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!

Game of a Lifetime

The story starts with Phil and his good friend from college Erik.  Phil is a Penn State football fan and Erik is a Nebraska fan.  They are now both in the Big Ten conference and were scheduled to play each other.  Phil's brother, Steve, is a PennState alumn and so we asked him to try to get us tickets for the game clear back before the season.  The game was sold out and we couldn't get tickets.  Fast forward to just 2 short weeks ago and you might have heard Penn State in the news...a lot over a big scandal.  Now I have thoughts and opinions on the scandal and have shared them with anyone who asks, but that isn't what this post is about, so I will only mention it briefly.  Anyway, Joe Paterno (as seen in a january post of this year) has been the coach at Penn State forever and it came out that this would be his last home game as the coach.  Steve was offered 4 tickets to the game and asked Phil and Erik to drive out.  With the scandal we weren't sure what to do.  Then it came out that Joe Pa was fired and riots broke out and we were a little concerned. BUT...it is a Penn State game that would go down in history so we decided that Phil simply couldn't miss it..So Friday evening about 7 pm Phil and Erik left from Erik's house and headed to Penn State which is over an 8 hour drive. After stopping to sleep in the car for awhile, they finally arrived at Penn State.  They pulled in to park, expecting the $40 fee to park when the man slid a pass in their window and told them the man in front of them had said to give it to the next car! Wow!  What a blessing! Here are Steve, Phil and Erik by the stadium (notice above them is the Nittany Lion mascot).

No visit to PennState is complete without a visit to the Joe Pa statue.  No matter what your views are of him...he is a legend there and it is a neat area to see.

Amidst the controversy this next picture of a mural on campus is very interesting.  This is a mural of famous/important people who have graduated from Penn State and gone out and made a difference in the world.  Two weeks ago the empty seat you see on the left bottom side of the picture had Jerry Sandusky in it. He is the former asst. coach that has been charged on numerous counts with some BAD stuff.  Well, they called in the artist during this week of turmoil at PennState and had him painted out of the picture.  In the seat if you look closely you can see a blue ribbon...that stands for Child Abuse Awareness.  I thought it was amazing that in such a quick time they had this "fixed".

Phil, Erik, Steve and Heidi were on campus plenty early and were able to watch the buses roll in with the players and see them go into the stadium.  Here's the lead bus bringing them in...

Here the fans clap and shout for the team buses all lined up and unloading the players.

Because of everything that had gone on that week, the security was pretty high. There was even a bomb threat at the stadium, which Phil so kindly texted me about to get me anxious! There were police on horses all over the place.

Steve and Heidi before the game.

Phil before the game.

The tunnel of band and alumni for the players to run through to get on the field.  The Nittany Lion and the flags all come through in front of the team.  They had awesome seats...on the corner of the endzone in the 11th row up!

The team came through the tunnel with arms linked to show their unity.

Because of all that was/is going on emotions were very high at the stadium.  After both teams made their way to the field, both teams, along with alumni, coaches, etc...kneeled down in the middle of the field all together and prayed for the victims in the child abuse scandal.  This was paired with a moment of silence for the victims.  As I watched on tv I had tears rolling down my cheeks and Phil said there weren't many dry eyes in the stands.  He said it was very powerful and an experience he won't forget.

Penn State ready to score! 

The game was a good one to see...They were down 14-0 and came back to almost get the win with a 14-17 loss.  It was very exciting and Phil said that it was simply crazy and unbelievable there.  I'm so glad and thankful that Heidi took all of these amazing pictures for me...I know there are a lot here, but there were 130 pictures to choose from...they are all so good.  Thanks Heidi!

Right after the game, Phil and Erik left to come home.  With a short stop to sleep for awhile, Phil finally came in the door about 4:30 am Sunday morning...what a whirlind of a trip, but for Phil it was totally worth it...it truly was the game of a lifetime!

Random Fallness at the Witmer's

It has been awhile since I posted just normal life for us!  This fall was full of football...practices during the week and games on the weekend.  This year, all of our games were here in town, which was really nice...but made for a long day of games since the boys were on different teams.  We discovered fairly quickly that 3-4 hours of sitting for Kiara was not going to be smooth sailing!  She did fairly well considering.  Here is Grant.  He played on the Plymouth Bears team...yes, we had to cheer for the Bears...only on Saturdays, not Sundays!  He was #22.  He had a great time playing and we really saw him improve and get more aggressive this year.

Here is Kiara at the last game, entertaining everyone with her goofiness!

This year, every team got to play at least one game "under the lights" at the RockPile...the high school field.  This was much anticipated and the boys LOVED this opportunity.  It was nice for us too to be on bleachers and up higher so that we could see better.  Brock had an exceptionally awesome game that night and we got to hear his name over the loud speakers a bunch of times!  That was pretty cool! He played for the Colts...yes, that was a tough one to cheer for too!

Grant's team had an pizza party at the end of the season and they were each given trophies.  Here he is with his coaches...they were giving him a hard time about his Broncos jersey at a "Bears" team party!  They were trying to get him to say Go Bears, but he refused!

Here is Brock at the RockPile after his game...another season under his belt!

At the team party, they had an extra trophy that they gave Kiara.  She was over the moon about this and was so proud t carry it around.  Goofball!

Another picture of Brock (blue sleeves) ready to play.

Grant (22--blue sleeves) waiting on defense.

Another favorite activity of the boys is raking leaves...not the jumping in the leaves, the raking of them.  I know...strange, but that's my boys.  They jump a couple of times, but prefer the raking part!

Of course Kiara couldn't be left out!  She made more of a mess than anything, but had fun!

We had a bow shooting evening one night.  Phil and Brock wanted to work with their bows (Brock's is brand new), so we headed to Grandpa and Grandma's house to shoot at a target on a bale of straw.

Grant took his bow as well.  Although it isn't an authentic bow, he had fun shooting it a little closer to the bale.

And really...to sum up our fall...Kiara's shirt says it all...Football, football and football!  Go Broncos!