Happy Birthday Jesus Party and Caroling Fun!

Several months ago, I decided that I really wanted our kids ministry to be able to go caroling at one of the assisted living/nursing home facility that our church supports. Our children's musical was about a caroling outreach for their community, and I wanted the kids to be able to experience sharing God's love in a real, tangible way. We weren't really sure what kind of turnout we would have because the only available time that we could schedule it for was on a Sunday night after school had already let out for Christmas break, but we decided to give it a shot.

We were overwhelmed by the turnout! The kids were so excited! :) We had a guest appearance by Mr. Olsen from our Back to the Manger musical - he came to read the Christmas story to the kids! :)

Each person had their own cupcake with a candle to blow out after we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. The kids were so excited and totally loved it! :)

We really encouraged this to be a "whole family" event - so even Caleb got in on some cupcake action! :)

We then headed to Agape and the kids sort of took over the front lobby! :) We sang a few of our songs from the musical (complete with hilarious choreography) and then sang several Christmas carols.

Callie was excited that she got to be part of it too :).

After singing in several of the different lobbies, we went down to visit one precious couple from our church that lives there. Pastor Joe and his sweet wife Mary Duke were overwhelmed by the sight (and sounds!) of all our children there to sing to them. It was a very sweet night and a tradition that I hope continues to years to come.

Rank Testing

On Friday night, both of the boys had qualified to test for their next belts in karate. Since I missed their first rank testing when I was in Myrtle Beach for my half-marathon with Beth, I was very excited to go and see them test for their new belts. There are lots of cardio benchmarks that they have to achieve in order to pass to the next level. The first test is for all of them to run a mile. Jacob was very nervous about this - it was the first time he had to do this part of the test. They did a GREAT job though! Next, it was time to go inside and do more of the cardio tests. They had do certain punches, hits and kicks for 3 minute intervals. I would have passed out, but they hung in there!

I see some boys getting sweaty! :)

Caleb was pretty intrigued - seemed to be rather fascinated by it all!

Here's how Callie entertained herself during the testing :)

Both boys had to perform their kata

...and they did a great job and passed!

Waiting for their new belts

Congratulations Jacob! He passed from yellow striped belt to solid yellow! And got promoted up to the same class that Josiah's in! (Hooray for me - that means we only have to go 2 days a week instead of 4 days!!) :)

Congratulations Josiah! He passed from solid yellow to solid orange belt!

Gingerbread Houses in Kindergarten

Is there anything more fun than a Christmas party with a class of kindergartners? They were SO excited - and who can blame them? :)

Their sweet picture...
Their silly picture :)

We made gingerbread houses and they LOVED it!

It was so cute watching them. Some were completely random and just dumped candy on it. Others (most of them actually) were very specific in their designs and went all out. It was so fun to watch!

And now vacation can begin! Schools out!:)

The Christmas Parade!

Our children's ministry at church was given the opportunity to march in a local city's Christmas parade. The kids and I were so excited to get to participate in this fun opportunity - even if it was just a few hours after our children's musical! :) I mustered up some energy, got us all bundled up, and headed down to our float. (Caleb and David stayed home - too cold for Caleb!)

The girls were very sweet to take good care of Callie on the float (I was marching alongside of the float...)

It was such a great, FUN way to get to advertise about Northside and all the FUN things that our children's ministry does. We LOVE Northside Kids! :)

Back to the Manger!

What an amazing semester I have had with these precious children! Back in the middle of the summer, our church pianist told us that she was leaving Northside to play organ at another church in the area. She also had been in charge of the children's choir, so her leaving left a tremendous void. After much discussion and prayer, I agreed to take over her position. I had no idea what I was in for! I have never been so tired on Sunday nights in my life. :) But it has given me so much joy. I have LOVED teaching these children about music and about the Lord over these last several months. We had a BLAST working on this musical - it was so much fun doing the songs from all these past decades! I posted some of the videos onto facebook and they are hilarious! Since I was directing, I didn't get to take any pictures of my own! :(

We performed the musical on Sunday morning in both morning services. It was a HUGE deal to take over the morning services (it's always been performed on a Weds. night or Sunday night). I felt strongly that the whole church body should see what their children are learning - and it was a HUGE success. The kids did a wonderful job (performing it twice, and back-to-back was a LOT to ask of them) and the church body LOVED it! We had a RECORD attendance that morning (and I still have people coming up to be months later telling me how much they loved seeing the children in their musical!). What a priviledge to serve these children in this ministry!

stockings and...eggs!

Stockings are hung by the chimney with care....
Watching the first Christmas movie of the season...

And I went to Sam's and bought a few eggs! 15 dozen to be exact. My mom and sister thought I was totally nuts when I told them...and I'll admit, it sounds like a LOT! But I knew I had a LOT of baking ahead of me, and I was so tired of having to buy more eggs EVERY time. So I decided to conduct and little experiment and see exactly how many eggs we'd go through in 3 weeks (that was how much time we had before leaving for Christmas vacation). Pretty funny right? (Well, again, since I'm posting this AFTER the fact, I can tell you that when we left for vacation, we had ONE egg left! Can you BELIEVE that? Hilarious! I seriously need chickens in my backyard or something!)

What happened while I was sleeping??

When Caleb woke up the next morning, we brought him down and showed him the Christmas tree, and he was SO excited! He just kept pointing at it and saying "Da!" (which I guess means "that!") :) What a fun thing to wake up to! :)