Christmas Break begins

The girls came home for lunch yesterday after their last final exams. They were so relieved to be done with the semester, and we are so proud of them for continuing their tradition of all A's.

I made broccoli soup for lunch with lots of mushrooms, and we enjoyed it and our time together so much. 

They spent some time playing through a new Christmas duet book, and I loved having my own concert.  They are playing so beautifully these days!

We picked Caeden up from school at 3:00 and went to Lexington for haircuts!

Sylvia's hair was sooooo long.  

She wanted to make a donation in honor of Daelin, a 4th grader at Ridgeview who is fighting a brain tumor and going through chemotherapy, so we will be sending 9-inches to Pantene Beautiful Lengths!

I knew Annah wanted to get an asymmetrical cut, but I didn't realize it would be so short in the back!

Beauties!

Jeremy took the kids to town this morning to do Christmas shopping, and after I was done teaching and we had lunch we all went to town again.

We saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi, had supper at Olive Garden, and went to Barnes and Noble.  It was such a lovely afternoon together.  I love spending time with my family!

At school, their has been a non-perishable food drive the past few weeks.  During advisory period today, the classes competed in a building project with the food their classes had collected.  

Caeden's class built a Christmas version of the Golden Gate Bridge and won.  

Sylvia's class built a house with Santa's sleigh.

All of the food on the stage

Annah is practicing a cool Haydn piece these days.  I love to hear her play!

Great Grandma's Violin

Before my Grandma Mc passed away, she told my dad she wanted Annah to have her violin when she was old enough.  

(Photo: 4 days after Annah's first violin lesson--July 2006.)

Sylvia began playing violin too, and the very last time the girls visited with Grandma (June 2009), they both played for her.  I remember her tears.

For a while, we worried about letting Annah have Grandma's violin, since Sylvia played too.  But, since Sylvia decided to stick with cello, and Annah was ready for a nicer, full-size instrument, we recently decided it was time.  

Mom and Dad had the violin repaired and appraised, and this evening they asked her to play it to see how it sounded.  They've had her test it out before, so she didn't think anything of it, even though we were all gathered in the living room watching, listening, and recording her.

Annah was very surprised when Krampa told her that her Great Grandma wanted her to have the violin, and Gram said, "It's yours, Annah."  There were lots of tears.

It was a precious moment.  What a beautiful gift, and a beautiful giving.  

"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music." - Sergei Rachmaninoff

Finger Blaster War

Pastor Celia took this shot during our worship rehearsal this morning at 8:30.

Our current sermon series is called Holy Currency, Batman: Give Like Heroes.  We've been learning about God-given currencies (besides money) we can use to serve other...

STORY, LISTEN, EAT, BLESS, CELEBRATE, and today we learned about RECREATE!

Every good parent loves to see his/her children play, and God is the best parent.  He commands us to rest and be restored and refreshed.  He loves to see us play and have joy!

Towards the end of the worship service today, the ushers passed out 3 foam finger blasters to each person in the congregation.  A 5-minute count-down video was put on the screen, and we just had tons of fun playing and shooting each other with finger blasters!  It was totally fun and refreshing!!

Busy Man

My husband is a servant leader.  He does a lot of things most people don't even know about, and he doesn't feel the need to tell them.  For instance, he puts out the heavy sandwich board signs pointing the way to our church every Sunday morning.  He puts them away most Sundays too.  

I'm excited for him to start coaching the new kids' wrestling program at the school tomorrow night.  I know he's going to make a great impact in those boys' lives.  

Sooooo proud of him!

Blessing after 50 years

My neighbor's Bible study friend recently retired from teaching piano after 50 years.  I've never met her, but through my neighbor she found me and gave me all of her books and resources to use with my students. What a blessing!!  

 I will be able to use a lot of these books with my students, and share some with other teachers.  In fact, already tonight, I had a student who was wanting to work on a particular piece.  I was able to find the piece easily in one of these books and send it home with her.  

I knew this lady was sending some music with my neighbor for me, but once I laid it all out on my music room floor like this and started to look at some of the things that are there, I was just completely bowled over with gratitude.  This hundreds of dollars of useful books! What a gift!!   And, what a selfless giver, that she would give it all to me without ever having met me!  

"Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others." 

- Philippians 2:4

Family Fun Night

This evening we supported two worthwhile events.  This year Jeremy is mentoring a young lady who is participating in the Leadership McLean County program.  Her LMC group organized a trivia night to raise money for the local Juvenile Justice Council in support of the Summer Youth Jobs Program.

Jeremy organized a table of friends to participate in the event. 

