Christmas and Grandchildren - two incredible gifts - and a wall-hanging

This has been one buy weekend...and its not over yet. Today we had a wonderful church service. If you happen to live in or around Chatham and looking for a church I can personally recommend First Presbyterian - opposite Sears on one corner, the Post Office on the other side. Our minister is a down-to-earth type, funny and a good speaker. You will enjoy Mike's services (yes, everyone, including the kids, call him Mike). Next Sunday, Dec 11th, is our Cantata which would be a good week to come. Feel free to check out the church at: http://www.firstchatham.org/

Following church and lunch out (although we typically eat breakfast after church at noon hour) we headed to the Capital Theatre to hear the Christmas Carole Singers - incredible! They had another former Chatham singer, Paul Schwarz, as the guest singer and he was outstanding. I wish he had an album out but I couldn't find it on the web so I guess he doesn't. I think he does mostly shows. Listening to two great choirs singing Christmas music back-to-back is a great way to get into the Christmas spirit.

I'm doing the weekend backwards. So, now I'll tell you about Saturday. We had two of our grandsons here (they are 4 and 7 years old.) for a few hours yesterday and they helped decorate our tree and to have a little birthday party for Grampa and for the 7 year old to finally get his birthday gift.  I told them they could hang the ornaments anywhere they wanted. Seth, the 4 year old, obviously found a couple of "sweet spots" and he hung 4 or 5 all in one place. So cute he is. Here he is wishing Grampa a happy birthday.

We have a staircase that I decorate each Christmas with evergreens (not real) and lots of lights and poinsettias. Little Seth looked at it and said "Did someone do this?". I said,"Yes, I did." To which he replied, "Well, you did an esselant job". ...translation "excellent". What a sweetie. Here's the staircase.

Jack by the stairs with the flash on.

With the flash off.

The quilted Christmas wreath is one I made at a workshop with the guilt guild. Here's a close-up of it before I covered the railing with the evergreens. I actually followed the pattern as she taught this and the only change I made was to add red beads to look like berries.

Here I am with my two boys. Yes, they are very different. Jack likes his "skate-boarder" hair cut and Seth likes a brush cut. For picture day at school Jack wore a shirt and tie (his choice) and Seth wanted nothing to do with a shirt that even had buttons!

 Yup, Christmas and grandchildren - two amazing gifts.