Ingram the Conqueror: November 2012

Team Ingram Tents On Race Day!!!

With so many people contacting us to see where we will be on race day, we decided to let EVERYONE know so they can come out and help cheer on all the runners!

We are planning to set up two big cheering sections for Team Ingram!! We will have our first "cheer station" for the beginning of all three races and then move to our second "cheer station" to watch the finishes. We have horns, cowbells, vuvuzelas, tattoos, stickers, pom poms, and signs for each section. We will even have music at the second station since we'll be there the longest. We even have "Ingram the Conqueror" bands to pass out to runners that might need a little inspiration along the way!

We would love to be able to fill these spots with a sea of green to help us cheer on all the runners. If you don't have any green, we will have our green Team Ingram shirts at the second tent too! Friends and family of runners are welcome to join us; bring their chairs so that you can stay as long as you want. You don't have to be on our team to help cheer the runners on; you can even come before or after your own race too!

The 5K starts at 7:15am and the Full and Half Marathon start at 8am. We hope to see everyone there! Woohoo!!!!!

Cheer Station 1

Approx. 6:30 a.m. to 8:45 a.m.

On Third Street just north of Autozone Park where we can see runners just beginning the 5k, and at mile 3 for the half and full marathons.

5K: 0.4 miles – runners coming through approx. 7:17 to 7:20 a.m.

Half: 3.4 miles – runners coming through approx.. 8:20 to 8:50 a.m.

Full: 3.4 miles – runners coming through approx.. 8:20 to 8:50 a.m.

Runners finishing the 5k can easily walk back to Cheer Station 1 to see the runners in the half and full marathons.

Cheer Station 2

Approx. 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

On Monroe on the East side of Danny Thomas where we can see runners finishing the 5k, half, and full marathons.

This is also one block from where the full marathoners will be at mile 13 if you are watching a full marathoner.

Thursday November 29th, Getting Ready To Run!!

We had Family Breakfast at school this morning and I was lucky to remember it as soon as we woke up. Despite two out of the four of us having to shower this morning, we made it with 15 minutes to hang out and have fun at school before the first bell rang that sent the girls running down the halls with their friends. After that, we headed to St. Jude for Ingram's last speech appointment with Miss Lauren; today was her last day and he said he's going to miss her!

The Expo for the St. Jude Marathon Weekend started today too and was sooooo much fun. It was so fun that we spent over 2 hours there (and over $200 as well) visiting some of our favorite ALSAC folks and playing with two different sets of friends that we ran into while we were wondering around looking at everything. The kids (four of them in all) had so much fun taking over the stage and playing football, hide and seek around the tv equipment (until we realized that was what they were doing), and just dancing on the stage for anyone that wanted to watch them. It was great and since three out of them had no hair, they were quite the spectacle!

Lindsey ran with 3 miles last night, pretty fast I should add, and tonight it was Madison's turn to run her 3 miles. They ended up running over to a friends house and after 30 minutes of talking with them (in the 9pm hour), they drove them home instead of a long dark run back to the house. We have company coming in town tonight for the weekend, so Madison quietly snuck into her room for bed so that she didn't wake up Ingram and Lindsey who were already fast asleep!

Oh My!!
If They're This Excited At School, There's No Telling How Crazy They're
Going To Be This Weekend At The Race!!

Ingram And Cooper!
We Have Been Joking That Ingram Is Going To Catch Up To Coopers Buzz Cut Soon!
The Funny Thing Is That From This Angle, They Look The Same Size Too!

Ingram And Miss Lauren!
We're Going To Miss Her, But Know She's Going To Do Great When She Graduates!

Rhett Stegall, Ingram, Mae, And Bailey!
Out Of All The Pictures, This One Was The Most
Clear Even Though They Look Like Flashes!

Wednesday November 28th, Can I Get A "Woohoo??"

We can't believe that it's almost here!!! The Dismuke house is so excited about the St. Jude Memphis Marathon Weekend and to have everyone together to help raise money for St. Jude! All day long, if we see anything green (and the grocery had a lot of green stuff around), he says that we need it for the "marathon team Ingram." There's also a rumor floating around that with a few last donations coming in both Madison and Lindsey will be above the $100,000 mark for money they have raised; that's $200,000 from two little girls determined to do everything they can to help their brother beat his cancer! We're so proud of them and how determined they are to help their Ingram.

