Choir Boy

Angry Joey!

Uncle Clint, Aunt Michelle, and Joey

Aunt Mal Mal, Nana, Me and Ben

The Boys

Nana and Joey

Bampaw and Joey napping together

We had a wonderful Christmas and it started off with a bang on Christmas Eve. Dean, Ben, Joey and I went to the Family Service at our church. Ben was very excited to get to go up front with the other kids to hear the youth minister tell a story. When the time came, he eagerly went up to the front of the church and sat in the front pew to listen. He did a great job and after the story was completed, the minister instructed all of the children to return to their parents unless they were a member of the youth choir, in which case they should go up to the altar to sing. I was looking at Joey at this point and heard Dean whisper "Oh my gosh, Ben is going up. Go get him." To which I responded, "I am not going up there!"

Ben ended up standing with the choir (4 year olds through 12 year olds I think) and acting as though he was one of the group. Fortunately the first song they sang was "This Little Light of Mine," which is one Ben knows so he was able to sing along. The choir sang a medley of tunes and when one came along that Ben didn't know he just mouthed the words. He really did a great job and we were so proud of him. He was very proud of himself as well and walked back to us after the performance with a huge grin on his face. Several of our friends knew that he was not supposed to be up there, including Ben's teacher who was sitting behind us during the service, and they were all loving his performance along with us. He stole the show! He is very excited to participate in choir next year!

We enjoyed lots of time with our families on Christmas Eve and Christmas day and received an obscene amount of gifts. Ben loved everything...exclaiming with each gift opened, "Oh yes, this is just what I wanted!" It was a wonderful day.