November Service Project: Desserts 4 Thanksgiving Update and Thanks

Thank you Onica Fuller, Karitsa Kerns, Donyell Stroud Aycock, Meeka J. Clay, Sidney Logan Echevarria, Candace Taylor-Anderson, Lee Richardson, Sylvia Richardson, Imani Smith, Kim Flanders, Angela Lindsay, Sahnia D. H. Oates, Rachel Bellotti Adams, Brittney Bogues, Takierra Hopkins-Cole, Victoria Garriett Lampkin, Tamra Berry, Lisa Hollis, Christina Mateo Landry, Kameka Rowell-Hall, Kimberly Norton, Kristy Perry & Carlenia Ivory for your generous donations for Desserts 4 Thanksgiving. Based on the pictures that were shared, 52 desserts were donated to the Charlotte Rescue Mission. It took us several trips from the car to the kitchen to get all of the desserts we had to deliver in. We went around lunch time so the guests were lining up outside of the cafeteria. After our first trip we heard one of the guests ask the gentleman that worked there what we were doing and he explained the project to them. With each trip they said "thank you all" and "bless you all". I'm sure if you reflect back on your Thanksgiving meal, one of the highlights was one of the desserts that you had (many homes have multiple desserts). Thanks to the generosity of all that participated, the guests at the Charlotte Rescue Mission also had choices for dessert.

If we left off your name please forgive us and share with us your pictures or email us so we can include you in our thanks. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!

November Service Project: Desserts 4 Thanksgiving

The Charlotte Rescue Mission needs homemade desserts for their Thanksgiving meal (The preference is homemade [just like we all prefer] so please make the effort, but I doubt they will turn away store bought desserts). 1000 people will be served and what Thanksgiving meal is complete without dessert?!?! Spend some family time in the kitchen cooking up family recipes, rolling out dough, cutting out shapes or pressing pie crust into a pan. Make a special treat or two and deliver them to the Charlotte Rescue Mission on Tuesday, November 25 or Wednesday, November 26 from 6 am - 6 pm. Take pictures and email them to 13Days4Love@gmail.com and or share them on your FB page.

If you have children, use this opportunity to talk about your blessings and spend some time discussing the many that you and your family have. You can also make this a great educational activity and focus on the mathematical aspects of baking. ;-)

Family Fun: October 11-12 Weekend What-To-Dos

Star Wars Reads Day

Spandex City Comics, at 2914-A Mt. Holly Huntersville Road, invites the public to participate in Star Wars Reads Day on Saturday, October 11th, 2014, from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. This is a free event for the whole family. There will be fun Star Wars activities, contests and prizes for fans of all ages, and Spandex City’s next door neighbor, X-tra Ball, is participating too. Star Wars Reads Day is a worldwide event that celebrates Star Wars and reading. Here’s the schedule:

11 am – 6 pm: Star Wars crafts and activities (Spandex City and X-tra Ball)

11 am – 2 pm: Star Wars Pinball contest at X-tra Ball (youth and adult divisions)


11:30 am – 12:30 pm: Jawa Storytime at Spandex City


4 pm – 6 pm: “Stump the Stormtrooper” Trivia at X-tra Ball

Ballantyne Fall Festival

Ballantyne District Park, behind Morrison Family YMCA at 9405 Bryant Farms Road, is the site for Ballantyne Fall Festival–Autumn in the Park, on Saturday, October 11th, 2014, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. The festival is free and most activities are free. Some of the activities are hayrides, bounce house, face painting, field day activities, pumpkin painting and more. There’s a charge for the cornhole competition and chili cookoff. Entertainment will be provided by The New Familiars, Dead27s, Matt Stratford and Scoot Pittman.

Food and drinks will be available from a variety of vendors including Elwoods BBQ & Burger Bar, Crü Wine Shop, Carolina Fish Market, True Crafted Pizza and Bird Song Brewing Co. Also, this is the first year to enjoy Charlotte’s Best Oyster Roast, brought to you by Carolina Fish Market.

And for the kids, there will be a special showing of “How To Train Your Dragon 2″ at 7:00 p.m.

Autumn Treasures (Waxhaw)

Waxhaw’s largest festival, Autumn Treasures, takes place Saturday, October 11th, 2014, and Sunday, October 12th, in downtown Waxhaw. The festival takes place 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, and 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. On Saturday, taste championship BBQ during the Grill’n & Chill’n public tasting, take part in Boot Camp Waxhaw and earn your stripes, watch good old-fashioned pig races, witness live entertainment, shop for arts & crafts or stroll the community & business fair. Cap the evening off with a free concert to salute veterans featuring Ansel Brown. On Sunday, the Hometown Heroes Car and USO show is back. Assist in breaking a world record at 3:30pm!

Free Museum Day – Levine Museum of the New South

Levine Museum of the New South offers free admission every Sunday, as long as you’re not bringing a group of 10 people or more. Its hours on Sunday are 12pm to 5pm. If you like free parking too, and who doesn’t, park in 7th Street Station, right next door. Bring your parking ticket to the Levine Museum for validation. On weekdays you can validate parking for up to two hours, but on weekends, you can validate for all day, so you can enjoy other Uptown attractions as well.