Ingram was invited to go to The Smith Clinic, which is a local physical therapy clinic, and pull raffle tickets out of a jar for prizes that ranged a from Starbucks card to personal training sessions to the grand prize of a year long fitness program. Ingram had so much fun there and they even had a present for him that they knew he would love... Lightning McQueen and Spiderman and a sweet handmade hat! Ingram wanted to play Hide and Go Seek for some reason before he left but he was the only kid there; even though he was the youngest on there by 20 years, he picked one of the guys to count so he could go hide! Ingram picked a great hiding spot of course and it took Jeff a long time to find him because he wasn't making any noise either. Normally at home, Ingram will inevitably say "I'm here!" and we don't have to look to hard to find him.

We're making all of our last minute preparations for the weekend and will be at the Expo tomorrow for the race after a fun morning at St. Jude for Ingram's last speech appointment with Miss Lauren. He was talking about her today and that he was going to miss her; that little turkey has too many girlfriends!! He also has more hair every day and we can't wait for everyone to see it; we keep joking that if we keep rubbing his head, his hair is going to fall out again. It's just sooooo soft!!

We do still have green Team Ingram shirts and gray CONQUER shirts that are available for purchase too. The pickings are slim for the adult long sleeve shirts, but we have plenty of the short sleeve shirts. We are also planning on bringing any extra shirts to our tent in case any locals want to a cool shirt and to support St. Jude at the same time!

The Whole Crew At The Smith Clinic Sporting Their Ingram Shirts!

Ingram Picking One Of Many Raffle Tickets Out Of The Jar With Micheal Smith!

One, Two, Three, Four, Five....Ready Or Not, Here I Come!

Monday and Tuesday November 26th and 27th, Crazy Busy!

To say that these past two days have been busy would be an understatement! But, we are loving all the fun stuff that is happening. Probably our most favorite thing is how excited Ingram is about Christmas and giving presents to people. He asks every day all day long if Santa is coming today and wants to make cookies for him now; I've given up on trying to convince him that it's too early to make cookies so we may be weighing a little more before we even get to Christmas. He also loves to play with his train and the Fisher Price nativity set that we got when the girls were itty bitty; but beau also likes to play with them and let's just say he doesn't play very nice! It's going to be a long month of questions and waiting, but we're very grateful that he's here to ask every day all day. I'm not saying that in a nonchalant kind of way either; there's just too many families we know that aren't going to be asked those questions and our hearts are so heavy for them.

Yesterday we spent finishing up unpacking from our trip and also ran a few errands in pajamas, well at least Ingram was still in his pajamas! Oh we could have all stayed in bed all day from the rain and cold, but we had to get up and moving for school; if there was no school, I'm pretty sure that we would have stayed under our covers and declared it a pajama day for sure. After school, we had homework for the girls and squeezed in a soccer game for Lindsey during the cold icky rain we were having. I'm pretty sure they just wanted to finish the season so they played the game in the rain to be one more game closer to being done. We spent a lot of time sorting and labeling shirts for the race for people to pick up which is super exciting and super busy! (If you're on Team Ingram and you don't have your shirt, get in touch with us; we may have yours at the house.) Bedtime is always fun because the girls usually squabble over who gets to sleep with Ingram; at some point I'm hoping something will click and he'll be able to go back to sleeping by himself, but until then, we do what we have to do to let everyone sleep all night...despite how early he's waking up and waking everyone else with him!

Today, we headed to school to watch Madison compete in the 5th Grade Spelling Bee! She did great and made it to the 5th round before she had her first incorrect word. She's such a silly goose and sorta jumped up at the podium each time to make sure she could see over the top. We think it's funny that she's the shortest girl in her grade, but Madison doesn't always have the same humor with it! The winner of the Bee was Madison's friend Megan and she is also running with her father on Team Ingram this weekend so we were extra excited. Then we headed to St. Jude for Ingram's regular speech appointment; I tend to call this playtime because he has so much fun in there! We know that he's working on specific letters, but he just thinks he's playing games with his friends Mrs. Angela and Miss Lauren. We headed back home after a few errands and managed to get Ingram down for a quick nap before the regular afternoon/evening chaos. We had homework and snacks then 3 soccer games (2 of which were at the same time on different fields) in mid 30 degree weather! Don't get me wrong, I love soccer, but it's a little too cold for elementary kids to be playing in my opinion. They both survived and so did Craig since I kept Ingram home to stay warm while the three of them froze at the fields.

We have more news on the fundraising front! We had a group headed up by Adina Wise that raised almost $2000 in an unconventional way for St. Jude in Ingram's honor. Adina runs a Bootcamp and they had a Thanksgiving morning Bootcamp to get a jump on all the yummy food that was going to be eaten; they had a packed class and all the proceeds went to St. Jude. The other fun crazy thing she did was put together an "Totally Awesome 80's Prom" where everyone came dressed straight out of the 80's with big hair, puffy dresses, and crazy make-up! See, fundraising can be fun; you just have to be creative with it! Adina is also on running this weekend with Team Ingram as a Hero and we're so glad to have her creativity raising money for the children and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital!

