Last Sunday was the 4th Annual MidSingles Christmas Music Devotional:  "God Loved Us So He Sent His Son."  It was amazing!  I'm so grateful for all those that participated and helped and put it together.  One of my friend's, that was pretty much in charge, mom said that this was the best one she'd been to, and she'd been to them all.  This was my second one to participate in.  The choir was amazing, really.  I was nervous the whole time for how it would come off, but they were great! 

It had been a huge weight on my shoulders, and on Saturday, I finally felt that weight lift, knowing that I'd done all I possibly could, and that had to be enough.  The Saturday before, I let weaknesses of mine show that some had never seen, and didn't know what to do about me.  Thinking about breaking down and crying in front of so many is somewhat embarrassing, but at the same time hilarious!  Nothing was working, and people weren't there, and by the end of the rehearsal I was a disaster.  Thank heavens for my friend, Tiffany, stepping in and taking care of organizing people to help decorate.  Poor Gary and Vaughn looked at me like they'd never seen anything like that, and didn't know what to do.  I had asked for people to bring trees and lights and garlands, if they had any available, and some guy came up to me afterwards and told me that that was not going to work, and asked me if I'd ever done anything like that and actually had it work.   I knew people would come through, and I had done it before, and it worked!  The guy apologized a few days later. 

Here are the decorations!  Now imagine the stage filled with people.  It turned out really well, and people were amazing to be there and we got it done so quickly! (My camera has a short in it, so none of the other pics turned out well)



The program was amazing!  There were many talented soloists, duets, ensembles, both vocalists and instrumentalists.  I was thrilled to be able to accompany one of the choir songs, and not have to accompany more than that.  I loved getting to sing!  I was able to sing in one of the ensembles, and it was accompanied by a strings ensemble and piano.  It was so cool!

I'd been spending so much time, getting the decorations made for these trees, and other things for that, plus a house I'm working on, it took a while for me to get Christmas up in our house.  It's up and I love it, other than the guy cut the bottom of the tree really crooked, so we have the leaning tree of Layton in our house.  When I say leaning, I'm not even kidding.  I turned it so it's leaning more towards the wall now, but it's WAY slanted!  Having the Christmas spirit has been a little more difficult this year than past years with the stress of activities and performances that have been happening, Mom's been way sick for almost 2 months, but last night she seemed much better, and my mood has put a damper on things.  I'm trying to be better, though.

So, you know when you're in an uncomfortable situation, there are those automatic reactions to fight or fly.  Well, flying is my way to cope.  I have to escape.   A couple months ago, I had gone to a fireside/devotional, and saw someone that I care a lot about with someone, and my reaction was, "oh my heck.... I have to get out of here."  I sat there and kept telling myself I'm a grown up, I can handle things and be mature about the whole situation.  Well, that talk lasted about a verse and a half of the opening song, I'm not even kidding, I was out of there!  Well, it's been a couple months, and you'd think I would be fine by now.  So, I was up singing in the ensemble at the devotional when this other someone walked in and went and sat next to the original someone.  It took all I had to stay where I was.  Holy cow!  What's the deal?!  The rest of the devotional went on, and I kept focused on the performers (apparently so focused that it looked like I was checking one of them out, but really I was watching the piano keys not anything else :)), and didn't escape.  I was so proud of myself.  Isn't that ridiculous!?  Thank heavens for family that was there to distract me afterwards, and responsibilities that got me back to being able to be me.  We had the fastest clean up of the Bountiful Regional Center, ever!  I was thrilled so I didn't have to do it by myself yesterday. 

Last night we had our annual Church side Christmas FHE.  It used to be that we'd get together and eat dinner and sing carols.  Now that Grandma isn't with us anymore, and Darlene lives in Mesquite during the winter, it has changed.  It was fun, though!

Last week two of Collin's kids had little programs for their tumbling and dancing.  Ev is an amazing little tumbler!  Ady is amazing on the bar at tumbling, and then quite the little dancer.  She had a mirror off stage, but right by her, that she was totally hamming it up, loving watching herself.  So funny!

I'm soon to be released from serving in the stake young women, which is heart breaking to me!  I've loved young womens.  Two weeks ago, I left an Evening of Excellence, and walked out saying, "This is why I love young womens!"  Wednesday night, Mom got a call asking if she'd be okay with me being released to serve in my ward.  She said no, because of all of my other responsibilities, but here I am the new primary secretary.  Hopefully, I'll be able to feel comfortable in this position being able to serve with kids soon.