Christmas Is Coming!

Last night, Kevin wanted to sleep with me. Now that most of Steve's new furniture has arrived at the new house, he has a lovely kingsize bedroom suite, Kevin has a new fullsize bed with matching pieces, and the queen size cherry bedroom furniture, which we bought for Karin when she first moved to California and met Steve a month later, is now in the guest room -- MY room! Kevin climbed into my bed. Of course, Guinness sleeps with me, and, as of yesterday, Jack has learned to jump up on the bed. At 2 a.m., I awoke feeling jammed, but loved, by a sleeping grandson and two dogs.

Speaking of the dogs... oh, my... they are so much in love!!! I am not sure I have even seen two dogs love each other this much! They have constant fun and are very entertaining! As before, Guinness will win a wrestling match, then roll over and let Jack be the champion.

Kevin and I went to church this morning. He had not been there since my last visit and was very happy to see all his friends and to fall into the old routine, though he is now in a new classroom with first graders with the teacher and assistant teacher being good friends of his Mommy's. Today is the first time since Mommy died, I think, that he went to the church-time program without insisting that I stay also, allowing me to enjoy the sermon for a change.

After church, I retrieved him, then chatted with old friends. He took off doing his own thing of finding friends. I caught up with him at one point, then he disappeared again. The next time I found him, he was in the sanctuary sitting on the front row watching some of his friends rehearse for a children's musical Christmas program.

He is a natural musician. It is so sad that he cannot be a part of this program! He sat there picking up on the melodies and the lyrics amazingly fast! He too was feeling blue that he could not be a part of it. I told him I would encourage Daddy to take him to their performance in a couple of weeks.

At lunch, Daddy suggested that maybe Grandma could help to settle Kevin's room. Daddy brought six boxes of books to begin the project. It was joy for both of us to look through his books! We had to stop to read several. Also many are now too young for him but perfect for Kien and Gabe. He freely offered to pass most of them on to his little cousins. We also hung up all the new clothes and pulled out all of Kevin's outgrown clothing to ship to Kien and Gabe.

Kevin picked out a "Silent Night" book illustrated by Thomas Kincaid, a favorite painter of his parents, to read at bedtime. We went through it a couple of times to help him to read all the words of the four verses. Did you know that Kincaid's wife's name is Nina? And that he has at least one N hidden in every painting? We found at least one N on every page. Then I told him he has to memorize "Twas the Night Before Christmas" this year. His Mommy had it memorized at age 2!!! Really!!! He wasn't doing very well at filling in the blanks through my first reading, so, the second time through, I told him to just join in with me on any words he did know. He'll get it!