Service Through Song

On Sunday Cooper and Phoebe attended our old ward in the morning because they had a school chorus performance in the afternoon during our ward meetings. They had planned to come home after the morning meetings, change into their concert garb, and rest a bit before driving the fifteen minutes over to the retirement home where they were performing. But when we realized that meant they would miss the last ward choir practice before our concert that night, they changed plans. They still went to church in the morning, and they still changed into their concert clothes, but they moved much faster. Then they drove the thirty minutes to our church building just so they could practice with us. That was followed by a twenty-five minute drive to the high school performance. I'm thankful that they were willing to give up more of their time to serving in our ward choir.

O Holy Night

On Saturday morning the four younger kids and I had our regular 8:30 kid choir practice, except this time it lasted for two hours because it was our final rehearsal before our concert on Sunday. 

That was followed by a combination of chores and focused preparation for the rest of the obligations that day. 

I had a ukulele performance in the afternoon, then headed directly over to our old church building to run our only rehearsal for the nativity program that I helped put together for our old ward's Christmas party.

That was a confusing sentence.

As soon as the hour and a half rehearsal was over, we had to shift gears for the Christmas party itself. That's right, the one rehearsal took place right before the performance. Each musical number had rehearsed separately, but this was the only practice all together.

And you know what? They did a pretty good job.

The cast was all youth and primary kids. Two of the young men were the narrators, four others were innkeepers (who were joined by their leaders and sang O Little Town of Bethlehem), and three more (including Cooper as a bonus member of their YM) played the Wise Men (their three-part harmony of We Three Kings was amazing). 

The oldest primary boys were the shepherds and they sang The First Noel.

Phoebe and Sophie helped out as angels and were joined by one of the older primary girls. The YW leaders and a few other YW came and sang Angels We Have Heard on High with them.

One YW was Mary and one YM was Joseph. We turned Mary's Lullaby into a duet and it sounded so good!

Everyone eight and younger was an animal around the manger. We had them sit with their families until their cue line, then they all crawled in from the audience to gather around Mary holding a baby doll Jesus. The kids (and several of their moms sitting on the floor facing them, including me) sang The Friendly Beasts. The kids all had animal masks on. Topher was a sheep.

The audience joined at the end to sing Joy to the World.

Was it chaotic? Yes.

Did Mary ride into Bethlehem on a pink stick pony? Yes.

Did one of the shepherds decide he was tired of standing so he walked into the audience and pulled a chair on stage? Yes.

Was it still touching and spiritual and great? Yes.

I love that I got to write and direct this simple play about the birth of the Savior.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

This weekend is one of the craziest we've had in a while. It included multiple rehearsals and performances. Somehow, packed around all that busy, we finished putting our Christmas decorations up.

Eye to Eye, Almost

You can't really tell from this picture (that Sophie insisted we take to mark the occasion), but another child has officially surpassed me in height. She's just barely taller than me. I'm okay with it and Phoebe is coming to terms with possibly being the shortest sibling.

Pink and Green

Seeing a Broadway show was enough adventure for the long weekend, but that didn't stop me from taking the four older kids (did you know service missionaries are allowed to watch movies with their families?) to see Wicked: For Good with some friends on Saturday afternoon. Knowing what takes place during Act 2 in the stage version, I was concerned it might not be a good fit for Topher. Bryan offered to stay home with him. 

We loved it! And yes, we all wore pink or green.

Potter!

The idea for last Friday's activity started back in June when Tom Felton announced he would be taking on the role of Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. We bought six tickets on June 10th and a seventh ticket in September when we learned Peter would be home during Thanksgiving. We've slowly been watching the Harry Potter movies throughout the past month and a half, which involved covering a certain seven-year-old's eyes when stuff got too scary. I thought for sure this would clue the kids into our plan, but no one raised any questions. Then on Thursday night, when Thanksgiving was nearly over, we told the kids what we would be doing the next day.

We spent a frigid day in NYC. We arrived early enough to eat lunch at the delicious and totally packed Los Tacos No. 1 (most of us, Peter patronized Taco Bell down the street). The food was so good it was worth the standing room only dining space.

We waited in a long security line to get into the theater.

The lobby was super crowded with other theatre goers. I took the younger three on a walk around the building and found this photo backdrop. We weren't the only people who took advantage of it.

The audience was warned that ushers would hunt us down if we had our phones out during the show, so I snapped a quick blurry picture of the stage and a group shot, then put my phone away. The seventh ticket we got was on the other side of the house and Bryan offered to sit there, which is why he missed out being in this picture.

The special effects were the true star of the show. It really did feel magical. And it was really fun seeing Tom Felton as Draco. The audience went nuts when he entered for the first time.

Bryan and the kids waited at the stage door and got autographs from the actors that played Albus and Scorpius. I can't tell you which is which though, we were too far back in the theater to get a clear look at their faces. It wasn't until the next day that I even looked at the program to read their bios. That's when I discovered we knew someone in the cast! The fellow that played James Potter Jr/James Potter Sr/Cedric Diggory was in our ward in New Jersey! He was in high school while we were there and he's since graduated from BYU with a BFA in Music Dance Theatre. I sent his mom a message when I had the realization. Apparently some of her other kids saw the show the same day we did!

I love that we live close enough to New York to have adventures like this!

Nature Decorated for Christmas

 We had our first snow day of the year today. While we didn't have much accumulation, the roads were pretty scary. I had to run an errand near the time the buses would have been out in the morning and I was really glad they're weren't driving. It was still super slick by the time I needed to leave for a dentist appointment in the afternoon.

Topher and Sophie played outside for about fifteen minutes, but I didn't get any pictures of it. By that time the snow had turned to freezing rain and it was miserable out there. I only said yes because Topher had his heart set on playing in the snow. They were pretty soggy when they came inside.

Come, Ye Thankful People, Come

We were so happy that my brother Jordan and sister-in-law Leah could join us for Thanksgiving with their kids. Legend and Topher spent a lot of time outside throwing a football with Peter and Cooper, Zariah did crafts with Phoebe and Sophie, and Maverick loved playing the ukulele throughout the day.

And we ate good food and talked about what we're thankful for.

That Early Morning Air

Our Thanksgiving started out cold and early. Cooper had registered to run in a 5K that started at 9:00 and we came out to support him. The temperature was right around freezing when they started running and didn't get much warmer while we were outside.

I snapped a picture of Cooper at the starting line.

Can you see him? I'll zoom in. He's wearing a hat.

Bryan got a video of Cooper crossing the finish line, but I was so focused on cheering that my phone wasn't even out of my pocket.

He placed 6th in his division and 24th overall with a time of 19:24, not bad considering how very cold it was. He appreciated the free donuts at the end of the run. 

Giving Thanks

This Thanksgiving I'm thankful for many things, especially family.