African Children's Choir

We're always on the lookout for free/cheap, family fun here in our "new" city. Note: at some point I promise to stop calling College Station our new home and just start calling it our home. When I read in the newspaper that a children's choir from Africa would be performing a free concert at a church in Bryan, we cleared our Friday night (who am I kidding - our Friday night was already clear) and made plans to attend.

We arrived 20 minutes before the concert was scheduled to begin and found the parking lot PACKED. When we finally made it inside the church we of course found it to be PACKED as well - as it turns out, the African Children's Choir had visited this church twice previously and therefore had a strong following with the church community - and we nearly left because we knew we couldn't stand in the back with Wiggly Willie and Hell-Raisin' Hallie for an entire concert. Just as we were about to do so, a kind man ushered us to the front of the church and sat us in the very first row, which had been reserved for families with children. I was really excited, as I figured the our kids would do much better if they could actually SEE the kids in the children's choir. Shows how little I know about my own children.

Two minutes into the concert Hallie decided she was starving. STARVING. Like IF-YOU-DO-NOT-FEED-ME-THIS-INSTANT-I-WILL-WASTE-AWAY-INTO-NOTHINGNESS starving, and she let everyone around her know it with crocodile tears and a dramatic collapse across Tom's lap. The snacks in my purse held out for approximately seven minutes, after which Hallie took to ripping the concert program into 1,714 pieces. Operation Program Destruction took another six or so minutes, at which point Tom removed her from the church. She then had the best night of her life playing the church nursery, and cried when we made her leave to go home.

Will quietly watched the concert the entire time Hallie acted like a crazy person, but once Tom removed Hallie, it was as if a switch flipped in Will and he realized that his time to "shine" (read: behave poorly and embarrass his mother) had come. Will started begging for snacks, asking to play Angry Birds or watch videos on my phone, and trying to lay down underneath the pews - all while we were sitting in the very front row and the cute little children from Africa were singing and dancing and drumming. Luckily Will understands and responds to my there-are-daggers-coming-out-of-my-eyes look, and we made it through the entire 75-minute concert without getting escorted out.

On to the concert...  The African Children's Choir "travels the world, acting as the ambassador for Africa's most vulnerable children.  Their goal is to raise awareness and show that despite the desolate circumstances they come from, they have beauty, dignity, hope, and unlimited potential".

These children were precious and talented and inspirational. They proudly represented their country (this particular group of children were from Kenya), and their country would have been proud of them.

I hope, should the African Children's Choir return to the Bryan/College Station area, that I'll be able to see them in concert again.  I also hope that by then my children will have had a chance to brush up on their "concert etiquette".

Red Cross Blog Post: March is Red Cross Month (Presidential Proclamation)

Happy March is Red Cross Month!

Every year the President of the United States officially proclaims March as American Red Cross Month. Read more about the history of the Presidential Proclamation here, and stay tuned for a second "March is Red Cross" themed post next week!

A New Gig

Exciting news...I have a new writing gig!

As of this past Monday morning I am officially a contributor for MomsEveryday.com!  I'll write a unique piece for them every month, and they'll also regularly pull already-published pieces from both of my blogs to post on their site.

Check out my first post (which was posted here a couple of months ago) here!

I'm Melting!

Well, I'M not melting, but Tom's disc golf discs are.  Turns out discs are not designed to withstand the Texas heat.

This is not a staged photo - the disc actually shredded when it hit the chains a couple of weeks ago.  Time for some new discs, and maybe an air conditioned outdoor toy box come summer? (Just kidding - that's about the most ridiculous expense and extravagance I can think of.)

Backwards Day

A couple of weeks ago the United States celebrated National Backwards Day. What? You didn't celebrate National Backwards Day? My bad. Let me rephrase. A couple of weeks ago Will and Hallie's school celebrated National Backwards Day.

Unfortunately Will was sick on Backwards Day. I felt particularly bad for him because he'd been sick on Pajama Day as well, so I let him wear his pajamas backwards and for the entire day (at home) to make up for having to miss both special attire days (at school).

I learned about halfway through the day that Will had gone all-out with regard to wearing his clothes backwards...

Hallie, on the other hand, was perfectly healthy on Backwards Day. I was a little worried about her agreeing to participate (she's a wee bit particular about her clothing), so I started hyping Backwards Day a week in advance. When the actual day rolled around she was completely psyched and wore both her shirt and skirt backwards.

