holiday madness...

At this exact moment as I write this,next week, Paul and Kari will be married, and the family will join them in celebration. But before that, I must say I am in a panic. I have not bought a Christmas or birthday gift (Don's or Randy's) for next week, and am not finished with any other Christmas shopping. But the house is decorated, and looks nice, and we have already hosted our Sunday School Class Christmas dinner here.
But on a lighter note...since we got back from Great Britain, we have been to Pahrump and Dallas for visits with the families there, and that was fun. We got to hear Aaron preach his first sermon in "big church", which was a blessing. We have been really busy practicing for the church Christmas music program, and for concerts for the holidays in Chorale, and tomorrow night we present the Christmas program. Because the next Chorale presentation is at the same time, we will have to miss that, but we did get to sing in it last weekend. Christmas music is the greatest! I like both the old favorites, and the new mustic too!
In Pahrump we got to meet little Emily and play with her, then in Dallas we met Sophie June. Then yesterday Kyle and Lyndsay brought Kendall Noel to meet us, and I got to hold her and rock her for her afternoon nap while we visited. Now, don't you think all that warrants a new blog!? I do.
Wish you could have seen Grandad entertaining Isabella while I rocked the little one! They talked and talked, and looked at the tangerines and oranges hanging in our fruit trees. They also picked up rocks...why do little kids like to pick up rocks, anyway? We could hear the rumble of Grandad's voice, then the little childish chatter of Bella, and it was so sweet. They both came back in with big smiles on their faces. And handsful of rocks!
We are so sorry Randy hasn't found a job yet, but I must confess that we enjoy having him turn up for lunch with us now and then, and his more frequent visits and blogs. I know you are praying with us that God will lead him to gainful employment before long. Meanwhile, we will love having him hang out with us. We probably won't see as much of him for a couple of weeks, since Kathie and Ali are out of school on Christmas break.
Did you know Keith is going to perform the wedding for Paul and Kari? And I think Randy will do the pix, so we should have some good ones. It will be a "family affair" I suppose with all of us there. We will host the rehearsal dinner at our house on Friday night, and they have requested pizza!! Good thing we have the pizza delivery phone number memorized!!