church

the hawley family rarely attends church. but for some reason we ended up there twice this week! first we went to a catholic church with the ward family to witness their oldest, nathan doing his job as an alter server. he did great and it was really nice to see him in that light.
only a few days later we went to the christmas eve candlelight service with my brother and his family at their evangelical church. talk about two very different experiences :) it was very nice though. they sang christmas songs and the pastor read the christmas story and then we lit candles. everyone held their own and used it to light the persons next them. it was beautiful. if thats all they did at church every week, i would totally be there! i don't know if it was appropriate or not but i discretely took a couple of pictures before and during the service . just because it was so pretty.


here is my niece ireland waiting for the service to start.




here are joe and rick and vera waiting patiently.


there were something like 3000 people there. it's a really big church. before the service i took the girls to the bathroom and saw an old friend of mine from college sitting with his dad. he commented on how much my kids had grown since he had last seen them. i asked him what he was doing there and we both admitted that we were forced to go by loving and concerned relatives :)

i absolutely couldn't help but sneak out my camera for this shot. the girls looked so cool with the candles.


after church we got a picture of all the cousins. my sister in law's sister was there with her kids too so that's who the extras are...