As it turns out, both of Hallie's teachers - Miss Hah-wee (Holly) and Miss Andwea (Andrea) - forgot about Backwards Day. Additionally, none of the other kids in Hallie's class wore their clothes backwards. So, when Tom dropped Hallie off that morning, Holly and Andrea took note of Hallie's outfit, looked at each other with quizzical looks, smiled sweetly at Tom, and told him how cute Hallie looked that day. Tom took their comments to mean they liked her backwards attire, when in reality, they were just being polite...they thought Tom had been responsible for getting Hallie dressed (a circumstance that our family avoids if at all possible) and had somehow missed the fact that her entire outfit was on backwards.

A little later that morning, when the class headed out into the hallway of the school, Holly and Andrea noticed that other children were also wearing their clothes backwards and realized that Tom had not in fact mis-dressed Hallie. They had a good laugh, and we all three had a good laugh when I picked Hallie up at the end of the school day.  I also filled them in on how they were probably right to have assumed Tom was responsible for the fashion faux pas...

When we lived in Michigan and I worked for the Red Cross, Tom was responsible for getting the kids up, dressed, fed, and out the door to "school" on the mornings I went in to the office. Of course I laid out the kids' clothes and shoes, selected hair bows/barrettes for Hallie, laid out appropriate outerwear, and made lunches the night before, but he was still responsible for putting it all together and dropping them off on time.

When I would arrive to pick the kids up Hallie usually looked a bit disheveled, especially in the hair department. I could tell Tom tried, but doing hair just isn't one of his many talents. But one day I arrived and found her hair in perfect pigtails. The following day I arrived and found her hair parted neatly on the side and a barrette holding her wild bangs out of her face. I was impressed. About three weeks went by before I finally mentioned something to the teachers about what a nice job Tom was doing with Hallie's hair - "he's really got the hang of it now, doesn't he?" I bragged. It was then the teachers finally confessed that Tom had just started bringing Hallie to school hair unbrushed and with hair supplies in hand. He'd pass Hallie and the hair supplies over, and they would brush and style her hair once he left for work.

TWICE I was heading home with the kids when I realized Hallie was wearing only one shoe. We went back to her classroom, where I asked the teachers if they'd found the other shoe or if perhaps she'd taken it off and lost it during the day. "Oh, Erin", they replied. "She only had one shoe on when Tom dropped her off this morning."

So it wasn't too far off for Ms. Holly and Ms. Andrea to assume that Tom had put Hallie's clothes on backwards. The difference now is that, when you compare Tom and Hallie, Hallie is the clear fashion expert. There is absolutely no way she'd let them leave the house in the morning with only one shoe on, her hair unbrushed, or her clothes on backwards - unless of course that's what was supposed to happen that day.

Red Cross Blog Post: Social Media at its Best

This week on the National American Red Cross blog I'm talking about how social media is helping organizations like the American Red Cross prevent, prepare, and respond to emergencies one Facebook status update, Twitter feed, and blog post at a time.

Photography Challenge - Week 4

My 30-day Photography Challenge has drawn to a close - here are my final nine pictures:

Day 22: Hands

Day 23: Sunflare

Day 24: Animal

Day 25: Something Pink

Day 26: Close Up

Day 27: From a Distance

Day 28: Flower

Day 29: Black & White

Day 30: Self Portrait

A few notes:
- My Animal picture was taken a few months ago.  I looked EVERYWHERE for an animal to photograph this week, but all I could find was a dead moth in the corner of the dining room and a drowning fruit fly in a vase.  Because I didn't figure you'd want to see a picture of either of those animals I decided to edit a photo I took last spring and was really proud of.
- My Flower picture is one of my top three favorite pictures from the month.  The flower itself is gorgeous, and I'm pretty proud of the editing I did to the background.  And in case you didn't know, the yellow rose is the state flower of Texas.
- My Self Portrait is of my reflection in the window of my favorite building on the TAMU campus, which is why the picture appears so dusty.  I hardly edited the picture at all because I like that feature.

I may have complained a bit about this photography challenge, but I definitely learned something throughout the last 30 days...I learned that photography is A LOT more than just taking pictures of pretty things. I tip my hat to those of you who do this professionally (especially those of you who photograph children professionally {Carrie}), and while I wish I could be more like you talented artists, I know I don't have the patience or the eye or the creative spirit required to be really good at photography. I am, however, committed to continuing to improve my photography skills, which is why I'm going to attempt the photography project below in April or May.

(I need a little break from daily photography which is why I'm going to aim for April or May instead of March.)

Just let me know if you're interested in joining me!