A Budding Artisit...

Rebekah took Art 1 this past semester at school. She hasn't really brought anything home, so We haven't had the opportunity to see any of the things she's been working on, although we have heard about some of them.

At the end of the semester the students display their favorite or best pieces of artwork at the Art Show. It was originally scheduled for last week on Thursday and she had made something special for me, (as my birthday present) and was going to be abe to have it go to the Christmas Festival as a nativity... then because of weather they postponed the art show (even though they still had the band Concert that night). She was very sad, but I didn't know why...

Well this week when they did hold the art show, on tuesday night along with the Choir Concert. I got there later than planned, but when we arrived we were treated with some amazing art, and the pictures that she had done were fantastic! I do crafty arts stuff, but I have to copy a pattern, and I cannot do realistic stuff at all! I am so impressed with what she has learned in art, and that she had the ability to do the work she did! We are so proud of her!

Just another art comment... A week or two ago, rebekah was sitting here with me and Liam while we were watching a Disney movie. She was pointing out things and was amazed at all the attention to detail that they take to do a whole movie... at first it was just a few comments, then after a while, I asked her if this new notice was because she has been in art class. It was just interesting to see her notice all of the actual artistic efforts...

We like all that she did. I can't believe all the details she did on the face of the little African girl. I don't think I could EVER do something like that! And of course I loved the Nativity picture, and all the thought that went into it! And then there is the Swan picture... Awesome! Bill asked her if he could have it. We'll need to take her stuff in to get it framed. Again, we are so proud of her.

My funny little Doofus!!!

Background:

Way back when... many years ago, when Bill and I were engaged, we discussed names for our children. When I was a teenager, I had decided I wanted to name a daughter after my mother. Her name was Loraine Faith... I didn't at the time want to do the Faith, Hope, Charity type of names, but felt like Loraine was a big name for a little girl - as well as old fashioned... I came up with Rebekah Loraine and liked how it flowed, so that was my name. Bill's Grandfather had passed away the year before we got engaged, and he wanted to name a boy after him, so... William Joseph. I liked it, however I had one stipulation. There were already too many Bill, Billy, Williams in his family (3 generations), so I said we could call him Joseph. That was fine.

We had baby Joseph for many years... When Rebekah was young she'd draw him in pictures and tell people about him (when I wasn't even pregnant). We all waited for a LONG time for baby Joseph to come to our family.

Well, when I was pregnant the last time I thought of a new name, and asked my hubby how he liked Liam (from the WilLIAM part of the name). I was a bit surprised, but he liked it! We asked the girls, they all (pretty much) liked it. So... even though we didn't know who our baby was for sure (boy or girl), IF it was a boy, became Liam.

With the season and having pulled all the nativities out, I was trying to tell Liam who everyone was, or at least the main parts. The Holy family is Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus. The other day he started saying Jofus. I tried to correct it to Joseph, but still - Jofus came out. I said it was a good thing we didn't call him that; he'd never be able to say his own name! :-) That being said, he actually calls himself "Neum", frequently.

So - more background:

We call people lots of silly little nic-names at our house! Manda Panda, Sariah Bobeskia, Hannah Banana, Rissa Roo. Or just simply silly girl or goofy boy, Crazy Mama, etc.

Goofy boy has become Goofus!

So after the Jofus discussion, it suddenly went from Jofus, to Goofus, to Dufus! YIKES!!! Now we have 'Dufus', Mary and Baby Jesus!

The other thing that happened related to the Nativity that happened this week was that I went to a visiting teaching brunch yesterday... Liam, after being dropped off at different peoples homes every day last week while I helped set up Nativities at the Christmas Festival, that he is VERY suspect when we get dressed (oh, by the way... we get up and get dressed nearly EVERY DAY!!!! - once in a while we are lazy and stay in jammies all day, but not often!). "I don't want to go!" "Don't Leave ME Mommy!", etc are some of teh things that start flying around. I reassured him we were going somewhere but that I was 'STAYING' with him, so not to worry. I said we were going to go play with Grace. We have a little friend named Calli Grace, and he said, Play with Calli Grace?!?!?! I said, no, baby Grace.

Well, he associates Baby as the first name appearantly of Baby Jesus currently, I guess, so he asked if we were going to play with Baby Jesus!?!

When Bill came home from work last night he asked Liam, "What did you do today?" He said he played with "Baby Jesus!"

I just LOVE the cute things Kids say!!!

A Season to think about Christ

A few years after Bill and I were married, in 1991 Bill bought me the Precious Moments Mini Nativity set for Christmas. I had worked at a Hallmark gift store wehn I was in High School, and though I did get an employee discount, I didn't work that many hours, and I didn't make that much money. I fell in love with the Precious Moments Nativity set, but didn't want to spend that much money on it at the time... I was thrilled when Bill got me the P.M. Nativity set that year for Christmas.

After that year, he would get me a new piece or two or three each year for Christmas, and originally he would have it be a gift from the girls. We didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into at the time... :-) He began tracking down the old pieces of the set, to make sure we had the one's they put out each and every year. This year it is the 30th anniversary of Precious Moments, so instead of putting out a new piece this year, they seem to have redone the original 11 pc. mini nativity set, and re-released it for this year. It might be that we have the complete set and it might not get any new pieces after this year. We will just have to wait and see. I have the complete 46 pc. set. I love it. It is so sweet and I have enjoyed seeing what piece they would come up with to put out each new year.

Somewhere along the line I got another Nativity or two, and I began collecting... I never knew how many different nativities there could be. I had no plan to collect tons of them, but it just sort of happened. Now, it seems that each year as I got the new pice for my P.M. set, I also began to get a different Nativity set of some kind each year. Part of my collection became a wy to have a Nativity set for the kids to be able to play with so that they wouldn't play with my special P.M. set, even though it looks like it should be for children, as it is so cute. I was thrilled the year that I found the P.M. plastic Nativity set! Now the kids had their own P.M. set to play with! It looked just almost like moms set (just not nearly as many pieces:-).

I used to decorate our home for the Christmas season, with various different Holliday decorations. I still have some other things that are special to me, but my favorite decorations are Nativities. I like them because it helps me to keep the focus of Christmas on Christ, rather than on Santa, trees and presents.

I have begun to look specifically for sets that are slightly different - one's that perhaps not anyone else around would have or even have seen. I have tried to collect a set from various places we have lived, as well as some places we have visited.

I love that our Stake has begun having a yearly Christmas Festival, where many hundreds of Nativity's are displayed. I love to walk around and see all the different wasy the birth of our Savior are depicted by various artists and cultures. I enjoy knowing that I have so many Nativities to donate and put out for display each year. The hardest part for us is that because we take so many of our nativities to set up for the display, we don't get to decorate our own home until after the festival is over. This year we have set up a ew of the one's that we know others in the Stake have and usually bring to share, so that we can keep a few at home and set them up for our family to enjoy every day throughout the season.