loudest kids in church

Puppy and Firefly are awesome. We took them to the Christmas Eve service at our church, and Pupy dressed up for his part. All the kids took on a role in the nativity and Puppy decided he would be a rescue angel. His outfit consisted of some pretty fly silver wings that I made from construction paper, aluminum foil, and strapped to his body like a backpack via old shoe strings. I was very proud of the setup, and he wore them around the house hours before we went to church. He would run circles around the kitchen-living room-dining room like he was flying. It was great.

He completed his costume with a large amount of mardi-gra beads, green froggy rain boots, a fireman helmet, and groucho marx glasses and nose. We're talking serious angel business here. When we got to church he added a tinsely halo to the helmet. It made me smile to see his creativity flourish and see him take ownership of his costume. I also got a kick out of the idea that his concept of an angel was so unique. Thats my boy.

So we get to church, the pastors tell the nativity story. As they are introducing Mary, Puppy in his high pitch super loud voice (he only seems to have one volume) keeps going on and on saying...

"Where's Joseph? Is that Mary? What about Joseph? Where's Mary? Where's Joseph?"

I try to keep him quiet by drawing pictures of his favorite Thomas the Tank Engine Trains all over the church bullitens which only somewhat works, because he seems to have questions that he projects to the whole congregation after anything changes up front. Finally they invite all the angels up front to proclaim to the shepherds the good news and Heather walks him up to the front row and that is as far as he's willing to go. So for the rest of the service he sits with her, watching the 20 kids up front who are angels, wise men, shepherds, while he pleads with her to take him up so he can look at the baby Jesus.

All this is going on while Firefly is standing on my lap cooing and gaga-ing at such a volume I could swear that no children in the world are as loud as mine.

When the service ended Heather took Puppy up to see baby Jesus. They returned and she looked at me and we had to laugh.

"Did you get a word of what the pastors were saying?" She asked.

"Not one," I replied.

We smiled, looked at our children, and just shook our heads. Like many parents our inspiration this season comes from the gifts and the constant laughter our children bring us. May we all journey through life with the faith, joy, and peace of our children.

Merry Christmas.