Matthew's Halloween Party

On Saturday evening, we held a Halloween/Birthday party for Matthew and his friends to celebrate him turning 12 years old. We had the party out at the Ober's barn. It went GREAT!! With lots of help from my friends and family, we were able to turn the barn into a great Halloween haven for the kids! We played games, had a haze maze, took a hay ride and had lots of fun. Below you can enjoy some of the fun :) Thanks again to all of you who helped make Matthew's birthday special!Here is the gang before party began. We gathered them in the downstairs of the barn until everyone arrived. Then we took them up and into the barn, so that Matt and Matt B could do their scary stuff to the kids. Receiving instructions on the first game of the night.
The object of this game was to grab a partner and find as many pieces of black and orange yarn as you could and tie together your pieces within 10 minutes. Of course it took a lot of teamwork and the kids had a great time. They are measuring their pieces to see who had the longest. The game following that was a scavenger hunt. This was of course to be outside but with the non-cooperating weather we had to set it up inside. It still went well. Here the kids are collecting their teams colored spiders from the big web!
Kayla bobbing for apples!

Climbing in the hay!

Matthew blowing out the candles on his cake!My husband being ridiculous with a pumpkin on his head.

The hay ride with friends.
Of course the little kids weren't allowed to go with the older kids so they got their own hay ride later on. They too had fun!

Great weekend, with unfortunate events!

This weekend I traveled to South Carolina to visit Brittany Detz, a former Paula's student who I have known for many years. She is a freshman at Clemson University where she twirls for the band. We had a great weekend after the long drive, but it was only a short time visit. That is okay, hopefully we will see her again soon. I traveled with Michelle (Britt's mom), Kendra (Britt's best friend from the studio) and her mom Kathy, and myself. We left Friday after work and came home later Sunday evening. I was exhausted but it was great seeing Brittany. She is very happy down there and it makes me smile. Below is Kendra and I on Sat am after only 3-4 hours of sleep, heading to the University to see Brittany for the first time since August. Brittany after we just said our hello's with happy tears of course. She had band practice that morning from 8-9 so we stayed to watch her.
We had some time to kill before the pep rally so we ate breakfast and walked around the bookstore. Kendra wanted to become a "true" clemson fan.
Kendra and I waiting for the pep rally to begin.
Brittany and the Clemson Tiger Twirlers. After the pep rally, a picture of us with our favorite twirler.
Brittany introduced us to her new boyfriend, Joey, who is from SC and is great. What a nice guy for Brittany especially with his southern manners. He was nice to meet and makes Brittany very happy.
The start of the game. This is the student section, where they sit on the hill!

It is tradition that the team is escorted to the stadium by coach buses at the start of the game to "touch the rock." This is the team waiting for their grand entrance.
Once they announce the team, they let hundreds of balloons go!
Now the student section during the game. You would have felt out of place if you weren't wearing orange that day, that is for sure!

Brittany twirling at half time. (She is the last one on the right of this picture, in that awesome back bend of course)
It was the celebration of 75 years of IPTAY which was explained to me as like a booster club and you get special things if you are a member. The band did a tribute to the IPTAY.
The band making the word "Clemson" as part of their show. Brittany, Kendra and I after the game meeting at the paw, the center of the field.

Brittany and Kendra, the best of friends.

Brittany had to get a picture with the hall queen of course.
We took Brittany and her boyfriend out for dinner to Texas Roadhouse for a good meal. We had so much fun, and took lots of pictures!

Brittany and Joey
Kathy, Michelle and I!
As you can read in my title, we also had some unfortunate events also happen over the weekend. I received a call on Sat night from my mom that Makayla fell....... so we went the doctor on Monday morning to find out...............she had a buckle fracture of the right arm AGAIN! Yes this is the 4th time she has broken her arm. She was ordered to have a bone survey, which was xrays of all the bones in her body to be sure there were fractures that may have happened that we didn't know about. Thanks to A Hope and her patience with Makayla during all those xrays, they reported that she looks fine and her bones look good, must just have really bad luck. She was currently placed in a hard splint, similar to a cast, until we go back next week for an xray and at that time they will decide if she needs a cast again or not. It was a very stressful day for all, especially Makayla but she is hanging in there and is doing great. She crashed last night as expected so I wanted you all to see that she is okay and I will keep you posted of the results from the xray next week. Please keep her in your prayers and hope for better healing of her arms so this doesn't happen again.

Makayla's Party

Saturday evening we had a party to celebrate Makayla's 4th birthday. It was so much fun and we thank everyone who attended and brought her all those nice gifts. Please enjoy the pictures from the night! Makayla's new dress for school from Uncle Mike and Aunt Christy and Bode. Isn't it adorable?
Her present from Matt, the boys and I. She asked for her first barbie, the one with the "dogs"!
This is her opening The McAdoo's gift, a Nintendo DS Super Mario game just like Mason has. Now we don't have to fight over who is going to play it, they both have one now!
Another DS game "Cooking Mama" from Grandma and Papa.
Wow a Barbie car from Nan and Pap!
Here she is with all of her friends. Kloey, Kylie, Sage, Brandon, Makayla, Mason, Madison, Ryan, Hailey, and Bode!
Check out the Hannah Montana cake made by our own Aunt Cathy herself. Every year she gets more and more creative!!!! It was delicious.
Blowing out the 4 candles!!! Happy birthday Makayla!

Soccer Tournament

Friday night, while my mom, Ani and I were preparing the food for the birthday party, Mason and Makayla asked to get a bubble bath. We normally don't have time to do this, but occasionally when we do they love filling the tub with bubbles and sitting in there forever playing with the water and bubbles, and coming out so wrinkled. Here they were just being silly!
On Saturday we awoke bright and early and headed to Cocalico for a soccer tournament. Below are a few action shots of Matthew playing during the first game. Needless to say they ended up losing that game but turned it around and won the last 2 games to take 2nd place at the tournament.


During the 2 hour breaktimes we had between games, the boys were playing a pick-up game of football. Matthew was the QB and actually had a pretty good arm! Coach Jim was getting on his case because he was showing some good running skills during the football game and commented to him "why don't you use those running skills during the game." Matthew just smiled as usual!


2008 Donegal Fire