So Proud Of Our Super Speller Madison!

You Knew This Would Happen...
The RockStar Has Entered The Building!
Ingram With More Girls!!!!

Oh Yeah!
Ingram's Weighed In Today At A Whopping 16.5kg!
Also Known As "Been Eating A Lot Making Him 36.3 Pounds!!"
And He Feels Like It Too!

Thanksgiving Morning BootCamp!

Totally Awesome 80's Prom!

Saturday and Sunday November 24th and 25th, Going Slow!

With a week's worth of fun from our New York City trip, we are trying to unpack and get things back to normal around the house. Normal, though, has been elusive since April and we are in need of finding it. The funny thing about "normal" is that we have never claimed that anything that goes on at our house is normal. We've always been on the go, heading here and there, and often making plans or changing our plans at the last minute.  Over the past few weeks, we have also been talking a lot about "our new normal" and are closing in quickly on making decisions both short-term and long-term for our whole crew.

With 8 loads of laundry washed and none folded nor put away, the stacks are a bit overwhelming and they also represent how hard it is to get anything done around here. When we came home, the house was clean and now it's back to the normal stuff all over it from life with three kids. We could get really upset about it and get it done right away, but instead we're choosing not to do it that way.  Instead, we've been watching football games and Christmas movies with the kids, attempting to decorate the house for our favorite holiday of the year, and starting new traditions in our home with the kids. One of those is "Elf on the Shelf" which we finally gave in to this year because Ingram and Lindsey will love it so much! Its so totally commercialized, but it's silly things like that that make memories for the kids.

We still have soccer games to play, school work to do, and the big St. Jude Marathon Weekend to get ready for, but if everything else takes a little longer to get done around the house it's still okay. Ingram and the girls love to help decorate the tree with 4 ornaments on one branch and it's okay.   They also love playing in the leaves instead of raking them and hiding Beau's gigantic rawhide in the middle of the pile just to watch him destroy the pile looking for it and that's okay too. With so many things to get done, we don't want to miss the opportunities to have a little fun instead of just getting stuff done fast. With the holidays approaching and all the things that we feel like we need to do, we're actually looking forward to just being together.

Please continue to pray for the Christensen family; our hearts are so heavy for all of them. Pray for strength for Chris and Amy to get through each moment, for God's comfort and peace for Cole, and for His understanding for all of them, especially his sweet big sister.

We Love Christmas Lights!
We Even Love The Strand That Keeps Going Playing Tricks On Craig!

Friday November 23rd, The Today Show!!

Today was the day!! All six of the kids from St. Jude were on The Today Show and it was soooo much fun! We all left the hotel at 7am and headed over on two buses to Rockefeller Plaza to head into the Today Show Green Room; the only problem was that we had a ton of people and there was not a lot of room. They let the patients and one parent go into the Green Room while the other family members went outside where they had a spot waiting for them with the crowd till it was time for our segment. To draw more attention to ourselves, we were all wearing green St. Jude shirts and hats and had posters that the kids had made after our Thanksgiving lunch together.

All the kids went in one by one to talk with Marlo before we went outside and it was funny hearing all the silly things they were saying when they were by themselves. The kids were also all goofing around in the Green Room while we were waiting and taking pictures and staying warm; unfortunately, the ones that were outside I think got a little cold but they had fun and were on TV several times while they were waiting while they were waving their signs and jumping up and down. The kids went out with Marlo and then the hosts came over and started talking to them so that they wouldn't be in total shock, but I'm not sure if it worked or not! They were a little shy at the beginning, but what else can you expect from 5 kids from the ages of 4 and 6? When the cameras came back live, Ingram was still waving to us and quickly stopped once they started talking. They had also gotten the rest of the siblings and families to go behind the kids while they were talking so that more St. Jude folks could be seen.

As a surprise to all of us, they also had Santa come down and let the kids go over to him and give him hugs and talk to him while Marlo finished talking about St. Jude. It was really cute too and Ingram's face lit up when he saw Santa! He was the first one to walk over to him and give him a hug. After all the patients had a few minutes to talk to him, they let the rest of the family members come over with them too and then they also had presents under the tree for each of the kids. It was such a fun surprise and then to get a little toy to play with on the plane was even better! Ingram got a Transformer and a football, and they even had plenty of presents for the siblings to have a special treat too. After the segment was over, all the families spent time on the red carpet taking pictures and hanging out before we all headed back over to the hotel to pack up and check out.

