Faith Mountain Baptist Church Christmas Play

 On Sunday December 22, we had our FMBC Christmas play. Here is Brent welcoming everyone who came. This was the first year that Bekah was really old enough to be a part of the play. Thank you so much to Deborah and Judith for taking on the play this year and all who helped with practices, costumes, refreshments and so much more! It was wonderful and a blessing!
 About 2 or 3 weeks ago she and Rachel were talking about the play and Rachel says "don't you want to be a sheep and Bekah said BAAAA.  I don't mean a quiet sweet little Baa either and I mean a loud, very enthusiastic BAAAA!
I really need a video to do it justice. So I sent a text to Mrs. Judith saying Bekah was volunteering to be the sheep. And here she is...

Bekah saying BAAA!

 Here are some the the readers, Maggie and Jenna, with the girls during rehearsal.

 Here are Abigail as Mary and Christopher as Joseph and Calvin, a wise man

 Here are all the animals around the manger

 and here are Rachel and the other angels joining the little "animals"

 A group of the angels and the shepherds

 The group singing "JOY to the World"

 Our entire group who were a part of the play

                                                Our precious little lamb and angel

Merry Christmas from the McGuirts! Looking forward to a wonderful Christmas Eve and Day celebrating our Savior's birth!

Ballet Watch Day

 This past week we had a special event at dance. We had Parent's Watch Day for two very special little girls. This was special for Bekah since this was the first watch day since she started dance earlier this fall.

 Here she is dancing the butterfly dance with her teacher, Ms. Jenna. Here is most of her class during the butterfly dance too.

 Here is our littlest ballerina!

 Here is Rachel with her class.

 Practicing second position

 and showing off her tap skills and her arabesque..

 And here are our ballerina beauties! We love you and are very proud of all the new things you are learning!

Christmas Ornament Party and Cookie Swap

 

On Sunday December 15th, after church, we hosted our First Christmas Ornament Decorating and Cookie Swap at our house. I hope this will become an annual event. We had a great time and I hope all who attended did too. The pictures above are Rachel helping me prepare the Reese's fudge for the cookie swap the night before and Rebekah taste testing a sample. Can you tell she approved?!

 We had 30 of our church family and friends come and we were so excited. We fed everyone lunch first, lots of chili and chicken noodle soup to be had. I was not feeling the best this day. Thanks so much to all who pitched in and helped with serving, preparing and clean up.  I appreciated it so much!

 After lunch, we headed up to the playroom and spread out all the ornaments ( Thank you to Melanie for contributing most of the ornaments!) and all the fun things everyone brought to decorate them!

 Here is the kid friendly table where the stickers, glitter glue, icicles and plastic snow were a huge hit!

 Here is the other table where the icicles, ribbon and glitter were a big hit too!

 Here are the older girls with their creations. They did a great job!

 I just got one picture of the cookie swap after we decorated ornaments. Probably because I was busy filling our plate with all the goodies...

 After we finished with the cookie swap, all the kids ended up back in the basement to play. Actually, we figured out a little later, they were actually practicing their music for the Christmas play at church

 

 Here they came to serenade us with Away in A Manger, complete with the manger and Amaya playing the piano. They did a great job!

Thank you to all who came to share this time at our home. We had a great time and look forward to next year already!

For Aunt Brittany

 Early December brought us to time for our dental checkups. Here in Lexington, we have found a dentist, Dr. Sherman, who sees our whole family which we really like. Rachel woke up the morning of our dental checkups, ran down the stairs yelling "I don't have time to talk!! I have to get dressed. It is time to go the the dentist!" Yes, she was really that excited, as you can probably tell from her pictures.

 She was very pleased to get all of her 20 teeth checked and got a great report. Her sister much preferred watching as you see here

 We did get Bekah in the chair this time only by sitting on my lap. However, she did sit long enough to get all 20 teeth checked too.

 So, Aunt Brittany, we were 4 for 4 this checkup. All good news and NO Cavities!!

Thanksgiving Take 2

Thanksgiving for my side of the family was a little different this year. Many of you may know my Grams fell at home the Friday before Thanksgiving. For those of you who have been praying for her, Thank you! Please continue to pray for her as she is working through rehab etc at this time. Thank you! We arrived on Friday just in time to see her before she transferred from the hospital to the rehab center. Here she is with the girls.

We headed to Fayetteville where we met Aunt Ashelyn for our annual trip to A Dickens Christmas in downtown Fayetteville.We headed for our usual first stop of the Children's Museum. We actually got there in time to play a little at the museum and make our ornaments too. We enjoyed the tree lighting and fireworks downtown as always.

We then headed back to Mimi and Pop's where Pop had a welcome alternative to turkey waiting...Seafood. We all enjoyed this treat! Thanks, Pop!

It was great to see all our family for Thanksgiving. Looking forward to another great visit at Christmas!     We Love You!

Mimi and Bekah

Saying Good Morning to Aunt Ashelyn

Our Family, Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving 2013

 Every Thanksgiving we travel back down to NC to see all our family. Brent's entire extended family gets together on Thanksgiving Day. Though we had to make several stops with the girls (we have learned Bekah can get carsick...), we actually made it by the time Thanksgiving lunch started this year!

 We had several special happenings at Thanksgiving this year. Ten days before Thanksgiving, Mama and Papa celebrated their 70th!!!! wedding anniversary. How awesome is that! I know that must be pretty rare!
Here they are with their anniversary cake

 What is Thanksgiving without a little football? Or in Bekah's case soccer with the football!

 We also got to hear some great  music. Brent's cousin Melanie, her husband Matt and their boys, Aidan and Owen live down in southwestern VA. Aidan and Owen and their dad and mom played several songs for us.
We also got the blessing of getting to meet our newest cousin, Olivia. The girls had a great time playing with her.
 

 The girls both enjoyed Big Mama's piano. Wonder which one or both will take after Big Mama and Nana and play the piano?

 

Like Father, Like Son...

 There were two pictures I really wish I had gotten while we were here. When we arrived we discovered that Brent and his brothers all 3 had beards. That was a first as far as I know but of course, I forgot to grab a picture
I also wish I had thought to get a picture of the whole group. Every single family member of Mama and Papa's children, grandchildren and great-children and their families were there this year. It was a very special year! I will make sure I get a group picture next year!!
I did get several very special pictures including these two. We were glad to get to spend the night at Big Mama and Big Papa's before heading to our next Thanksgiving destination. I snapped these the next morning before we had to go.

 

Thanksgiving 2013

 We had a great family Thanksgiving with Brent's family. It was so good to get to see everyone and spend time together!