Sounds of the Season

I was asked to play the flute again for our city's community choral Christmas concert (enough c's??) this year. Instead of just 3 numbers like I did last year though, there were flute &/or piccolo parts for 8 of the 13 songs and the director had me write a flute part for a 9th song. It's a pretty big time commitment for the choir members (they practice once a week in September and October and then twice a week in November until the concert the first Saturday in December). This year the director asked me if I would head up the instrumentalists because she was going to have a bigger group than last year. So I was in charge of contacting the instrumentalists and making sure they knew when and where the rehearsals were and what to wear for the concert. This year we had 2 flute players, 1 oboe, 1 trumpet, 2 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello, 1 harp and 2 percussionists. We just had the concert last Saturday and it was AWESOME!! The choir keeps getting bigger and better each year and the instrumentalists really added a lot to the choir pieces.

The time commitment for instrumentalists isn't quite as involved as the choir members, but it still involved most of the choir rehearsals in November as well as a 4 hour dress rehearsal 2 nights before the concert. I was a little concerned with Baby K and if she could be away from me for that long and be alright. I also really debated what to do with the kids for the concert. If it was just me with the kids I don't think I would have been concerned, but since it was going to be DH and the kids, that's a different story. Last year by the end of the concert my husband was ready to take the kids home and string them up by their toes... So this year I debated not even having them come - but then again I was concerned with how Baby K would do since the call time for the concert was 1 1/2 hours before the start time and the concert was going to be about 1 1/2 hours plus travel time.

We ended up having even more fun when we found out that M&M's school choir concert was going to be the same night as my dress rehearsal (which I couldn't miss). That meant that DH had to go to the choir concert with all the kids by himself. Then afterwards he had to head over to the church for tithing settlements. It turned out that there weren't too many appointments set up so they sent DH back home. Meanwhile at the dress rehearsal we were given about a 45 minute break in the middle for some food so I had time to run home, feed Baby K and make it back to the rehearsal before they were ready to start again.

After the dress rehearsal I went home and was laying in bed that night when a brilliant idea came to me on how to help DH out with the kids at the concert. Since I knew the choir songs and the setup for the concert I came up with a 25 question quiz for M&M and Luke to take during the concert. They were questions where they had to be paying attention to get the right answers (and the reward was one reward token for each question answered correctly). For Blondie and Kitty I printed out a bunch of coloring pages for them to color during the concert (princess pages and some music pages as well). Then I had DH get there about a half hour before the concert so I could feed Baby K again before it started. I also had my sister and her husband who were coming to the concert and had agreed to help out with the kids.

During the concert I kept looking back into the audience to see if my husband had to walk out with any of the kids. Amazingly he didn't and at the end of the concert he was still in a good mood and pleased with how the kids behaved. It was a great night! And I'm looking forward to next year!