The birthday week

This was written on Dec.10 and I've sat around not posting it because I didn't have the pictures ready. But I guess I'm just going to post it with no pics or videos and try to have those by the next post later this week. It's hard changing over computers and getting everything set up on the new one lol. So, in this post there may be several places where I refer to a picture or video, and there's not one there. But at least I got the post done!

I guess the highlight of last week was the Christmas Caroling Contest. I took my group to the preliminaries expecting the usual – nothing lol. But my group of 5th and 6th graders really did an excellent job and they had a complete ball doing it. You could tell. And for the first time ever, we made the callbacks for the final competition! So, on Thursday, I was back out there with them again. To compete against the others in the top 3 in our category. And we WON 1st PLACE!! I was so excited, and so were they. We won a 1st place trophy and $500 to spend on our music program at school. We were on the front page of the paper as well, it was awesome. Tanner and Cody were both in the choir this year, but didn’t manage to get in the picture for the paper. But I was very proud of my whole group for sure! Here’s the link and a copy of the story:
http://www.vicksburgpost.com/articles/2007/12/07/news/news02.txt

News
Winners in the Upper Elementary Choir Division, Warrenton Elementary Christmas Choir, performs Winter Wonderland during the 2007 WVBG 105.5 Christmas Caroling Contest Thursday night. (Meredith Spencer * Vicksburg Post)
73 compete, 7 tops in annual caroling contest
By Nate Delesline III
[12/07/07] It started as an idea and is on the way to becoming a tradition. In its third year, 73 soloists and groups entered a caroling contest in Vicksburg with seven earning top awards at Thursday night's finals."I've been working on this for a long time," said organizer Mark Jones, who moved to Vicksburg when he purchased local radio stations. The contests are open to anyone who wants to participate. "We had people from Louisiana, Brandon, Flowood and Port Gibson," Jones said. "We've got more geographic diversity than ever."Jones recruits sponsors for the event, including his FM station, WVBG, to provide cash awards of up to $500 each after four rounds of competition.Each performer was judged by a panel of three on the difficulty of the selection, how well the performance was executed and creative interpretation. Although the panel was introduced, members did not comment during the event or announce the winners.Jones, who has organized similar events in two other states, said the contests are meant to be a friendly and fun opportunity to share a fun evening. More than $6,000 was awarded overall, much of which will go to charitable purposes.Jones said many of Thursday night's performances before a full house at Warren Central Auditorium will be rebroadcast on WVBG (105.5 FM) on Christmas Eve so the community can enjoy them again.

Solo highlights Thursday night included Kiefer Slaton with his performance of "Little Drummer Boy" and Marquis Goodwin with "Mary did you Know?"The son of Kathleen and Farris Goodwin Sr., Marquis said he wasn't nervous. "I've been singing since I was 4," he said.Marquis has recorded a CD and said he plans to make singing a career. His parents will share the joy, too, this holiday season -- Marquis said he'll spend some of the $200 he took home on Christmas gifts.Finalists were:
One Voice from Bovina Baptist Church* The Clefs from Hinds Community College* Voices of Praise from Word of Faith Christian Center* Vicksburg Intermediate third-grade Choir* St. Francis Xavier third- and fourth-grade Choir* Claiborne Education Foundation* Brian Wells* Glentrice Johnson* Redwood Elementary fifth- and sixth-grade Honor Choir* South Park Elementary Showcase Choir* Warrenton Elementary Christmas Choir* Jamie Lynn Robinson* William Michael Morgan* Kiefer Slaton* The St. Aloysius Choral Music Group* United Way Teen Help* Morgan Teller* Marquis Goodwin


Friday was Rusty’s official birthday and I made him country fried steak and gravy and black eyed peas and bunch of other stuff. Today is Tyler’s birthday and I’ll be making him some chicken tettrazini and chocolate cake probably. Rusty had already gotten most of his birthday present the week before, being a bunch of stuff for his new truck. I still owe him some rain guards though, we just can’t find them yet. Tyler had already gotten his cell phone a couple of weeks ago but he’s getting a game today as well. Donnie, Terri, Cheryl, Mike, Dale, James, Norma, Bob, Keith, Britt, and Mary all came by at various points over the weekend to visit and tell Rusty happy birthday.
I went to visit at Mom’s for a bit on Saturday. She had taken Tyler shopping for his birthday, but he was his usual self shopping and didn’t pick out much lol. We played with our new cell phones a little while we were there and ate bunches of stuff. Drew came to spend the weekend again so he went to visit at mom’s with us. We had planned to go visit Pat on his birthday Tuesday but then we found out he was in Alabama lol. That’s pretty much all from the past week. It’s certainly been busy with work and planning for Christmas. I can NOT wait to be out for a couple of weeks and I’m sure going to need the catch up time at the house! My camera kept getting left at school or in the car or here or there all week and I don’t have any pictures. I have just the video of the Choir performance if it’s not too big for putting on here. I will try and see.