Addie Belle's Choral Milestones

Addie is in her second year now with the Texas Children's Choir. This has been the first thing to open up an incredible and dutiful passion for our oldest child. I have mentioned it before, but I just love how she has grown personally and socially I think because of her involvement with this just amazing group of kiddos. 

The choir practices twice a week for an hour and a half each day and one Saturday each month is dedicated to additional study.

  Along with these group rehearsals, Dr, Hardaway has also given the children self directed opportunities for further study. One of those is music theory by completing exercises in the book series Young Series Journey. There are five books total min the set. Once a singer completes the first two books and they are reviewed for accuracy by Dr. Hardaway then he has a special recognition and award. Particularly they receive special prism shaped color pencils to be used going forward for making special marks on their music. Addie hit the two book milestone in January and is shown here with her certificate and her director.

Today she was also recognized for finishing the third and fourth books. It is at this point that a Texas Children's Choir singer earns the designation as Choral Scholar. As a choral Scholar, her name is added to the choir's plaqu, she gets her own personal plaque and she will be denoted in performance programs to reflect this designation as well.

She has poured herself into the choir and this designation is a permanent representation of her work. We are proud of the intensity with which she has committed to the choir. Somehow this band geek and the guy who only learned to play guitar after college have produced quite the singer and actually quite the well rounded musician. 

Addie with Dr. Hardaway and her Choral Scholar Plaque.

Addie enjoying breaktime with her buddy Hannah.  They think TCC is all that and a bag of chips!

Pow! I'm Back! A Post About a Video.

Maybe I am back.  I don't know. I have been writing in this blog many times over the last year or so since my last post.  Those post have just been all in my head and didn't quite make it to the internet. If  I had written them they would have been:
1. My favorite unintentional benefits of homeschooling
2. Updates on Addie's fundraising for the Texas Children's Choir trip to Normandy for D-Day
3. Less is More, the Blessings in Getting Rid of Material Clutter
4. Ways my friendship with Dawn grew over a 9 days sleepover with their family.
5. 20-Yr HS Reunion Update, I still Love those Peeps!
6. My Nephew is HERE!!! And he's a red head!!!
7. And another few awesome babies joined us this fall.
8. My Quick Trip back to Vegas; Love on Baby Jack, Cordie and the Pellegrinos
9. How God used Health Hurdles to heal a family, mine (maybe still a post coming)
10. 39 for the first time and ready to party like it's 1999 in a year.
11. The Joy of Serving in Women's Ministry; the Incredible Way God gave me 6 more Sisters.
12. I Am Going to Read 40 books This Year: Give Me your Suggestions.

There is a cliff notes version of a few things in my head that almost made it to a blog post but then there was a squirrel!!!!

Well this video was posted this week.

 It includes the two songs performed by the Texas Children's Choir at the Miss San Antonio Pageant in their entirety.  Addie Belle Force is front center for both.  You might not recognize her because this baby of mine has grown up so much.  This choir commitment is a passion for her.  I can't remember being as passionate about anything when I was 9 as she is about TCC.  Look at her focus, her emotion and even her stillness as she performs. 

I am so proud to be her moma.  She has this wisdom of a much more mature girl, but the gentleness of a little girl and the sensitivity.  She sets tremendous goals for herself and over achieves. From time to time this practice does lead to frustration, but it is how she is wired.  She thrives to exceed.  So it has been awesome really to watch her develop with her participation in this choir.  She has busted out of the shell of a timid little girl and blossomed.  

She has found her natural fit in choir and in music. She loves to sing and does so incessantly.  She is also learning guitar and has been playing for nearly two years now and has recently started playing piano as well.  The second two instruments are entirely self taught so far, but she set's high goals for herself in these as well.  On the guitar she plays music with her daddy.  They play Led Zepplin, Jack Johnson and ofcourse there is some Taylor Swift in there too.  She is a nine year old girl afterall.  On the piano she has written her own pieces with help from her favorite co-conspirator, Haidyn, and has also learned to play some current Disney favorites and duets with her Janma.  I am showing you this video now.  Just wait!  I know there are some fabulous things to come from our quiet musician.

http://youtu.be/1xOlx2ndIt8

Addie Belle and World's Finest Chocolate

I know you already have heard me say that Addie is in fundraising mode for her choir trip to Normandy France in June of 2014, right before her 10th Birthday.  She is actually participating in many fundraisers, but one of the ways she is currently raising funds is by selling World's Finest Chocolate.

