Whew!

Take a deep breath and hold on, cause I have lots of fun happenings to share today.

First of all, the Preschool Choir performed today at church. They sang 2 songs; "Away in a Manger" and "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" Nathan was SO EXCITED to get to sing in big church. The kids did a wonderful job and the church really enjoyed it. I love seeing kids participating in worship! After all, God desires their worship too!

Because Nathan was singing, we had quite a few visitors come to church with us today. Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Matt came, as did Papa and Nana and Aunt Amanda, Uncle Josh, and cousin Esther. We took some pictures of the cutie cousins after church. Even though they are not related biologically (Amanda is my step-sister), they sure look like family, don't they? After the photo session, Nathan was teaching Esther the fine art of... what else? Drumming! She thought he was pretty cool! And judging from these pictures, I think it's obvious he likes her too!

After my family left, we went out to lunch with Steve's folks and Matt. We decided on the Chinese place here in town. The owner, Ms. Ping, just loves Nathan! When we got there, she was so excited to see us. She told us she had something for Nathan... and then she brought out a toy electric guitar!!! She remembered that he had told her the last time we were in that he wanted one for Christmas. Nathan was so excited! Steve and I were overwhelmed. We wanted to give her something to thank her, so we gave her a card Nate had made in Sunday School. On the front was a Christmas tree made with his hand print. We had taken glitter and made zig-zags over the hand to represent the garland on a tree. Well, when Ms. Ping saw that she got really excited, and she told us that was her name! She then showed us how she writes her name in Chinese characters, and

IT LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE THE GLITTER GARLAND ON THE TREE!

I am not kidding. It was amazing. It was such a God-thing.
I couldn't get any pictures of Nathan with Ms. Ping while we were there because the batteries in our camera were dead, but once we got home I took some pictures of Nathan enjoying his guitar.

Then, this evening we went over to Kent and Dorcas' house. Nathan played with Tinker (their cat), and put on a concert for them with a yard-stick guitar and a cookie tin drum. It was so much fun to just hang out with people we love and enjoy some unhurried time together. On the way home, we went by the church so Steve could get his electric guitar, and he and Nathan had a great time playing band together before bed. Whew! What a great day!