We had a very nice Thanksgiving here at our house with my family and Jason's family.
Jason did most of the cooking (thank goodness!) and even made the turkey.
The kids said they were "most excited to eat rolls", though Reed got pretty excited about the "kid wine" I got for them (caramel apple sparkling apple cider).
We have lots to be thankful for this year, including a new president, which Paw-Paw thanked God for in the blessing before the meal.
I always say Kyle and Reed have a terrible birthday of January 7th, but I still say a Thanksgiving birthday might be worse.
Jason's birthday falls the day after Thanksgiving this year, so we celebrated with Granny Sherry last night.
He. requested an "ice cream pizza" from Baskin Robbins for his cake, it looks like a pizza, but it's really ice cream. They were sold out of his favorite, Oreo Cookies and Cream, so he had to settle for Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.
I don't think I've mentioned it here, but JR and I are getting ready to be in Houston's 1st Baptist's Christmas show. The 1st Baptist Christmas show is a really big deal here. People have been going to it forever. My parents used to go before I was born.
I decided I'd audition with JR (way back in August), and we both got cast as dancers.
(We are also other non speaking/non solo, but singing parts.)
I will be dancing in the opening to "Most Wonderful Time of the Year", JR is in a routine with the other middle school/high school kids to "Winter Wonderland", I'm a tap dancing doll in a medley of Christmas songs, and then we are both dancing elves in "Rockin' on Top of the World" (from Polar Express).
Then in the second half of the show we are dressed in Biblical costumes and sing in different songs. We end the show dressed in white robes like we are in heaven.
We've been going to dance practices since September, and we've been staging Friday nights from 6-10 and Saturdays from 9-2 for the last 3 weeks.
This past weekend after JR was at these practices on Friday and Saturday, he had to be back at church at 8:00 AM on Sunday to sing with the youth choir in all 3 services.
It's quite a commitment to be in the youth choir. They practice every Sunday from 3-4:30, and for a church that is 175 years old (Yes, the church is older than the state of Texas.) with 28,000 members, you'd think there would be lots more youth in the choir. It just goes to show how dedicated they expect these kids to be.
Our school auction I chaired was on Saturday night, I'm not ready to talk about how awesome it was yet, so enjoy this video of my kids trying really hard to break one of their bones.
JR had his last cotillion dance lesson last night.
It was also mother/son, dad/daughter night.
You can imagine how thrilled JR was to take me. Jason threatened him within an inch of his life, and he still asked if he could take Chloe as his date instead of me.
Here we are before we left. And yes, I'm getting my Christmas trees up.
And here I am with the kids that asked to have their pictures made with me...individually!
Kyle bought himself some Sky Walkers and only takes them off to go to school.
They had a little lesson with the other kids, and then they spent the evening dancing with us.
He has a new choir teacher this year, and though the new teacher frustrates us mamas with his lack of communication, he totally makes up for it in the teaching our kids to sing department.
The advanced choirs started off with the National Anthem. Reed has been to plenty of plays, musicals, and concerts and when they finished he turned around to me and said, "Wow! That was really good!"
JR is standing next to next door neighbor, Mary. Of course they have to act like they don't even know each other.
Then JR sang 2 more songs with the advanced men's choir.
Here's a little sampling of one of the songs.
We were super impressed and are very happy with the new choir director!
As usual, JR had a big fan club in attendance.
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Kyle said he refused to go to the choir concert to watch JR, but was happy to go and watch Mary.
Reed went to watch JR, but was first in line to get his picture with Mary.
We pulled Kyle's costume together in about 3 minutes. He couldn't believe next door neighbor, Dave, could tell immediately what he was....A Hawaiian tourist.
Reed's costume took about 5 minutes.
This costume came about because we found this hat in the prop closet. We turned his school spirit shirt inside out, put on a bathing suit, and I cut the bow tie out of some Christmas ribbon...instant leprechaun.
Reed went off with Pierce (I missed getting a picture) and Kyle went off with his group of friends.
JR was Trump and Christian wore one of my afro wigs.
(JR is doing his "we need to build a wall" impersonation here.)
Chloe said she was Ivanka Trump because they are both so beautiful.
(JR still doing his "Trump face".)
And Jason and I passed out candy with Granny Sherry.
Jason was a pumpkin, and I was a stressed out mom who has to raise $180,000 at the school auction in 11 days.