Most of My December - Cliff Notes Version

It has been entirely too long since my last post. To say we have been busy is a HUGE, I mean MASSIVE, understatement!

Since I last wrote, we traveled to Oklahoma for Mike's granny's funeral. It was a very bitter sweet time, but like one of the ministers said, there is no doubt whatsoever that Granny is in heaven with Jesus. It was nice to see all the family and get to visit with them for a few hours that day.

That same day, I learned that our music minister and his wife, Kim & Suzanne Noblitt, are leaving our church to go to a church in Florida. I cried more when I got that email than I did the whole day of the funeral. I love, love, love our music minister! I can't even think how to put into words how much I love Kim and Suzanne. When someone is as involved in the music ministry as I am, it means a lot to have a minister that you really enjoy, and I truly have enjoyed Kim. He has allowed me to grow as a person and a singer and has been such an encourager to me, and to so many others. I can't imagine someone replacing that position, but I know for a fact, no one will replace HIM. He is one of a kind and I'm beyond blessed to have gotten to know him and Suzanne in the time they've been with us.

Through all of that, we've had lots of rehearsals for our annual Christmas program, "Repeat The Sounding Joy". Even though we knew Kim was leaving, we still had to press on and put on our performances. It was a GREAT program this year and we all really enjoyed it. It was the first time EVER that I've gotten a chance to sing on the praise team during a performance like that. I was nervous about it, but SOOO honored that I'd been asked to do that. I was also able to do a smidge of acting in a video that the awesome Zach Kennedy put together. That boy has more talent in his pinky finger, I swear. He and his team put together a video to the song "A Baby Changes Everything" by Faith Hill and it was amazing. I loved being a part of that as well. In fact, you can click HERE to watch the video on Zach's blog. Rachel was also able to be a part of the program for the first time. She was a marshmallow in the song "Hot Chocolate" from the Polar Express that the kids performed. She was pretty excited about being able to be in the program and then during the first performance, she was a bit upset because she wasn't able to be the "main marshmallow" that got to go up in this gigantic mug of hot chocolate. Oh, my child. She loves to be in the big middle of everything. Wonder where she could possibly have gotten that?

This week, we also had our first ever Kids Day Out Christmas program that I directed and our little kiddos performed for their families. It went SO well!!! I'm so over the top proud of all my kids! We'd been working on Christmas songs since October with all of the classes from the older 2 year olds through the Pre-K class. The oldest class was our cast of biblical characters and everyone else got to wear their Christmas PJ's. It was super cute and all the parents that I talked to were extremely pleased with it and thought their kids were all rock stars, which of course they were!

Last night was our very first "Merry Christmas Springdale" program in which we honored all the city employees of Springdale. We were able to have a dinner for them and then our choir and orchestra performed a few songs, along with some pretty adorable kids. As Kim said, it was a dream come true for him that we were able to get outside the walls of our church, as a choir, and do ministry in the community. It was a really neat night and it seemed like everyone there really enjoyed themselves. Hopefully it'll be a tradition that continues each year.

We're heading over to my dad's tomorrow for our Christmas time with him and my stepmom and then we'll be finished traveling for the holidays. I don't have anything on my calendar for the next couple of weeks and I'm ecstatic about it!! I'm excited about sleeping in (or not setting an alarm), not having to BE anywhere, and just having time to hang with my family. I'm so excited about Christmas and getting to see the reactions of my family when they open their gifts. That's always more fun for me than opening presents for myself. I know I've done a good job when they are excited.

Some exciting news is coming up in the next couple of days, so stay tuned. I promise it won't be that long until I post again.... for those 3 of you that actually read my blog. :)