Our church choir is working on their Christmas cantata. We rehearsed yesterday morning from ten till noon.  The name of the cantata is The Christmas Story: A Classic Carol Celebration by Tom Fettke and Thomas Grassi. It has some nice arrangements of traditional carols. It is approximately forty-five minutes long. I have been practicing the accompaniment part at home and during rehearsals. I still have some work to do! We are performing it on the tenth of December. It is hard for me to find time to practice playing through something that long. I have been practicing it in sections. Hopefully I will be able to put it all together and have enough stamina built up for the performance.

(I posted my prelude from this morning on the Worship Archives page. I played an arrangement of Simple Gifts! I hope you enjoy!)

After yesterdays rehearsal I met Andrew and the kids at Buffalo Wild Wings. It is a place we like to go eat. David loves their Mac n Cheese! In fact, it is the only macaroni and cheese he will eat. When I fix it at home he won’t eat it! It is all in his head! Silly boy 🙂 Andrew likes BWW because he loves wings and watching sports. Emma likes french fries, and I’m just glad to eat and not have any dirty dishes to clean! 🙂 I love how Emma is always eating crunchies in her restaurant pictures.:) She loves those things! They are basically Cheetos for babies. It keeps her happy while we wait for our food.

After lunch we did some bulk grocery shopping. I bought flour, sugar, eggs, butter and a few other items that we will be using a lot of this week. We also bought our turkeys and ribs! I am so excited about Thanksgiving!

Here is our meal plan for this week.

Mmm… Delicious!

Monday: Lunch, BLT Sandwiches. Dinner, Spicy roasted chicken legs, corn, cucmbers and tomatoes. 

Tuesday: Lunch, Broccoli and Cheddar Soup (I keep wanting to have this and something always comes up! Maybe this week!) Dinner, Meatloaf, black eye peas and broccoli.

Wednesday: Lunch, Subway sandwiches. Dinner, Lasagna, garlic toast and salad. 

Thursday: Thanksgiving meal!! Leftovers all day 🙂

Friday: Lunch, Cheeseburgers. Dinner, Roast, potatoes and carrots.

Saturday: Lunch, Chicken nuggets, french fries and green peas. Dinner, Eat out. 

Sunday: Lunch, Roast chicken, rice and carrots. Dinner, Turkey Carnitas (if we have enough leftover turkey)

I made a shrimp, lemon and basil risotto today for lunch. This was my first time ever making a risotto! It was actually easy to make. I stirred and watched it very closely so it would not burn! It is not a cheap dish to make. The arborio rice and shrimp can be expensive. I believe it is worth the splurge on occasion though. It tasted amazing! Andrew and I loved it! Because he is four, David forced down a few bites. Emma liked it, or at least she loved playing in it! (You might notice in this picture that Emma has shrimp and rice in her hair! I had to change her clothes and pretty much bathe her when she was done. She is a messy eater!)

There was a community Thanksgiving service this evening at one of the churches here in town. It was nice for all of us to go to church together. It was a meaningful service, and even though I was tending to the kids, I still enjoyed it. It is good to sit, sing and listen! Andrew sang a song for the special music. He has such a great voice! (I’m his wife, so I can brag on him! He is amazing! It is really true!) I wish he would sing more often. In my last post a made a list of things I was thankful for. I have been thinking about more little, not so serious, things I’m thankful for. Here are some of them.

1) Dishwasher, Washer and Dryer

2) Technology (My phone, tablet, etc…without it I wouldn’t be able to keep in touch with certain friends and family members! I wouldn’t be able to blog. I couldn’t just look things up on google. I remember before cell phones, but it’s hard to imagine life without it now!)

3) Kitchen gadgets ( I have so many! I love my stand mixer! I never use my hand one anymore. I also love my garlic press, my potato peeler, my food processor…! I could really get carried away with this.:)

4) Diapers, Wipes and Diaper Genies

5) Strollers

6) Movies (I love a good movie or television show! Andrew and I have our shows we watch together. We often disagree about best or types of movies though.)