Christmas gifts and music and preparations

Good Thursday morning!  I want to share first of all this "word" on my sink window.  I usually go to the women's Bible study, "Abide," at Calvary on Thursday mornings.  This semester, however, my weeks got crazier than normal and I was not able to attend the last few weeks.  On the last morning they had a brunch and each woman could pick a card with a "word" for them from the Word.   Since I couldn't be there, our teacher, Sherilyn, sent this to me in the mail.  She had no idea how totally appropriate it was for me right now.  Sometimes we have to sing songs of joy and victory by faith, not seeing anything to feel joyous or victorious about.  And then sometimes our faith becomes "sight."  I love when that happens.

Here's another picture I want to share.  Some of you may remember the pictures of the house I pass frequently.  It had been hidden in overgrown trees for years.  Last year it was sold and it became obvious that the new owners were going to be refurbishing it.  But then it all came to a standstill for MONTHS with the scaffolding in place, but no windows.  I cringed thinking how wet it must be getting with all the extreme rains we have had in the past six months.  But now they are back in business!  There are windows and doors and insulation and now SIDING is being put on.  I'm so excited to see how this is going to end up.  It will be beautiful for sure!

And just for perspective, this is a picture I took in March!

On Saturday we went down to Sam and Jenn's.  Dick was helping Sam with a repair project.  I played a fun trivia game with Sammy.  He had it on his tablet and was able to put it up on the TV screen!  I offered to make the dinner of their choice, and cream of tomato soup with grilled cheese was the winner.  I make grilled cheese sandwiches with seeded rye bread and a variety of cheeses.  It was the perfect meal for a cool rainy evening.  I almost forgot to take pictures until we were ready to leave!  Can't wait to have them here for Christmas!

Jeremy had told me that my Christmas gift would be arriving on Saturday.  He wasn't too excited about the fact that we would not be home until evening.  I assured him that we live in a very safe community and I was sure no one would be stealing it off my porch.  When we drove in Saturday evening I snapped this picture and sent it to him, haha!

It was a huge box!  Imagine my surprise when I found this gorgeously gift-wrapped box inside the big box!

It was so exciting to take the box out of the gift wrap and find an Instant Pot!  We were exclaiming over the fact that it said "Wifi" when our excitement turned to dismay.

The beautiful Instant Pot was majorly dented on one side.  Upon closer inspection we saw that the box (above) was dented too.  I said to Dick,  "I guess Amazon workers are as crazy busy as postal workers."

Jeremy got right on it, and two days later there was another box on my porch.  It was not dented, and here's my beautiful Instant Pot!  Wow!  There's so much to learn and so little time right now.  I tried one thing so far.  But I have so many friends who love theirs, including Jeremy, so I know I will be using it a lot.  Thank you, Jeremy and Mike!!!

Sunday was a huge day.  We went to our 9:00 service at GBRV.  We experimented with my camera on our friend Gale's tripod because we wanted to get a video of the cantata in the afternoon service.    Here are two videos from our morning service.  

I just love leading worship with these excellent musicians.

Almost every Sunday I get to do an offertory with Brenna, my flute player.  She is TOP NOTCH, let me tell you.  Here is Bach-Gounod's Ave Maria.

From there we went to Calvary's service.  Afterward we did another photo shoot at the Christmas tree in the lobby since Austin was missing last week.  Hunter was in typical two-year-old mode, so it was truly an adventure.  Here is a really good one.

After I took about twenty pictures of them and we were ready to wrap it up, a sweet lady offered to take a picture of Dick and I with them.  I'm so glad!  I love this so much!  I call it "Merry Christmas from the State College Stauffers!"

Dick and I had a little bit of time to go home and relax before we went back to GBRV to get everything ready for the 4:00 performance of our cantata, "Good News from Home."  Let me tell you, this service surprised me and filled me with joy.  This has been a difficult season for me on several fronts.  Here in this choir I have been really sad about losing a few excellent choir members due to "church strife."  And then on top of that, Judy, who had agreed to accompany us so I could just direct,  suddenly passed away a few weeks ago.  I felt a bit of a "whatever" attitude about this cantata the past few weeks.  

But God took my "whatever" and turned it into "wow!"  The church was almost full, the choir did a GREAT JOB, people loved it, and we had a potluck meal afterward that was wonderful!  

Here are videos of two of our songs.  This was the first one.

I loved this one, "Make Room for Jesus."  I had hoped to have Anthony do the verses as a solo, but he is having some vocal cord issues, so all the men sang the verses instead.  They had fun being the innkeeper!

The choir gave me a gorgeous poinsettia arrangement as well as a beautiful nativity scene, which I will show later.  This was a look of total satisfaction after the service!

Here are a few pictures I took during the potluck afterward.  Lori and Austin came for the cantata and the meal.  Anthony stayed home with Hunter because his nap went too late.  There were also a few of my exercise class friends there.  That was so special!

While we were busy with our weekend, Lisa was having a big weekend in Florida.  She hosted the Track Football Consortium, normally held in Chicago, at Sophie's school.  It included workshops with a number of top coaches as well as actual workouts with student athletes.  I just love these pictures of Sophie.  This girl is almost 100% muscle!

As I mentioned, the choir gave me this beautiful nativity scene.  I LOVE it!!

Now I have four.

Top left:  from Michaels a few years ago.

Bottom left: a gift from Manheim Christian Day School many Christmases ago (missing one wiseman's head!!)

Bottom right:  the one I got from my friend Judy's things the other weekend with the very tiny baby Jesus, since the original one was missing, haha!

I love them all!

Yesterday Jenn sent me some cute pictures and videos of Bianca's nursery school Christmas program.  Here she is being an "angel."

I have one more really short video.  Last evening Lori had shopping to do for a party she will be hosting, so I picked up Hunter from daycare for her.  He REALLY wanted to come to Grandma's house.  So even though I had to play piano at our GBRV advent service, we decided Grandpa could babysit him till I was finished.  Dick took this ADORABLE video.  I just couldn't stop laughing when I saw it later.  

Time to get busy now.  Lori is hosting her department Christmas party this evening, so I'll be going over there to help her get ready this afternoon.  No choir practice this evening for the first time since September!  Oops, that's incorrect.  We had one week off because of that big November snow storm and then the next week off because of Thanksgiving.  We will be having praise band practice however at 8 pm this evening.  

If I'm not back here for a whole week, I wish you a very wonderful Christmas!