Behold the Lamb of God

 This December has been a time of really wonderful Christmas music. It doesn't always happen that way, but this year it has been amazing! I started off by singing Handel's Messiah with the Huntsville Community Chorus on November 30th. It was my first time to perform that work even though I've known it my whole life!

Our church had a caroling night on December 9th, and that was loads of fun! I was in an 11 person "Gospel" choir for part of it, and we had a great time! We sang sweet sacred songs as well as some really fun Christmas ones! Here is the link if you want to listen! The whole thing is long, but my favorite songs we did are the first (actual song) and last. Fa La Lodge

And last, but the opposite of least was Behold the Lamb! If you didn't know, I completely love this musical journey through the Old Testament leading up to the birth of Jesus. The last two years our church has hosted them as one of the stops on their annual Christmas tour, but we didn't this year. So a group of us made the trek up to Nashville to see them. It was so fun to "road trip" with some fun friends that we don't normally get to spend extended time with. And Behold the Lamb was even better in Nashville. I loved pretty much every moment of the trip including getting to hear Sally Lloyd-Jones at the beginning of the show!

Outside the historic Ryman Auditorium

The last song (Steven Curtis Chapman and his family sat four rows in front of us)!

Funnies

Thomas: What's a filet?
Kim: It's a piece of fish.
Thomas: Oh, so if you split it it's a half-a-lay? 

Mae: Mom, I showed Mrs. Jenna our Christmas card. She knowed which one was Daddy. Isn't that silly?

Thomas (as I picked him up from school): Mom, Caleb kicked me in the place it's not appropriate to say.

Thomas was riding to the hunting club with PaPa and they were listening to the radio about coaches being fired.
Thomas: PaPa, do they really set them on fire? 

Mae has been singing The First Noel a lot around our house! The other day I said, "Mae, who is the King of Israel?"
Mae: Born?

The other day was Parent Day in Mae's ballet class. The teachers gave each girl a tutu and they performed a dance for us. It was beyond adorable. Even though my ballerina was less than interested as the dance went on. Here is the link if you want to watch the video. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmhXRTfLhOE

Christmas Program

Earlier this month it was time for the annual Friendly Beasts Christmas Program at Mae's preschool. Thomas did it, this is Mae's second year to do it.

 This year was Mae's hear to be a donkey.

 Whose hands are those? Oh, mine. Did I mention I'm teaching music at Mae's school two days a week?

 PaPa and MiMi came!

 Brax was out of town, but here I am with my donkey.

Thomas's Best Buddies, all supporting their siblings. Thomas, Hayes, James Hale and Lake

On of my best friends, Leah is the other music teacher.

Jesse Tree

A few months ago I read this post of this family doing a Jesse Tree. (This mom is AWESOME, and I feel like their family always does such neat things.) A Jesse Tree is a tree that you put on an ormanent for each day during Advent that correlates with people in the line of Jesus. Hence, Jesse. I loved the idea immediately because I absolutely love the story of redemption and rescue that is the Old Testament. It goes with my love of THIS and THIS.

I thought, "I'll make those ornaments!" And then I thought, "I barely have time to unload the dishwasher. There's no way!" So, as usual, Etsy came through for me! I asked Brax for these for my birthday and they're so pretty (ours are red)!

Since I first heard about it I've been seeing stuff about it everywhere! We have loved putting the ornaments on the tree!! We haven't made it every day, but we're catching up as we go. We're using another Children's Bible that we have to read most of the stories and Thomas is even reading a bunch of them to us. Melt.My.Heart.