After we checked out, we had a little bit of time free and we went over to the Reuters Building to see one of Craig's work friends, Richard Leong. By this time, the kids had been up since 6:30am and we were a little nervous yet again about how they were going to act. They were already tired and I gave Craig one of those "are you crazy?" looks when he told me we were going in an office; they surprised us and did well, but it didn't take long for us to know it was time to get out while we were ahead! We love getting to meet people that Craig works with and feel special getting to bring a little bit of real life to their work relationship. The crazy thing is that I feel like it's a privilege to get to meet "work people" but at the same time, it feels like "catching up with friends" since they know so much of what we're going through by reading the blog every day. That is one of the things that never even crossed our minds when we decided to start keeping up with Ingram's days so that we could show him what all he conquered when he's older. An interesting thing about the Reuters office is that they had prime viewing (and photography) area for when the plane landed in the Hudson River back in 2009! They tcover just about every set of news around, but that was the thing that Richard thought the kids would like the most and he was right...of course, we were fascinated by it too!

Did I mention Ingram was in dire need of a nap?? Well, we probably all were, but didn't get the opportunity to take a nap because we needed to head to the airport to catch our ride back to Memphis. While we all waited in the LaGuardia Airport, the kids all played on iPads that the airport has plugged in and ready for anyone to use; maybe we should put this request in to the Memphis airport folks since it definitely made waiting more pleasant on everyone. Something that wasn't pleasant for everyone was our seating arrangements once we got on the plane! The Dismuke seat assignments were kind of crazy; the kids were set in row 12 A, B, and C while we were in row 10 A and B. There were several reasons this was bad and anyone one of them were enough, but then add them all together and it was just about impossible! Row 10 was an Exit row so the kids definitely couldn't sit there if we did one adult on each row. In Row 11 was a gentleman that didn't seem to excited about three kids sitting right behind him, especially a 4 year old directly behind him arguing with his sisters and calling for Mommy at the top of his lungs! Another reason was that Ingram had to go to the restroom 3 times in about a 20 minute span that included right when we boarded, right after they shut the cabin door and were ready to start to taxi, and then again right after we lifted off the ground. We were able to get swapped to row 11 and the gentleman moved to row 10.

Finally Ingram fell asleep and the girls were able to play with their stuff and stay pretty much happy for the rest of the ride home on the plane. It was sooo nice to land in Memphis and get to the house too; Beau was extra happy since our great neighbors, the Mroks, picked him up from the kennel before they closed so that we wouldn't have to wait till tomorrow to get him. Craig and Madison got home first and Beau was excited to see them; however, when we got home, he got so excited to see us that he had a little excitement accident on the kitchen floor! I guess we'll be giving him some extra loving over the next little while to make sure he knows we'll always come back home for him. We started to watch a Christmas movie after we ate dinner, but two of the three kids ended up falling asleep so we put them in bed so that they could all have a good night's rest and try to catch up on all the sleep they've been missing while we've been going non-stop in New York City. We were so honored to be able to represent St. Jude this week and hope and pray that many people Give...To Help Them Live.

Here's the link to this mornings segment on The Today Show...

http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/49939026

Riding On The Bus At 7am To The Today Show.
We Have No Idea What Ingram Is Saying, But John Tully Seems Captivated!

Goofing Off In The Green Room!

Ingram's Trying To Sneak Up Behind Archie To Scare Him.
I'm Thinking It's Not Going To Work!

Ingram Of Course Surrounded By The Girls!

The Kids Getting Introduced To The Today Show Hosts.

Almost live!

Here We Go...Y'all Ready?

Ingram Standing Right Where They Put Him And He Didn't Move At All!

Check Out The Cheering Section Right Off The Red Carpet!
Lindsey Is On The Left With The Short Poster And Madison Is On The Right.

A Transformer!!

There's No Telling What Madsion Is Talking To Santa About!

Ingram Getting Another Present From Santa!

All The Kids With Marlo Thomas!

Yeah For Thanks And Giving And St. Jude!

Craig And The Kids With Richard Leong In The Reuters Building!

Poor Little Guy Finally Gave Up On The Plane And Had A Little Nap!
I Think Our Section Of The Plane Was Very Excited About This!

