A Group Of Stahrs

Pop Pop

I have so many pictures to share from Pop Pop’s two-week visit.  I’ll start at the beginning, of course.  He arrived and we celebrated his birthday (which happens to be the day before mine) but the kids insisted on a cake (pumpkin bundt with streusel filling and dark chocolate ganache drizzled on top) and singing.

But even before getting to the celebrating part, the kids were all over him.  I mean to say that we miss Pop Pop from visit to visit.  It’s usually very loud when the kids finally see him.  However, this time, Maxine even missed Pop Pop and had to get in a snuggle…

We had some fancy programs during those two weeks.  Jamie had a choral concert and Mazie had her first band concert.  They happened to be on the very same night.  BOO!  Since they were both having daytime performance, we decided to split up so everyone could see all the performances and all be happy.

First, Jamie’s concert.  I have to say that this was their best concert yet!  I was so impressed with their singing and dancing.  Every song brought tears to my eyes.  I could see the pride in their little faces.  Mrs. Chapman does such a great job with all 100+ students in the school choir.  This was Jamie’s Ursa Minor choir (the second and third graders)…

and the choir singing “The Snowman is a Showman”

We also did a few pre-performance photos of the girls…

and of course, with Pop Pop…

I went to Mazie’s daytime performance.  The bad thing about this was they didn’t have enough time to do their whole concert since they were sharing the assembly with the choir.  So I missed out on a lot of songs.  No worries though, I enjoyed the songs I did hear.

Can you spot Mazie?  She’s wearing a santa hat and is near a trumpet bell.  In the next picture you can see her under the band instructor’s left arm.  She played her heart out and worked very hard to learn these songs.  Mazie’s come a long way since August.  I am impressed with her.  She seems to have a knack for music and playing the flute.  My heart swells with how excited she is!

I have some seriously talented kids!  I love that they love music.

We took Pop Pop to the Safari of Lights at the Zoo for our “Christmas Eve” with him.

It was fun but we were quickly disappointed to find out that we could not get in to see Santa and Mrs. Claus.  I think I was more disappointed than the kids.  But we were able to see our new elephant barn (which was packed and my camera fogged up from going from cold to hot so no pictures) which had not only elephants but a new black rhino!  As disappointed as I was with the whole Santa thing, we were delighted in seeing the rest of the lights and the giraffes are always part of that…

This guy even posed for me with his tongue out and all…

So since that was Christmas Eve with Pop Pop, we had Christmas day the next day.  Makes sense!  We had caramel rolls for breakfast and then went to the gifts.  Stocking first…

If you needed to know, Jacob got an alarm clock that he desperately wanted (and despises because it’s so loud).  Jamie got cool purple drum sticks.  And Mazie received a big pack of colorful sharpies.  Then we went onto the big gifts…

Pop Pop went way overboard this year.  The kids received new iPads…

Pop Pop got a few picture gifts and some homemade mugs with the kids artwork displayed…

Jeremiah got a bunch of books from his list including a rare one he’s been looking for for sometime and some running shirts but I didn’t get a picture because I was too busy playing with my new lens…

To say the kids like their iPads is a bit of an understatement.  In fact, they like them so much that Pop Pop was left alone for the first time in two weeks!

Don’t feel bad for him, it didn’t last too long.  Jacob decided to share his new toy with Pop Pop and they watched a movie together…

We had a blast over the two weeks that Pop Pop was here.  We can’t wait to see him again!