Our neighbors hosted their Live Nativity program this past weekend and our family was able to participate in the fun! This is the fourth year that they have lived across the street from us and every year we help out a little bit more. This year we helped with snacks for the cast and the guests and we offered our talent. I am pretty sure the snacks were better received than the talent!
They read the Christmas story from Luke and the cast moves along with the reading. It runs for two hours and the cast changes every half hour to give more people a chance to participate and to give people a break from the hot lights! This year it was really warm and the lamb got especially hot (you can ask Travis)! Every year they add something else to make it a little better. This year they bought a huge light kit. (You can see it in the last picture.) They have great costumes and very entertaining readers to make it a special event for everyone.
I made popcorn and lemonade for the people watching the program. We were going to have hot chocolate but it got too hot. It was good we had lemonade!
Here we are watching from across the street.
We have a very progressive thought when it comes to casting. Travis' shift had all female shepherds! Doesn't he make a cute lamb?
We got assigned the last half hour of the night. That was from 8:30 - 9 pm. Wow, is that late when it comes to my kids who are used to being in bed by 7 pm. I was Mary, Randy was Joseph, and Alaina was baby Jesus. (Like I said, progressive casting!) Travis took our picture since he was the only one left. Didn't he do a good job?
And now for the rest of the story: Justin was having a very bad potty day and he peed in the underwear about 5 times before the show began. I was using the stroller outside so that I would have someplace to put Alaina when I was helping with snacks and costumes changes. It ended up that Justin sat in the stroller most of the night, except when he peed in his underwear and we had to go and change his clothes. Which he did and we did at least another 5 times during the show. That's not counting the times we actually made it to the potty. I had no idea what was going on but it was quite a debacle. We ran out of underwear and moved on to pajama bottoms. I ran out after the last clothes change just in time to head across the street and put on Mary's outfit. It was extremely late for Alaina and I knew she would be upset and I had planned to grab her pacifier to help make it through our half hour. With Justin's issue I forgot to grab it and I headed outside knowing it was going to be bad. Before we even got into the stable Justin needed to go to the bathroom again so Randy took him inside and I went out and said to start without him. Randy came out in time for the second reading and Justin was back in the stroller with Travis watching him and us watching them both. We didn't even make it through one reading when Travis "snuck" up in the middle and said Justin was crying and he needed us. So Randy went out to get him and I ended up having to stand up with a screaming baby. Every time the kings came to offer their gifts I had to reassure them that her crying was not at all a reflection of her opinion of their gifts! So Randy was holding Justin (crying) and I was holding Alaina (crying) and we were both standing up bouncing. And Justin peed all over Randy and his Joseph costume. We were quite a sight! I was sure we were going to be fired by the time it was over but instead our neighbor came up and said, "That was hysterical! You guys were great! I will e-mail you some pictures!" Thanks. I think?
Later that night Justin woke up vomiting and with a fever, which lasted the rest of the weekend and into Monday. I gues we know now that when he cannot control his peeing he's on his way to getting sick. And when he is sick all he wants is mommy and Alaina is in one of her mommy phases so it was a tough day for ALL of us. We're glad that one is over!
