merry HILARIOUS christmas!!!

Tonight was both the boys' Christmas programs at church! Maddox was in the preschool program (which is for 3 & 4 year olds) and Ashtyn was in the elementary program (which is grades K thru 6). The preschool program was up first and Maddox got to show off his acting skills! He had gotten the part of a sheep and his costume was SO cute!! About half way through the program the sheep came through the back door of the sanctuary and crawled all the way down the center aisle "baa-ing" all the way! Well...Maddox didn't make a sound, but he was a very speedy sheep and crawled extra fast passing all the other sheep and making his way to the platform!
Once Maddox got up on the stage he didn't really participate in the program. He had sang all his little songs and said all his lines during practice but once it came down to it Maddox decided to just sit and wave at his family! He sure is an awfuly cute sheep though!!

Take a look at Maddox's "performance"...

Ashtyn's program started right after Maddox's. The elementary school program was called "Angel Alert" and was about the angels in heaven waiting to hear the news that Jesus had been born! Ashtyn was an angel in the choir and had been practicing since September to perfect all his actions and learn all his song lyrics! It's been alot of work! Well, Ashtyn's program (and Ashtyn's performance inparticular) can best be described through video. BELIEVE ME...pictures WILL NOT do this program justice!! So, I'll show you all of Ashtyn's best "moves" through a series of short videos. (Mom, I promise we'll bring the full length version to Christmas but this'll give you a little taste!) In this first video, you get to see Ashtyn's show stopping solo stealing! Each and every time a trumpet solo played on the sound track Ashtyn would play his air trumpet! Even though there was an actual assigned angel to play this part Ashtyn took it upon himself to jump right in and show off his trumpet playing skills!!

Several times throughout the program, Ashtyn would suddenly get distracted. Whether it was by a spotlight passing by or an actor doing a speaking part behind him, Ash had a hard time standing still and paying close attention to his director. (How can ya blame him though?!?!) In this video, you can see that Ashtyn has gotten caught up in doing some sort of heel toe action and can't seem to stop! Eventually, he kicks back in to the assigned actions of the song but at first he just can't seem to get his feet right...

Suddenly, the music literally "got in him" and Ashtyn just did what he felt in the moment! You can hear us all start to laugh as Ashtyn begins...PLAYING AIR GUITAR!!! That's right, out of nowhere, right in the middle of following his angel actions perfectly Ashtyn just broke into an air guitar solo and played to his heart's content! He was seriously in his own little world...TOO CUTE!!! Brandon couldn't be more proud!!!

When an opportunitey presented itself, Ashtyn saw it and grabbed it...literally! When the actions to this song had his hand ending up really close to the hand of the girl standing next to him Ash thought "why not" and tried to hold this girl's hand!! Well, the girl wasn't having it, to say the least. She gave Ashtyn quite the "stare" until he quickly let go and went back to minding his own business! Hey...you can't blame a guy for tryin'...

Finally, Ashtyn ended his program with a BANG!! He caught on to all the actions and really gave it to us!! You could just eat him up!!

Ashtyn covered every possible thing he could have done in a children's christmas program! Not only did he play air guitar, air trumpet, free style dance, make a move on the girl next to him and get distracted many many times but Ash also copied literally EVERY move his director made! That's right...on one of the songs, the choir sang tonight, all of the angels were simply supposed to stand completely still with their hands folded in front of them, but instead Ashtyn kept his eye on the choir director and, thinking she was giving him actions to do, he copied her arm and hand movements. Unfortunately, though, the director was not meant to be copied during this song as she was simply doing old school choir director motions telling the kids when to cut off their singing or when to hold out a note. Ashtyn, though, thought he was meant to do those motions too and so was standing up their directing the choir with his whole body!! It really was very cute and very funny!

I have to say that we are MORE then proud of both of our boys!! They worked very hard to prepare for their programs and bravely did their programs in front of a packed church. I know that as boys the chances of them staying involved in the christmas program in the coming years are slimmer then if they were girls so I am just soaking in every bit of performance I can get out of them! Great job Ashtyn and Maddox! Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you! You both stole the show and were the absolute best sheep and angel anyone could ask for! We love you!