Concert Time

Back to catching up on a way-behind blog...December was concert time...in fact in the span of 11 days we had 4 concerts in our family.  Each of the kids had separate concerts and then I had my school concert as well. Whew!!  Kiara's was first...I decided to curl her hair since she was all dressed up.  This was the first time we have done this and she did really well holding still.  As long as she was in front of the mirror and could talk and smile and perform for the mirror, she was good!

Here she is all ready to go.  The program was at our church and she was beyond excited to go and be on the stage, "just like Mommy".   

Front and center was where she stood...not a big surprise!  Easy access to her if necessary by the pre-school staff.  She did try to make her way up to the top row once.  She climbed up two stairs before the director's daughter snatched her back down!

All smiles after the concert with 2 of the teachers Miss Kristi and Miss Becky!  We love them for loving our ornery little girl!

Big grin after the concert!

The line was super long for cupcakes and punch after the concert...so we stopped at Dairy Queen instead!

Grant's concert was next.  He totally tricked us!  He wasn't on stage when the curtain opened or for the first 2 songs and we thought he must be sick in his classroom or something.  Just as I was getting up to leave to check on him, the next song started and out came Santa Claus, aka GRANT!  We were shocked!

During the song "Santa's Getting Fit for Christmas", Grant danced, bounced and exercised around the stage...the entire song.  Wow!  We were speechless and his classmates loved his performance as well.  He got the nickname of "Granta" and around school that is what he is famous for now! After the Santa song, he stripped off his costume and came back on stage for the last couple of songs as Grant! 

The third concert was Brock's band concert with the 6-8th grade bands.  I couldn't believe how grown up he looked on the stage playing his clarinet...concentrating on the music and director...tapping his foot to the beat...sitting still! Ha! Ha!    They played well and had improved even from their fall concert!  I thought I took more pictures of him, but I had it on video and all of the "pictures" I took were actually videos...oops!

No pictures of Mommy's concert, but it went really well too.  It was a busy 11 days and we were glad to be done with the busy-ness for awhile...More on that for next time!

Kid Pics

In our desire to get a Christmas card picture, we had a little photo shoot at our house...First, Mommy took pictures of the kids for the card...then the kids took some too!

Can't believe how grown up they look...when did that happen?

You really can see the ornery, can't you?

It is so rare that I am even in pictures, but then to have one of me with each of my family members is really a treat.  The funny thing is that I was letting them take pictures and was just planning to delete them off of my camera...but then I saw them and had to keep them!

Kiara took this one of Grant and I...super close up but she got us in the frame!

Brock and I...wow...he looks so big.  I'm not old enough to have a 12 year old. Yikes!

Phil and I for some VERY RARE pictures together.  He doesn't especially like having his picture taken and will growl that it is on the blog...but....too bad!  We took some sillier ones of the two of us that I am NOT putting on here, so he can be thankful for that I guess.

So...there we are.  Love my little family of 5 and now I have some pictures for my desk at school too!

Thanksgiving with the Witmer's

Six weeks has gone by without a post from me...yikes.  I have so much to catch up on, so I may not do it all justice.  I thought I would have TONS of time to catch up while on Christmas break and that just hasn't happened!  So...let's go alllllll the way back to Thanksgiving.  This year, my school got the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off because of parent/teacher conferences on Monday and Tuesday evenings.  So, we headed out Tuesday night and drove all night.  It was a tiring trip with pouring rain for the majority of the way.  We closely missed a leaking tar truck on the turnpike, as we were following the clean up trucks.  Other vehicles had been literally stopped in their tracks with major damage to their vehicles.  Someone in PA said we were lucky...Brock summed it up best when he said...it wasn't luck, it was God!  So glad that we hadn't left an hour earlier.  Our time there from Wednesday to Saturday was filled with lots of cousin/family time for us.  Our nephew, Jackson is getting so big!  I hadn't seen him since he was just 6 months, so at just under 18 months...he looked huge to me.  He is adorable and would squeal and laugh whenever one of the cousins came into the room.  Our kids had such fun with their cousins.  Here is Jackson enjoying his meal!  Bet you can't guess what we were having...

For some reason, Jackson would make this scowling face at Phil...it became a game with them and we loved to see his scowley face!  Here Jackson and his daddy, Andy, are both scowling at us.  I LOVE this picture!

Great Grandpa Overly with the grandkids in our part of the family.

Wherever Jackson was...Kiara was sure to be found within eyesight.  For the most part, she was nice to him...not terribly rough!  She enjoyed playing with him and chasing him around with her big brothers.

Grandma and Kiara relaxing on the porch swing waiting on a visitor to arrive! I thought it was such a sweet picture, especially since Kiara doesn't usually sit still for long!

Brock, Grant and Kiara hanging out with Jackson while Grandma babysat.  He looks like a Witmer with that Broncos shirt on...and we didn't even buy it for him! HA!

Oh how challenging a great picture is when there are 6 kids plus2 adults.  I didn't get a single one that all were looking at me and had eyes open.  Sorry.

We were glad to go at Thanksgiving because it was also my nephew's birthday that week and for the first time the boys got to go to his birthday party which was a dodgeball party.  They had a blast and even Phil and Uncle Steve got in on the dodgeball action...

While we were there, we also celebrated Christmas with the Witmer's.  The boys got these awesome sleds from Aunt Jul and Uncle Andy.  We were all very spoiled this year and got great gifts.

Kiara got this PINK t-ball set from Uncle Steve and "Uncle" Heidi. She tried it out right away that day since it was so warm out.  She loves it, but you have to watch out with a bat in this girl's hands!

We had a great trip...there are so many more pictures I could put and maybe some day when I am caught up, I can go back and pick out some of my favorites...but I'm trying to minimize!   It was good to see everyone...wish we could see them more often.  We love you guys!