Christmas is the Time for Carols & Colds

... and celebrating the birth of our Savior, of course.

This past weekend we got to enjoy a carol service on Saturday and Sunday night. They were both fantastic and so encouraging.

Getting ready to go downstairs for the carol service

The children had been working on songs for a couple weeks at their Explorer's class, and they performed 2 of them during the service. Ellie excitedly walked forward when it was time, but Meg didn't quite make it to the stage!

Singing "Away in a Manger"

Future UK visitor beware: some of the English melodies are different than the American ones. If you begin "Away in a Manger" on the high note that comes automatically to mind, you will be wrong in an obvious way :)

Then Sunday night we enjoyed another carol service at Chapel. For the "Little Drummer Boy" number the sweet children's director made top hats and drums for several children to march around in.

Our Little Drummer Girls

We arrived early... practiced the song several times... even provided a little candy incentive for keeping the hat on....

And THIS is how Meg walked around the entire church! Hands over her face the entire time - it was priceless!

She later explained: "Daddy, I didn't want anyone to see me."

In other much less interesting news, I have a cold. I think I just got over one, too. Maybe it's back with a vengeance, or maybe I just keep catching a different strand of the cold virus. Whatever the case, I'm pretty pathetic with colds while pregnant - sorely missing my Aleve Cold & Sinus. I love that stuff!

This all became a little more noteworthy when I had the coughing attack of the century in the middle of my prenatal hospital visit. You know when someone is coughing or sneezing in public and it just makes you cringe... you feel sorry for them, but a little more sorry for yourself for being in the same area? Well, those poor people in the waiting room had to hear me compulsively spasm into a red-faced, crying, gasping, coughing mess. It was like that throat tickle spasm thing you have to somehow mentally overcome to stop.

BUT it was all worth it because I got to hear baby's heartbeat at the end of the doctor's appointment! I wasn't expecting it and had a minute of panic when the doctor mentioned it because the girls were with me. Yet somehow the mercy of an early-morning hour+ bus ride with children, delays and downed computers on arrival, 45 potty breaks for little bladders, and surviving a coughing attack somehow gave me a sense that if the worst possible thing happened, God's mercy would be there, too - even if heartbeat wasn't.

The doctor gave the usual warning that it can take a while to find the heartbeat, and I'm telling you AS SOON as she touched the scanner to my stomach that sweet thump-thump came over the speakers. Ellie said it sounded like a horse galloping. Meg said it was weird and she didn't like it :) I said, "It sounds fast!" and the doctor agreed (the girls always had lower heart rates). It made my day.

We're just a week away from Christmas, folks!