Holy Wow!

My neighbor down the street put the kids' names in for an outreach ministry between a local church and the rec center (where he works). They had a dinner in the city on Thursday night. There were lots of fun games and interpretative dance and an interactive Christmas story, etc. The kids had SOOOOOO much fun. The people were so nice and welcoming. I was worried about being the "objects of charity" but everyone there was, so it was all good. lol At the end of the evening, when they called the names on the gifts, it was so heart warming to see the looks on all of the little ones (and medium ones, too :-) ) faces. It was obvious to me that the purchasers of the gifts prayed about what to get for each child. My kids faces lit up when their names were called. I hadn't told them about the gifts. I just told them that we were going to have dinner and fun with a church group downtown. In one of the games, the prizes were McDonald's coupons and movie tickets. Olivia wanted those McD's coupons, and prayed for it, because it has been so long since we've gone....and SHE WON. And Josiah, who is a movie junkie and always wanting to go to the movies (which we also haven't done in a long time).....well, you guessed it, he won the movie tickets. :-) That was especially nice because he was too old to go on the list for the Christmas presents. Also, he didn't want to go with me and I had to "make" him. He was bummed because of that ex-girl who I pray he never has to deal with again. But he did go and it was a very nice, contented time for our whole family. A true, relaxing, light-hearted blessing. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention a really cool part. Olivia's cd player has been breaking down and she had prayed that God would give her another one because she likes to listen to Christmas music when she goes to sleep. Well, the gift that she got that night was a portable cd player with headphones. She was ECSTATIC! And my sweet Liam.... well, he had been to his counselor this week and she was giving him "tools" to help him get past the times he starts to shut down. One of the things she gave him was a jar of playdough and a chart with mood faces on it. He's supposed to use the playdough to make the mood he's feeling when he's not able to talk. Well, God gave him a WHOLE BOX OF DOZENS OF PLAYDOUGH and shapes and tools to make faces, etc. When he opened his gift at the dinner, I wish I had a camera to capture the look on his face. Oh. my. goodness. He also got puzzle books which are right up his alley. They gave each child a brown bag with fruit and nuts and candycanes in them, too. All the way home, they talked about how it was the best night ever. Yes, I had tears in my eyes as I thanked God for taking care of my babies. :-) When we got home, they took the nuts right to this big, fake nutcracker we have and it actually worked. lol

Oh I forgot to mention that while the kids were lining up to get their dinner, the guy in charge was randomly singing Christmas songs. One tween kid got up and tried to sing Rudolph but kept forgetting the words. Well, the next thing I knew, MISS OLIVIA was up out of her seat going up to talk to the guy with the microphone. Josiah and I were like, 'what the heck is she doing?" And then we found out..... she wanted to show them how it's REALLY done. Yep, that's my girl. At first, Josiah and I almost died laughing because she got the real song confused with the one on the Target commercial, so the reindeer had "unconventional" names. Then she caught herself. That child definitely has entertainment in her future. She sang pretty well, too, looked out at the audience, projected her voice properly, etc. Yeah, nothing shy about any of my kids. Then Aidan, not to be outdone by his big sister, marched right up there with his natural mohawk sticking straight up and his sweater vest and khakis making him look like a "Baby G" (as Josiah calls it), stood in front of the guy until he lowered the microphone, stared at it for a minute, decided it was an ice cream cone and proceeded to try to eat it. We were rolling!

When they did the Christmas story, they had each kid stand up there, holding a part of the story. Olivia was holding the sign for Jesus and Liam had the sign for the Angel Gabriel. Afterwards, he mentioned how he had the Angel Gabriel like his brother, Gabriel. I told him that was why his Daddy named him Gabriel, because of the angel, and because his brother went back to heaven.

The teacher was asking what Christmas means to them and Liam raised his hand and said, "Sharing". Awwwww.

All in all, it was a great night. It really warmed the heart of this Momma, seeing my kids so blessed and carefree. :-)