Many Labours of Love......

I would have to say that life right now is a labour of love. Everything about it.......

The weekend that we had was extremely laid back and revolved around everything that a 15month old would love. We have continued to visit the Fairview Waterfountain to enjoy cooling off in the evening. Aiden gets such a kick out of the water, and his excitement is so contagious to watch. Friday evening during our visit two of his friends from daycare were enjoying some time in the water. It was so sweet to watch Cruze come up to Aiden and know who he was and pat him on the head. Precious! Our friends Patrick and Nicole Grafton (who is 35 1.2 wks preggo) came up to watch in the fun. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Cohen William Grafton.

Labour of Love #2.......Rob's Home Brew.
Rob's on his 3rd batch of beer since he received his Beer Making kit from me for his birthday, May 14th. The second batch he made was a Newcatle blend, since that's been my favorite brew. Today, he bottled up a scottish ale blend that should be good to drink in a few weeks. I love watching him dive into something he enjoys so much. When he's not being an amazing dad.....he's making amazing brew.

Labour of Love #3......No Spending Sundays - Oops.....can we move this one to Labor Day. We ended up at El Norte with our Sunday School class and enjoyed the afternoon with them. It had been a while since we had a SS lunch. Addison Grace 3mos old, brought her parents along. So nice to have more than one baby in our SS class. After December there will be 5 babies in the New Directions SS class.

Labour of Love #4......Teaching Music to my amazing students. Last week was very exhausting to get back in the swing and be on your feel most of the day. However, school is rolling along and to hear the girls voices all together was heavenly. Their first ACDA rehearsal was this past Thursday. We rehearsed from 4:00 - 5:00pm and then had Ice Cream Sundaes. iSing for Ice Cream....Mmmmmm. The realization hit them about the amount of music they are going to be faced with, but they all want to do it no matter what. I received my contract with composer David Brunner and got butterflies in my stomach. It's sooooo real now. Come December we are going to have an original composition for the SCMS Choir in memory of Daniel Phillips. Oh how we all missed him this week. I've found myself to be in a slight funk, knowing that he would have been in the first A Cappella Tenor-Bass Choir. This is the first year that I've split my huge TB class into two classes. It's been amazing in just one week. Such progress......why didn't I do this sooner? Oh well......live and learn.

Labour of Love #5.......my Son....Aiden James Chapman. Today we had fun cleaning and rearranging his clothes. Every three months, it has to be done. He's growing so fast and learning so fast. No more the little baby, but now the independent...let me do it....toddler. He sings, claps, talks, walks, reaches, sneezes and laughs, and falls here and there. It's such an experience to watch him explore and think about situations. The best is when he reaches for something or tries to open something that he knows we will say "no" to....he'll turn around, look at us as he tries and says.."no" and then won't do it. So hillarious.....yet we have to be serious. His aunt works at Texas Tech and mommy is working on her Master's from there so we get to sport the red and black. Guns UP!!

Well......off to bed for week number two of amazing teaching. Enjoy your Labours of Love!

Back to the Real World.

Preparing for a New Year!

Challenge UPDATE.....No Spending Sundays. - So far so good with No Spending money on Sundays. We have been planning ahead and making sure that we're ready to have lunch at home or with friends. It just gives us that much more family time together and learning to make do with what we have all ready. Love this about us. A favorite Sunday activity will be going to the Fairview Fountains/Beach area at The Villages of Fairview and let Aiden splash around in the spraying water. He did that for the first time this past week. Dee the video: 

ACDA - National Convention Performance - Update:

• Well, the program is complete!! So much planning and excitement around this planning experience. Thank you to my friends who have helped make this an amazing program: Tescille Riser, Bethany Green, Denise Eaton, Amy Allibon, Sandra Snow, Carolyn Cruse and Kari Gilbertson. It's been awesome to share this with each of you and hear your feedback on the pieces. My favorites will be a piece in memory of my grandmother and accompanied by Denise Guilbert on Oboe, then the last piece is one that we are commissioning David Brunner to write. My friend Brooke Grall will be playing piano for us and hopefully it will have the use of other instruments. This piece will be in memory of one of my students who was killed in a car accident this past summer. He lived life to the fullest everyday and love music with all his heart. This piece will reflect what his life was about. Powerful and majestic.

Returning to School - 

• Tonight I spent time planning some fun learning activities for my students and got the idea that I may try to publish them. There are various Sight-Reading games, Music Vocabulary Games, a Drop the Needle Type activity, and various others. Thank you Tescille for the inspiration again and encouragement.

I honestly feel very blessed for who I am, where I am, where I teach, what I teach, who I'm married to and blessed to have this beautiful child.

Thank you Lord for this amazing life that I am able to share it with others.

Diving into The Blogging.....

July 15th and I'm jumping into the world of Blogging!! Thanks to my friends of inspiration: Nicole Grafton, Tescille Riser, Katie Lewis and Terri Hamilton. I've always been a hand written journal writer and not transferred over to electronic so here we go!

I titled this Chapman's Charming Chats as I will blog about the four main segments of my life:

• My Family - of Course!! Rob and I have been married for 10 years and have a handsome 14month old son named Aiden James Chapman. I'll chat about our life and his growth and milestones
• My passion - My Job - Teaching amazing middle school students how to sing and love music. Especially the preparations that we will experience with our performance for ACDA National Convention in March 2013
• My Change in Health - We are going PRIMAL people! That's right! Taking the Mark Sisson challenge to change how we eat in 21 days.
• My Walk with Christ - Enough said.

More to come later with this blog. This is just the beginning!