Christmas Sunday

Yesterday was "Christmas Sunday." The Sunday before Christmas where the ward choir does the big Christmas program, where we all have Christmas lessons in our classes and where the kids dress up in their pretty new Christmas finery. It was my first time accompanying the ward choir since I received my new calling. But seeing as we were doing six songs and the choir director was also hoping to have me sing on a few numbers where the sopranos sing especially high, we played musical chairs at the piano and split the accompanying between three of us. One of the songs was just Julianne and two other girls, each taking one verse as a solo, and coming together at the end. It was the song that made everyone in the congregation cry. Sweet little voices tend to do that. And Julianne did great...wasn't nervous a bit. How does she do that? My knees were knocking when I sang a solo in Sacrament Meeting a few weeks ago.
Seeing as our teenage daughters don't necessarily care about getting fancy Christmas finery to wear to church any more, Lilian was the only one modeling something extra new and special yesterday. Doesn't she look pretty? And so big! She is growing so fast.

And then last night we continued our yearly tradition of letting the kids sleep under...or well, actually, NEAR the tree in their new Christmas pajamas. I had grand visions in my head of all of us peacefully sitting together next to the tree reading Christmas stories before letting the kids drift off the sleep. Well...everything happened but the peaceful part. Arguing over which book to read, Lilian bouncing all over my lap, whining over why "she gets to sleep closest to the tree!", etc. But everyone eventually settled after about three books in and all four kids were actually asleep before 10:00....something of a miracle looking back on the past few weeks of bedtimes averaging around 11:30.