Kevin’s Birthday

 

Today Kevin took matters into his own hands and organized a birthday party for himself.  Sometimes a mans gotta do what a mans gotta to do.  He invited us over for a nice spaghetti dinner at Grandma and Grandpa’s . 

 

Brian and Dejah came, and so did Nate, Lindsay and baby Craig.  Kevin can still blow out the candles with one breath.  Karen and Wendy were here as well.

Lisette, Ian, and Saffron with spaghetti.

 

Marsha was here and so was photophobic Connie.  Scott came up for the long weekend and took the role of executive pasta chef.  We had a great time.

Fly me to the moon

Last week Lisette's class launched rockets! I missed it, but Arden and Lorraine took the rest of the kids to go check it out.

Here is Lisette and her friend getting the rocket ready.

Everyone's waiting for the countdown.
The launch was successful!

I guess public school actually does have a few fun things once in a while.

Christmas choir and Lorraine's birthday

I sang in the choir for our church Christmas program. I don't have a great voice, but I have learned to sing better, and I've really enjoyed participating in choir. It was nice sitting up on the stand with the other choir members (and ever-faithful Ian) and listening to the words of Christ and singing about his birth during the Christmas season. It was a very peaceful and joyful experience. We sang the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah and the very end. I love the power, praise, and joy in that song.

The Christmas hymns never fail to move me. The whole congregation met together again for the third hour and we sang all the Christmas songs in the hymn book, from page 201-214. Jesus came into the world and lived so simple and humbly. It kind of makes the Santa materialistic thing look pretty shabby in comparison.

Later in the afternoon I took Lisette, Miles, and Ian to the nursing home which is near our neighborhood. The primary children sang Christmas songs to the residents. It was really beautiful to hear the innocent children sing of Christ. I'm sure those are the voices He loves to hear best.

The kids also came with me and we gave out some yummy chocolate mint cookies that Melinda had baked. They seemed to have so much fun. I don't know if it was just entertaining to them, but just maybe they felt joy in serving others.

In the evening we went to Annette's house to celebrate Lorraine's birthday. Scott felt very loved because everyone went out of their way to make non-dairy dishes that he could eat (Scott has milk allergies.) Everyone had fun catching up and the boys loved playing with all of Matthew's Nerf weapons. He has quite the arsenal.

Here are some photos of the festivities. Notice that Ian so helpfully blew out most of the candles for his grandma.