Scrapbooking, Music and Reindeer

Early in the week, the Worship team from church had a special workshop with Phil Lawson-Johnson. Jamie had asked him to come and talk to us about leading worship. Well he did and the talk was great, we learned so much, but even better was the times of playing and singing we had together at the beginning and end of the evening. Phil is a well-known worship leader and song-writer here in the UK and leads at the church we go to in Oxford on Sunday evenings.

We went to our art workshop last week. Normally I hover, helping the kids, trying to stop Jack being TOO silly, encouraging where I can etc. But this time, I thought I'd actually DO something a bit more creative, so I took my scrapbooking along! I sat at a table with one of the other mums who was making Christmas cards. Another came and sat with us and another. We all thought what a good idea it was to be engaged in something practical while the kids drew and chatted.

I managed two double page spreads. Since I went to Wendrie's crop the weekend before, that makes 5 double page spreads in the last YEAR! Wow, I'll get caught up in no time! {Ha!} It was a very pleasant day at Wendrie's. Jamie took the kids to the Science Museum. We are slowly realising that our teens are finally beginning to outgrow the big free museums in London. We've been regular visitors to all of them since they were very small. Next time we go to London, we are going to have to have some added value to the trip for them. Still not sure quite how to make it more interesting for them yet.

Here's Grace with one of her friends at the Art Day and her own pencil drawing.

Last weekend, Jamie and I went on a date. To a garden centre! Well, it's a very nice garden centre. There is also a new parade of interesting shops, including a great craft store, and the Christmas displays are, of course, up.

I asked Jamie to take Grace back there to see the reindeer the next day because I knew she'd love that. They had hot chocolate with marshmallows afterwards. I think the reindeer liked her. {g} I was very surprised to see they had furry antlers!

On Sunday, we led the worship at church again. It's a joy and a privilege to do this. Everything went so well. I really enjoy the rehearsals we have now. They are such fun! The more we play together as a band, the better we sound and the more relaxed we feel. The more relaxed we are, the less we are worried about things going wrong. And that means we can really worship wholeheartedly. Which is good.

Oh, what's this? A mystery package to send to a friend in Texas? I hope she likes mysteries.