Weekend Wrap-Up: Children and Art

Thanks, everyone, for your support about my financial situation. I know I'll get through this. I've gotten through similar times, and some way worse. I'm just tired of it, you know? I'm tired of just getting through this. I want this aspect of my life to stop being the constant struggle that it is. I know I'm not the only one that feels this way, obviously. I know I'm lucky to still have my job! That's not to say, however, that it doesn't still get to me from time to time.

It's been a crazy busy week. On Monday, Riley had her first drum lesson! She absolutely loved it. She's so little, you can barely see her over the drum set, but what I saw was my smiling Riley, loving every minute. From the drum lesson, we rushed off to a meeting to discuss the upcoming Arts Day that our PTA is sponsoring for Riley's school.

On Tuesday night, we had Sylvia's school's Family Fun Night, where Sylvia was giving her first performance with the school choir. She did a great job (if I say so myself :), and the choir is quite talented. It was unfortunately insanely hot, though. They were in a room, but the room's fans were off (I'm guessing for noise), and we were all sweating. It was lovely!

On Wednesday, I went to learn about a new website for kids, FaceChipz. The fabulous Jessica Gottlieb and wonderful Sarah Auerswald were also there, and you can see their comments on Whrrl.

FaceChipz is a social networking site for kids ages 8 and up - those too old for Club Penguin, but not old enough for Facebook.

FaceChipz are an actual chip with emoticons on them, as well as a registration code. In order to be friends with someone online, you have to give them one of the chipz and the registration code will link you up with them online. This means, of course, that you can only be friends with those that you actually know in real life.

The FaceChipz are available at Toys R Us and online at their site. The Chipz are very reasonable at $4.99 for a pack of 5. To register a family, parental consent is achieved by a $1 credit card charge, and that's it. There is no monthly subscription fee. They make their money by selling the FaceChipz.

Parental controls allow you to see what your child is doing online, and we especially loved the feature where you can deactivate their account without completely deleting it (great form of consequence).

The girls already love the site, and can't wait to give the chipz out when the site officially launches on Monday. They also plan to give some chipz to friends and cousins that don't live in the area so they can exchange emails and pics with them online.

Friday was Arts Day at Riley's school. I helped out with the Choreography/dance classes, and the children also had the chance to learn about Photography, Visual Arts, and the older kids had Literature in class.

It was a perfect blend of parents, teachers, and our school's administration collaborating for the kids' enrichment. It was also exhausting! 3-4 classes into it, I was seriously ready for a nap. But I was so happy to be a part of this, and the kids absolutely loved it.

Friday night, we continued our family's own arts enrichment by going to see the new Fame. Being an old school girl, it didn't compare to the original for me, but Sylvia (who has never seen the original) totally went gaga for it. Riley also really enjoyed it.

On Saturday, we went to see Disney Live Rockin' Road Show at the Nokia. I whrrled it, but I couldn't get any good pics with my camera on my phone. Riley loved the show, but I couldn't really get into it until the 2nd act. Sylvia, of course, is much too old at nearly 12 to really enjoy this show (or so she would like us to believe). It was a family fun night.

Today, Riley has her first band rehearsal, and she is so excited. She's going to be playing a Taylor Swift song at the PTA's Rockin for the Arts fundraiser event. And I'm also looking forward to tonight's TV line-up. :)

Oh, and have I mentioned that Sylvia and I are totally Gleeks? The scene from this week where one of the characters came out to his dad...incredibly touching and beautifully done. And we can't wait for Kristin Chenoweth's entrance into Glee starting this week!