The Levine is an interactive history museum that focus on the time period from 1865 until until current times. Its permanent exhibit, Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers: Reinventing Charlotte and the Carolina Piedmont in the New South, invites guests to step inside a one-room tenant farmers house, run a hand through a pile of seed cotton, listen to the churning of the cotton mill, play checkers on the front porch of a mill house, hear personal accounts from local sit-in leaders, and more.

American Girl Store Opening
The American Girl Store officially opens Saturday in SouthPark Mall.  Parents, take your patience, reading material and full wallets. On average, a trip to an American Girl store lasts 90 minutes. *_*

Free Outdoor Movie

Afton Ridge, at 6230 Bayfield Parkway in Concord, is presenting a free outdoor movie, Monsters University, on Saturday, October 11th, 2014, at 7:00 p.m. They’ll also be giving away a $50 gift certificate to Party City to help you find a great Halloween costume of your own.

Open Studio Saturday- McColl Center for Innovation

During Open Studio Saturdays artists work in their studios with the doors open. It is an opportunity for the public to meet the artists and learn about their art as well as view the current exhibition. Every Open Studio Saturday, free docent-led tours will begin at 11:30 AM. Open Studio Hours:
11 AM to 4 PM

24^th Annual Latin American Festival

Charlotte’s signature cultural event, the 24th Annual Latin American Festival, returns Sunday, October 12, 2014 to Symphony Park. Mingle with more than 20,000 other lovers of culture and music this fall with internationally renowned musical performance from Colombian electro-tropical band Bomba Estéreo, Puerto Rican sensation and masters of contemporary bomba and plena, Plena Libre, The Latin Grammy award-winning Panamanian Ska-rock group, Los Rabanes and many more. The festival also features traditional and contemporary dance performances, some of the most diverse and delicious Latin food in Charlotte, marketplace with authentic handmade crafts and a Plaza de Artistas featuring some of North Carolina’s best Latino visual artists.

General admission is $5 and children 8 and under are free. 12pm - 8pm.

Tyler's Birthday Service Project: Bounce 4 Books

Tyler wanted to do an activity that involved physical activity in a way that helps people, specifically other children. Well April 13-19 is National Library Week, and we have been frequenting the library recently checking out books, so we decided to do an activity that benefitted children through the library. 

Join us at BounceU Charlotte on Wednesday, April 16 from 5:30 pm - 8:30 pm. Admission is $10 per child (adults are free) and all proceeds will go to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation's Summer Reading Program. If you are unable to attend but would like to make a donation to the library you can do so online, https://give.cmlibrary.org/pages/securegiving. You can designate your donation directly to the Summer Reading Program by selecting 'Other'. Also if you would put In Honor of Tyler Lewis so the library knows you are donating because of Tyler's Birthday Service Project that would be greatly appreciated. ***This is NOT a birthday party so please do not bring gifts!***

Why did we choose the library?
During the summer months, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library sees an increase in books being checked out thanks to the popular Summer Reading Program.To meet the demand, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation is hoping to be able to purchase an additional 10,000 books for their Summer Reading Program.

In 2013, the 15,591 school age children and teens who participated in Summer Reading read more than 213,448 hours. Plus, 2,771 pre-K children signed up for Wee Read, a program dedicated to building reading skills with little ones who aren’t quite readers yet.

Summer is of particular interest because children who read during the summer months can avoid losing up to half of what they learned in the previous school year compared to students who do not read during June, July, and August.

For the Library, it is important that children are not only reading, but reading books they truly love. However, they continue to find some books spike in popularity so quickly that they cannot keep them on the shelves. For instance, the young adult book Divergent has 277 people on the waitlist. Students could wait all summer to check out this book.

Join us in helping the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library by giving today to the 10,000 Book Challenge.

We hope to see you Wednesday!

March Service Project Announcement: Community Celebration

I decided to try something different to announce part of the service project for March.  I clearly don't have much experience recording videos, but what's most important is the message.  After watching this video, do me a favor and share with at least four people you know.  March is all about the number 4.







                 

Sensory Friendly Movie Experience

Shout out to AMC Theaters for teaming up with the Autism Society to offer Sensory Friendly Films for families with members living with autism spectrum disorder!  Each month select AMC Theaters will offer a current family friendly movie in an auditorium that will have the lights up, the sound turned down and audience members are invited to get up, dance, walk, shout or sing. This offering  grew out of a request from a parent of an autistic child in Maryland, more than 300 children and parents attended the first screening! Click on the link above to see if any of your local AMC Theaters participate.

Weekend Agenda 9/21-9/23

Did you know the World's Fair is coming to Charlotte this Sunday?  The Mint Museum Uptown is hosting Sunday Fun Day (which is one of our favorite hangout spots in town) is debuting their new exhibit 'Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at The World's Fairs 1851-1939':

This groundbreaking international exhibition presents outstanding examples of glass, furniture, jewelry, ceramics, precious metalwork, and textiles displayed at the world’s fairs between The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in London in 1851 and the New York World’s Fair in 1939. Many of these objects have never before left their respective institutions or countries.

