Peter Pan

Last night we saw Peter Pan at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.  It was fabulous!!!  The sets and costumes were amazing.  It was action packed and very entertaining.  Peter flew out over the audience sprinkling pixie dust several times and the pirates came out into the crowd to interact with the children a couple of times.  Nate had a great time and behaved well (for the most part).  It will be playing until Christmas Eve, so it's not too late to take your kids.  I'm positive it will be a hit.

Nate and William

Nate and one of the Lost Boys

 

Keeping Christ in Christmas

Now that Darren and I are parents, we have an even greater desire to make sure that we focus on Christ during this crazy holiday season.  Our church preschool director does a great job every year preparing an Advent devotional.  I honestly had never heard the term advent until Nate was born and we received the Advent devotional.  Advent means coming or arrival.  We are really trying to focus on the coming/arrival of Christ and focus on His birth without getting too carried away with Santa and all of the commercialism of Christmas.  This is hard.  It's not hard to focus on Christ, but it is hard for me to not get carried away in all of the commercialism.  I can think of so many things that I want to get Nate for Christmas.  This honestly hasn't been a struggle for me until this year.  This is the first year that Nate has really been aware of presents and Santa.  This is the first year that I can think of lots and lots and lots of toys, games, books, etc that I know he will love.  I am kidding myself if I think Nate won't care anything about toys every Christmas, but I also want him to get excited about celebrating advent - the birth of Christ, our only true source of hope and salvation in this world.  I also want him to love and share with others.  This won't happen if Darren and I don't model these behaviors for him.  I am praying that God will change the desires of our heart and give us wisdom to handle situations.

I found this neat advent calendar several weeks ago.  It has 24 tiny books that contain scriptural facts leading up to Christ's birth.  Each night before bed, Nate gets to find the correct book and Darren or I read it to him.  Then we discuss it and Nate gets to hang the book on the Christmas tree in his room.  If you have older children (4 or 5 and up), you might want to check out this link to creating a Jesse tree with your children.  What are you doing to keep Christ the focus of Christmas...and every other day of the year?  I would love to hear your ideas.       

Hand-Me-Down

Nate has received several hand-me-downs from his cousins, Cam and Carson.  I think this is the best so far.  Thanks again guys!!!

Fun Dip...Fun Mess

Cake Wreck

Several couples from our church recently had a welcome home party for my (Cover)ed partner's son, Anderson.  He is a precious 2 1/2 year old little boy from Thailand.  This is what the cake looked like.  Rather than have it changed, our friend Joy decided that it would be a good laugh...and it definitely was.  To see more cake wrecks, click here. 

Holiday Market

The Holiday Market was a success!  (Cover)ed sold 13 towels...which means $195.00 to donate for orphan care in Thailand.  We also have more to add to that from a few sales prior to the market.  We'll post the total on our (Cover)ed site when we make the donation.  It was a fun night and it allowed us to get some local exposure.  We got a lot of encouraging responses.  We are excited to see where God is going to take this.  This is my great partner, Casey, and I before the market.

The Frog Prince

A couple of weeks ago the Birmingham Children's Theatre came to town to do a performance of The Frog Prince for all of the local preschools.  I hoped we would get pictures with the cast after the performance, but we had to settle for the golden ball instead.