breakfast with mary and joseph

i thought that this was the greatest idea and was surprised we haven't come across it before - breakfast with mary and joseph.  you know, like the ones they do with santa or the penguins or the easter bunny...  you get the idea.  the church mason's teacher attends was putting it on and she invited the class.  little did we know that she was going to be playing mary!  mason was very, very excited about that.

the event was very nice (and i was happy to overhear that they are planning to do it again next year).  first the kids had their picture taken with mary and joseph (it is pretty blurry and i wish i had taken one with my own camera - oh well).

then it was off to get an ornament craft started.  they used the kids' fingers and thumb in paint and then took them to another room to dry while we ate breakfast.

we had already eaten breakfast before coming (after all, this didn't start until 9am which is about 2 hours later than they normally eat breakfast) but the boys still put away a few pancakes, cinnamon  rolls, banana halves, strawberries and juice.  mason picked this table because it had one of the larger nativity sets; each table had a different set as a centerpiece. 

and then it was story time with mary.  she told the kids about her journey to bethlehem and why they were headed there.

several kids got to wear costumes for parts of the story.  there were angel wings, shepherd's 'hats' and the boys got to be sheep.  it was very interactive and the kids all seemed to enjoy it.

 here are the boys' completed crafts hanging on the tree - they each wrote their own name all by themselves (maddux just puts a line for each letter, but he says which letter he is writing along with you). love.