The kids and I went to our school music boosters' Family Fun Night.  Annah and I ran the cupcake walk for the evening.  It was a fun time watching kids go around and around the circle until they won a cupcake.

Annah ran the CD player for 3 hours to earn money toward her 2016 high school band trip to Disney World.  She did a good job, but since we were right next to the Guitar Hero station with amplified speakers, I still had to yell "STOP!" every time she stopped the music.

Sylvia took a copy of The Secret Garden and stayed by us most of the night.  She did get some tickets and checked out some of the games.  I think she helped duct tape Mr. M. to the wall.

For a while Ally helped us give out the cupcakes.  I don't really care for cupcakes usually, but these were AMAZING!!  Sweet Temptations, a local bakery, made them--peanut butter cheesecake, orange dreamy sickle, key lime pie, red velvet, salted carmel...good golly they were tempting!

Caeden spent the whole night running from game to game and burning through tickets like nothing.  He won so many bottles of Gatorade I made him return some of them before they got opened.  Sylvia waited in the balloon animal line 3 different times and finally got a flower.  It was a fun night, and seemed like it was well attended and everyone had fun.

The Great Gift Exchange

Our church is in the midst of a sermon series called The Great Gift Exchange, and tonight we had a Christmas party by the same name.  It was such an awesome evening!!

Lorrie and Kim made the sanctuary look so warm and festive.

We had a good turnout, and lots of yummy food too.

Lorrie and one of her pretty Christmas gift trees...

Some of our wonderful PoC friends...

Pastor Todd hosted the evening from the stage, 

and the other 3 pastors and I each hosted one of the 4 table gatherings. 

Last Sunday, each person in attendance at morning worship received $5 and a challenge.  The challenge was to ignore the impulses of our hearts and listen instead to what the Lord would have us do to bless others in our community with the money. 

Tonight, when we arrived at the party, we each received a tag to write down what God led us to do with the $5.  While we visited and snacked, Pastor Todd read us the stories on the tags, and then they were pinned on the gift trees.  

Here are some of the awesome things God led everyone to do in our community this week with the money...

At each of our tables we had questions/scenarios to discuss...

First, we were to pretend we had $10,000 we could use to bless others.  After discussing and brain-storming, the group voted that they liked Annah's idea to buy or rent a store space and run a "store" where people could come to get things they need for free when they don't have money to buy them.

For the second question, our table was to pretend we were blessed with an overabundance of self-control, and we were to plan what ministry we would create based on that gift.  We discussed and decided we would start a ministry for people who struggle with addictions, maybe something like a Celebrate Recovery ministry.

Our third challenge was to assume the people sitting at our table were actually our small group, and decide based on the collective missional impulses of the group, what would our group's mission be.  We happened to have 6 people at our table who work in the area of finance right now, so we decided our group would offer financial advising services to people in need--like classes on various things like how to plan for buying groceries and budgeting, will-writing, etcetera.

It was so exciting to see the missional impulses just pop up and people get excited in just a few minutes of brainstorming and discussing!  In February, we will actually start having small groups based on missional impulses!  Can't wait!!!

We also had a crazy white elephant gift exchange with a speed round!  It was a bit nutty, but fun!

Caeden ended up with a cool car that was painted bright colors and had 4 buttons that made lights flash and cool sounds.  But, a littler guy at our table was too small to really understand why everyone was trading presents and why he ended up without a gift he really liked.  He was pretty upset, so Caeden gave him the cool car.  We struggle to get the idea of selflessness through to Caeden often, so it was heartening to see him give up his gift without a second thought to bless another.

What a wonderful evening; thank you, Lord!!

Spending time with God is rewarding!

Tonight in children's worship, the kids talked about Jesus being their leader (like the engine of a train) and learning to follow him (like the train cars).  They a train car for their craft/snack.

Last week, the kids were encouraged to spend intentional time in God's word every day, and have a parent verify this with the children's directors.  These kids did, and got to choose their favorite candy bar as a reward.

Silly Caeden...Although, I must admit, I was proud of him when he decided to follow the example of Oliver (the other boy who received candy bars) and give away all his Twix to people in the church during our meeting after worship.

We had a Christmas party at church tonight too!  After worship, our launch team listened to Christmas music while we filled out Christmas cards to send to family and friends.  We know Christmas isn't really until December, but we are inviting loved ones to help us raise the $160,000 we need to buy equipment for our new church before we launch.  So, you may be receiving a Christmas card from us in the mail soon!  We are only asking for small donations, or whatever amount God may lay on your heart, and greatly appreciate every penny received.  You can visit our new (temporary) website here, and learn more about what the church has been up to at the PoC blog as well.