldest kids were in the production and I must say that is was absolutely darling!!!!!!!!

Ricky was in the Air Strikers Band! It was made up of a large group of older boys and they played 5 gal. paint buckets! They did an awesome job!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They had a portion of the show that used black lights and performed a song in sign language. The group that was made up of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders did a fabulous job! It is amazing what children this age can do!!!!!!!! The picture turned out a little blurry, due to my problems with taking pictures in the dark, but you can get a good idea what they are doing!

Last was the play, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Kaitlyn and Nic were in this performance. Kaitlyn was Beverly in the angel choir and Nic was a baby angel. The kids did one of the best performances I have ever seen of this play.
Kaitlyn, as Beverly, singing her heart out.

At the very end of the play the baby angels came out on stage and sang along with the choir. Nic was the cutest angel I have ever seen. He had trouble keeping his halo up!

Now, be truthful, isn't he adorable?

The baby angels had been up there a few minutes and Toby asks me what is wrong with Nic's socks. I look and Nic has a hole in his socks and his big toe is sticking out. Every one around us could see his toe clearly and they start laughing! I got so tickled my sides were hurting. It didn't help that he kept wiggling his toe up and down, while standing perfectly still without a smile or singing. When he was dressing for the play that evening he had shown me these "cool socks" that he could poke his toe out of the end. I told him to change them, but obviously he didn't. Yes, we got several tips on where to find socks on sale after the play was over. :)

Toby tried to get a picture of his feet. He is the middle set of feet and there's the toe.


Our adorable, "HOLELY", little angel!

This will probably be the only year he will ever agree to wear such an outfit!

After the play, Kensli and her friend H. were glad to see one another.

The nice part about this friendship is they live a couple of blocks from us and H.'s older sister is really good friends with Kaitlyn.

H.'s older sister A., who was Imogene in the play, and Kaitlyn.

A. is a born actress! She did an AWESOME job in the play.

No wonder they are such good friends!

Oh, Happy, Happy News...A Prayer is Answered

A few weeks ago I requested prayer for 2 very urgent prayer requests. Today I received good news that my 2 request was answered! Our adoption agency, Children's Hope International, received their Hague Accreditation! This means that CHI can continue to place children from other Hague countries! This is truly an answer to prayer!!!!!!!!!!!! A big thank you for all that prayed for this!

We still have not heard from the other request, which is that talks mid-December would lead to the reopening of Vietnam adoptions! Please help us continue praying for this very important need, because many children wait for their forever families!

Happy Wacky Wednesday

Natchitoches Christmas Lights

Friday Night was our church's Christmas Banquet, and due to babysitter issues, we were not able to attend. It gets hard to find someone you trust to keep 4 kids! So, Toby and I packed up the kids and drove to my parents and left the kids with them for a few hours, so we could have date night. It was so much fun to just be able to sit over hot chocolate and talk, about he kids, of course! :)

If you have never been to Natchitoches (said Nack-i-tush), LA, it would be worth it to make the trip around Christmas. The town is actually alive with lights and activities! The 1st full weekend of December they have the annual Natchitoches Christmas Festival. They have parades (usually 2), live music, crafts, good food, and a huge fireworks display. The festival draws around 100,000 people or more from around the world.

Natchitoches is the oldest town in the Louisiana Purchase, and just misses being the oldest town in Louisiana by a few years. It's old downtown area reminds you of the French Quarters in New Orleans. It is absolutely beautiful!!!!!!!

I snapped a few pictures of the lights! I am not very good at night photography, but these turned out pretty good!

Some of the light displays on Cane River from the river bank.


A couple of displays across the river from Front St.

Lights down Front St.

Another shot of Front St.

One of our favorite places to eat in Natchitoches. Known worldwide for their Meat Pies.

Of course, no festival in the South would be complete without our deep fried specialties! This is a Louisiana festival, and seems like this vendor puts all these goodies on a stick. How handy is that?

For all those concerned for the health of my body, I passed on the fried anything, and went straight for the hot chocolate! :)

Just Horsing Around

Went by a dear friend of ours the other day to borrow our trailer back and their horses were so curious as to what we were doing! They had been standing out in the lot when we drove up, but they soon came trotting over. Of course, out of the car climbed all 4 kids to see these beautiful animals.

Kaitlyn got to them 1st, and you can tell by the smile on her face, she loves horses.

Kensli was a little afraid of them at first,...........


but she warmed up quickly!

Nic got tired of fighting for a chance to pet their heads, so he just found him another spot!

Happy Walrus Wednesday

A Ray of Sunshine

I woke up this morning in not so good a mood! There is nothing that can put me in a bad frame of mind quicker than things left undone from the day before. It was the boys turn to load the dishwasher last night, which they did, but they didn't cut it on! UGGH! There are 3 loads of clothes to fold, that I just couldn't get to last night! Kaitlyn's music is scattered all over the hearth room. Nic is pulling his "poor, pitiful me" routine, because his favorite cereal is gone. So, the dark cloud over my head was mounting, with potential for thunderstorms later in the morning! I was in the laundry room starting a new load of clothes and probably frowning, grumbling, and mumbling to myself, when I hear a little voice say,

"Mommy, I am so glad I have you!"

I turn and there sits Kensli on the brick by the door, little feet swinging, just a smiling at me. Roll back the clouds, be gone the mumbling and grumbling, wipe away the frown, because my heart is now singing!

It's a wonderful day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!