Condensing Chronologically

 Ok - I'm pretty sure I'll get these in the wrong order chronologically. But oh well.  

And it's true.  If I didn't take a picture, it didn't happen.

Let's see here...

Just after Thanksgiving, I saw these three at our local Aldi.  The girl, who is not me, was one of Maddy's best friends from high school, along with her husband and baby.  What a cute family!  So I took a pic to show Maddy who I'd run into.  I didn't realize they lived in town.

 

A couple weeks ago, my church had our annual Christmas party at my bestie's nursing home.  Instead of walking around caroling, we sat in the party room and caroled JUST for Ada.  She loved it!  I guess in years past, we all left her and a couple other people who had difficulties walking and then we caroled all around the building, leaving her out of it!  And this is for her anyway...

 

I enlarged the print of the song booklets with my phone and tried to keep it steady for her to sing along.  She SAYS that it helped a great deal, but she's also super nice.

The next day, was Meri's last performance of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.  She was co-director and a stage manager.  The kids did a great job and the little neighbor girl who played the White Witch scared the bejeebies out of me!  She wielded the axe and laughed maniacally like she does that all the time at home!  lol!  She did great.

 Over the last few months, I help out Meri at her daycare a couple days a week when she has a full load.  One of her kids still takes morning naps and I need to wrangle a couple while she's getting him down.  And I'm really confused as to why in this pic, I'm holding the one who should be getting down for a nap...Don't remember why.  Oh well.

I did some digging in our garage and finally found Meri's Christmas ornaments in her old truck.  She had scored a FREE artificial Christmas tree from Freecycle and was anxious to get it up.  To this day, the ornaments still sit in her porch and the tree still needs lights.  But it looks pretty and the children enjoy it.

Last weekend, I went to a style show for our local chapter of ASG (American Sewing Guild).  I modeled a few things and showed off the Christmas cat jacket before getting it to the boy who was going to wear it that night.

Meri was his date for the company party, so I left it with her to deliver it.

Sorry - it's kind of blurry... I'll ask Meri for better still photos.

 Meri took my place at the Christmas program practice that morning.  Because program practice falls on the same morning as the style show every year, I hadn't been to the style show for several years.  It was fun!

 

The program practice was stressful but went well enough to still go on for Sunday morning.  Because of an illness, Robb had to play the computerized music with the kids instead of the organist.  He was also wrangling Leon's little brother, who was staying with us for a couple days.

It's one of those times when you just go with the flow as the moment will be over as soon as you blink so what does it matter that someone didn't say Nazareth correctly?  

The program was the next day during Sunday school and except for the kids singing Angels we have heard on high SO much faster than the music, it went off without too many other hiccups.  Family was able to see and hear them and that was good.

GLOOOOOOORROOOOOORROORROORIA, In Excelsis Deo!

And yes... this is Leon doing the floss dance in front of Baby Jesus...

And yes... that's also my grandkid mugging the pics with a crazy grin...

 Not sure what he was going for there.

And now we're here.  Wednesday...  My immediate family is celebrating Christmas this weekend and I still have two projects to start... ONE sewing project completely done and four more in various stages of done-ness.

In the background while I sew in the evenings, I've been watching/listening to the old Bob Hope Christmas specials on Amazon Video.  I remember watching those with Dad back in the early 70s.  Frankly I was a little shocked at Rachel Welch's crocheted dress which was little more than two potholders sewn together...  Wow.  And I THOUGHT the video was blurring out the chest area of the dress, but I think it's just because the video is not high definition.  Probably a real good idea for that dress not to be in HD.  But the shows are fun and touching and I have to say that I've thought a lot about Dad while watching them.  

He was in the Marines and didn't get to go into active service due to his allergy of wool.  But he knew ALL about everything soldier/war related and loved explaining all of it to us kids.  

Wow, I miss them both so much.

I probably won't post again until next week with Robb's Christmas letter.

Have a great weekend getting ready for Christmas!