The museum is debuting this exhibit in a big way, there will be a Ferris Wheel in uptown Charlotte as part of the opening events his Sunday! If you come out look for us between 1-3pm, we'll be there volunteering.

If you're in the Kannapolis area Saturday evening you should check out Stories Under the Stars, for an interactive program that brings words to life.  

What better way to kick of autumn than with a corn maze?!  Rural Hill's seven acre Amazing Maize Maze is now open through November 3.

Big shout out to all of the ladies that will be participating in the Ramblin' Rose Tri this Sunday! I did it last year and crossing that finish line is such an incredible feeling.

What is on your weekend agenda? Don't forget to check out the calendar for upcoming activities and events. 

Weekend Agenda 9/13-9/15

What's on your agenda for this weekend? Are you going to Freedom Park to check out the new Play 60 KidZone that opened on Tuesday? It includes an obstacle course, 40 yard dash with automated timing device, Play60 photo booth and a few other amenities. As this week's lunchbox notes have indicated we have had a little difficulty with decision making this week, so we won't get to check out this sure to be favorite spot, for at least a week. :-( With the weather cooling down any park or greenway will be enjoyable this weekend, so get outside, get some fresh air and more importantly get moving!  The great thing about the cooling temps is that you don't have to worry as much about your child passing out from heat exhaustion or having to pump them with water every five minutes to keep them hydrated.......eight minutes should do it.

Or maybe you've got team sports, gymnastics or church youth group activities. Many of us big kids are looking forward to the Mayweather/Alvarez fight, make sure you use the manners your parents worked so hard to instill in you and not show up at a fight party empty handed.

To all of my educators....WHOOOOP WHOOOOOPPP, are you taking advantage of Educator Saturdays at the Discovery Place museums this month? If not, you should, it's free and just for you.

If you are like me, you are looking forward to catching up on Breaking Bad while you and your child are at your parent's house.  I've got see what's going on with Heizenberg and Jesse, my son will be doing some manual labor to help out his grandfather as a result of not so great choices and behaviors at school earlier this week.

Have a great weekend!

Things We Love: Rissi Palmer's 'Best Day Ever'

My son received a CD from a friend that was excited to share her recent find with him and a few other of her friend's children. The album is Rissi Palmer's 'Best Day Ever', and listening to the album makes you feel just that, like it is the best day ever. The following summary from CDBaby.com is the perfect description: 

Best Day Ever features 10 songs---all happy, all light, all “comfort food” for the soul and is what Rissi calls “a sophisticated children’s album” while also being melodic nostalgia for adults. The entire project is filled with songs from the perspective of a child--the simple-yet-profound things that makes life the “best day ever” for children in so many ways.

Sophisticated indeed, this isn't a kiddie album of single syllable rhyming words. This album is the perfect soundtrack to describe the thoughts and feelings of children.  As an adult it will take you back to those feelings of being afraid of the dark, knowing that your parent's love was more magical than a unicorn and wanting to be a dragon slayer when you grew up.

The title track is the first on the album and instantly puts you in a 'ready to take on the day' state of mind.  My son's favorite song is 'Pretend' which has lyrics like "mom I'm not stalling, the President's calling, I've gotta be solving President's stuff. See I'm a big deal riding my big wheel..."

I haven't been able to choose one favorite.  'Dear To Me' is a song that any parent can relate to in trying to describe just how much their children mean to them "...if you were a smile you'd be the happiest, if you were a joke you'd be the laughiest. Of all the things that you might be, most of all you're dear to me....". 'Not Afraid Of The Dark' is my other favorite for parental and personal reasons.  As a parent you want your child to feel secure in knowing you will be there to protect them from those monsters under the bed or the shadows that lurk in the closet. As children and adults we all want the comfort of knowing that there is always someone there holding our hands helping us through our dark moments.  "I've got the light of the moon, I've got stars in the sky, someone who loves me, all of the time.  Someone who hears the prayers of my heart, so I'm not afraid of the dark".


'Best Day Ever' is a must for morning commutes to school and perfect for any road trip! In a time where  listening to the radio with your children is almost impossible (unless you tune in to your local NPR or gospel stations), this CD is a win-win. You won't dread hearing songs multiple times because you'll be singing right along taking a stroll down memory lane while hoping your child can relate to the songs on the album.  This CD has been one of the most used and best gifts ever!

For more information about the album and Rissi Palmer, visit http://rissipalmermusic.com. The album is also available on iTunes and Amazon.

Weekend Agenda 9/6-9/8

This weekend there are TONS of things to do in Charlotte!  The Yiasou Greek Festival, free admission to local museums, Panthers first regular season home game, Educator Saturdays at Discovery Place museums, free crafts for kids and of course the new love of my life, the new Romare Bearden Park.  Check out the calendar for more details.  What is on your weekend agenda?