She has already sold two boxes in two weeks for a total of $60 to her credit in chocolate sales alone.  She has set a personal goal to sell 100 boxes of chocolate over the next 15 months.  This amount of chocolate would pay for her trip entirely.  The trip is estimate to cost about $3,000.  She pretty much needs to sell a box and a half each week.

Did you know that World's Finest Chocolate is in the Guinness book of world records?  Did you know their record setting chocolate bar was produced in Chicago but the documentary about the 12,000 pound bar was produced by Broadcast Media Group out of Starkville, MS? Look at the size of this thing?

Texas Children's Choir, Blue and Gold

The Texas Children's Choir was invited to sing at a Blue and Gold Ceremony. Blue and Gold is a bridging over ceremony for cub scouts to Boy Scouts. The choir sang the primarily patriotic songs. They started with The Star Spangled Banner. Then there was a break for Cub Scout announcements. They sang while the crowd of about 200 had dinner. The remainder of the songs were the following: God Bless America, America the Beautiful, Battle Hymn, and Chatanooga Choo Choo. Addie got to go he with her best bid after for a sleepover.

Twofer Tuesdays

That is just how Tuesdays go during soccer season which started again today. Choir practice and soccer practice both start at 5 pm and we have the challenge to get three kids to two different places. Did you notice that I said three? Today is Emaleigh's very first practice for her very first year playing soccer. She is really thrilled. She is a natural at gymnastics but this opportunity will allow her to shine for her daddy. Daddy doesn't get to see her practice at gymnastics on Fridays at 11, but he took her to practice tonight and she rode over there on a cloud. Her first game is this Friday.
Addie's practices with the Texas Children's Choir are every Tuesday and Thursday from 5-6:30 pm and once a month for a few hours on a Saturday. They have a performance this Saturday for a blue and gold ceremony. They are singing 5 songs AND dancing for one. Dancing is totally new for the choir since Addie has been with them. I can't wait to see how that goes.
So that's a typical Tuesday, rush to two places at once and then home to come together for dinner.
I need to say here, many days we would not have made it to our two places without the help of our great friends, the Huffs. D&D are almost like second parents to our three and I think we are for their three too! I guess somebody said it takes a village; for us life is definitely better with a couple of partners who love us and our kids as much as we do.
Actually we have a lot of helpers. We are so lucky.

We Are Going to France!

Did I ever post about Addie being accepted to the Texas Children's Choir? She auditioned in May and has been singing with them ever since with twice weekly practices even over the summer. She has learned a tremendous amount about singing techniques and about all music under the direction of the choir director, Dr. Thomas Hardaway, and from her peers as well. I am not sure what her favorite thing about the choir is but if I had to guess I would say that the friends she has made with girls of all ages is way way up there. All the extra time she spends with one of her besties, Haidyn, is probably there too. I didn't really know much about the choir when we brought her for auditions. I was primarily interested in getting her plugged into something that would be a social outlet for her from our Homeschool. But I really had no idea how amazing this organization was until we got into the Fall practice season. Kevin and I are so impressed with TCC. It is hard to explain it, but if you watched them once you would find it hard to believe that it is not a professional choir rather each person there is a volunteer. But I will make an attempt to give you my top five reasons I love the Texas Children Choir:
1. They provide an environment for vocal training that also encourages no expects respectful behavior, a sense of personal responsibility and all around good character.
2. They encourage development in all areas of music by giving each choir child a performance opportunity once a month with a three minute limit. Addie is learning to play guitar and has already performed solo in front of her choir. (Btw, about 53 other children ages 8-18)
3. There are ample opportunities to learn about teamwork not just because she is accountable with her voice, but we are becoming like family to this organization and other choir families. We team up to get kids to events, have them all fed and dressed and help them in other endeavors wether they be related to the choir directly of just to schooling. There is more than ample volunteer participation from choir parents to keep this well oiled machine moving and continuously improving. The kids are amazing but so are the parents.
4. The choir is a 501(c)3 organization . They almost never sing simply for the case of showcasing talent. Don't get me wrong they sing like angels, but these angels sing where they are invited and typically that invitation comes to honor a fallen soldier, a police officer killed in action, a family that has buried a child much too soon and the like
5. They are a small choir with a large recognition. The sing many ceremonies in the San Antonio area but not all invites are local. Last year at this time they were preparing to sing at Carnegie Hall in New York City. We weren't part of TCC yet. The current invitation is to sing in Normandy for the 70th anniversary of DDay next summer, June of 2014.

So we are all thrilled to be a part. Much more coming with this news about Normandy. Keep posted for updates regarding Sunshine Lemonade and Addie's own blog.