Monday: Impromptu trip to San Jose - had a wonderful time with my Grandparents and little bro (almost missed the exit to get home...the fog was so bad I couldn't see the sign!!) (dispersing 4 kids amongst friends was an interesting task - THANK YOU everyone who helped!!!)
Tuesday: Teach Mg's preschool (actually got them to act out the story of the birth of Christ!)
Wed: M's birthday. Had a very lovely tea party birthday party with several of her friends.
Thursday: Sing along rehearsal. Afterwards begin creche festival set-up - stay at church way too late, drive home in horrible fog but man the chapel looked great!!!
Friday: Mg's birthday party. Successfully turned 6 ladies into fairies (it's all in the pixie dust!!). Creche festival sing-along rehearsals until late.
Saturday: Mg's birthday. Got up way too early, enjoyed presents and then spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon setting up for the creche festival. Dealt with several problems - such as fried circuit boards on the back of the organ, musicians pulling out at the last minute, and pizza for dinner / and or lunch for 4 days in a a row since I've been gone so much!! Came home, went on a REALLY cold bike ride for Mg's birthday and had a fun evening together, then worked on the sing-along
Sunday: church - substituted conducting music in sacrament meeting, substituted conducting music in primary. MY ARM HURTS after almost 2 hours of rehearsals a day the last 5 days!!! Came home, changed clothes, told everyone to leave me alone while I actually make myself look presentable (haven't done that in a LONG time - flat irons are amazing!!) and went to re-set up for the creche festival (microphones had to be locked up, etc overnight so there were a few things to do this afternoon). Played the piano, hosted musicians, ran the sing along....
...it just occured to me that you may be asking yourself what a "creche festival" is. I didn't know until I became involved - every year they change our church's multi-purpose room into a beautiful display room for nativity scenes. We had over 250 nativity scenes this year and they do a graet job. For the last several years I have been in charge of arranging for live music during the festival from 3-8pm Saturday and Sunday. In the past it has not been a big deal but I wanted to include community groups this year. Sounds easy but it took much more work than ancitipated tracking down which groups I wanted, finding their contact info, scheduling, etc. And since prop 8 was thrown into this time frame it was crazy. Several of the groups were excited but will have to do it next year since we weren't able to schedule far enough in advance (understandable). It's going to be awesome next year - when I'm not here!!!! Grr!!! Oh well, I've done good work and I'm happy and we had a few great community groups this year. Anyways, on top of all that I was encouraged to do a Christmas Carol Sing-along. Sounds like fun - a project right up my alley!!! It was wonderful and I had THE most INCREDIBLE group of musicians you could ask for to work with. But it was a lot of work :)
Anyways, back to my story I was in uncomfortable heels all day (the pains we suffer to look good!) but hosted musicians and then directed the sing-along. It was fun! We had piano/organ duet accompaniments, a flute player, a cello player, a vocal descant group, an amazing organist and another organist who played the Halleujiah chorus from Handel's Messiah. It was fun! My arm hurts but people seemed to enjoy being there and I had a good time and I am SO grateful to all the people (especially Adrian!!) who put in so much time practicing! I think people really enjoyed it. This was the first year we've really done it and I think word will get out for next year...when I'm not here!!! Oh well. I had fun, and I have to say one of my favorite moments was looking out and seeing my girls sing along :) Special moments.
Anyays, it is all over. I'm kindof sad - I LOVED all the events of this week, I'm just sad they all had to happen in one chaotic week!!! Now it is time to go back to cleaning, cooking dinner, taking care of kids and an AMAZING husband who has been so patient with me being crazy this last week! It was fun but I'm grateful to be done and go back to being mom. My husband has truly been amazing and I'm so grateful for his support!!! He brought the kids to sing with me at the sing-along (THANK YOU Chrisana and Amber for sitting with him and helping!) and afterwards they helped me clean up. They were all getting in the car when I caught up to them and the family was SO excited that I was coming home with them!!! It was a great feeling :) And sweet little A was exausted and falling apart when we got home...Daddy changed her diaper and I came to see if I could help and she just snuggled in my arms and quieted down and was so happy to have me hold her. I love those moments!!! I love my life!!! Thanks again everyone who helped!!!
And I'll have pictures soon of our crazy week!
Poor Mary got to play a few rounds before she got sick to her stomach but we have all had lots of fun playing together. And yes, Daddy likes the princess game (all things considered). He likes multi player games where you work together towards an objective. Granted, he doesn't like dressing up the princesses as much as the girls do but he does like working with them to save the princess kingdoms (isn't using your magic wand to turn bogs into butterflys the same as using Indiana Jones's whip?!) and they've had a good time together. Hooray for graduation and thanks everyone!!!