Thursday November 21, 2012; Thankful for Today, and Every Day

Today was a really fun day and, tonight, our feet once again hurt. I think that's a good thing when you're visiting New York because it implicitly means that you worked hard that day! We started out early. We tried to leave at 6:30 to get to the grandstands for the Thanksgiving Day Parade. While we had tickets, we were still told to get there between 7:00 and 7:30 a.m. to make sure we got seats. We ended up getting out of the hotel by 6:50 and to the grandstands by 7:30. The parade started at 9:00 but the time flew by. The only thing that wasn't perfect was that I forgot to think about bringing drinks with us. And there was a concession stand taunting me less than 100 yards away, but outside of the gate we were inside of once we got to the stands. It turned out to be okay because no one complained the entire three-and-a-half hours we were there. We loved the parade. It's one of those things that seems like it may not be that fun and then it turns out to be great, even for adults! Ingram loved the floats, especially Buzz Lightyear, Papa Smurf, Spiderman, and the Power Ranger guys. His eyes were glued to the road as floats came by. Lindsey's favorite was probably the U.S. Women's Gymnastic team, including Gabby! My favorite was the Fred Hill Briefcase Drill Team, a group of 20 guys in suits who marched like they were Marines throwing around briefcases instead of guns!

After the parade, we rode the subway home which was fun because it was completely jammed up with some of the 3.5 million people estimated to have been along the route. Once we got back to the room, we hurried back down to the St. Jude lunch with five other St. Jude families. After we ate, Ingram and the girls played with Helen, Mae, and Bailey in the hallway. It was fun watching them giggle and laugh on their own. Lunch was great, but it definitely wasn't the same as being at home with family.

After lunch, we came back and let Ingram take a nap before heading back out to go to the Rockefeller Center. However, a block from the hotel, Madison yelled out, "Hey look, it's Ingram!!" Sure enough, that little joker is on another billboard in Times Square. This one, however, is in the middle of Times Square. I sat there for over an hour trying to take pictures of the sign. Unfortunately, I figured out that the ad shows up every half-an hour.

Seeing the new sign made us a few minutes late for dinner and we never made it to the Rockefeller Center. We had a great time with the Tully family. The Tully's are from Latvia and their daughter, Helen, is five and is battling rhabdomyosarcoma. We had so much fun that I thought we might be asked to leave the restaurant at one point, but the little baldies always get a little more latitude thankfully!

As I reflected on Thanksgiving this morning, I thought about the things I am thankful for and figured I would share them.

First, I'm thankful that God loves us more than we can understand, and because of that we have reason for hope even in the middle of life's darkest days. I'm thankful that it hurts Him more for Ingram to hurt than it does me, which is hard to fathom.

Second, I'm thankful for God's grace, because no matter how much it seems like we have it all together on the outside, I don't and I need His grace every day.

Third, I'm thankful for my family and how strong they have all been, and how everyone has leaned on God for the past seven months.

Fourth, I'm thankful for all of our friends, and acquantances, who have been there at just the right time with just the right things to say or do. God has used these people in our lives to meet us right where we have been, every day since April 3rd.

Fifth, I'm thankful for St. Jude, for all of the people there who have dedicated their lives to saving children's lives, and for all of the people who have sacrificially given over the past 50 years to help fund this battle.

Last, I'm thankful for every day that I get to spend with the people I love. We've seen from so many of our friends this past year, not all of them children, that we never know how many days we have with each other. Don't ever get too busy to make memories!

What a surprise!

Ready for some floats!

Yes, Madison is reading... a book she has already read once.

Here comes one of his favorites...

Spiderman!

And here comes the Olympic gymnastics team.

Dismuke and McNally kids after lunch.

Dinner with the Tullys.

Still eating after everyone else is done!

Lindsey and Helen

Crazy faces!!

Walking back with the Tullys

Ingram and Martin. Notice that the elevator has been scheduled for quite a few stops somehow!

Caught! Helen!!!!!

Wednesday November 21st, What A Wednesday!!

Wow! Our morning started out pretty early in our room with two alarm clocks going off and a wake-up call from the hotel desk at 3am this morning! We (okay, it was totally me) were worried that Craig might oversleep and miss his time on Worldwide Exchange on CNBC since we were up till way late last night. We were trying to get the kids settled down for bed, then Craig getting his work stuff done, and me writing the blog. Craig made it out the door on time and I was able to go back to sleep once he left and none of the kids woke up. Craig was even so sweet that he waited down in the lobby for an hour-and-a-half once so that he wouldn't wake the kids up... and he brought up my much-needed Diet Dr Pepper!

We all got dressed and left to grab some breakfast before we headed off to get a tour of the CNBC studio. Before we headed out, we ran into three other St. Jude families and the kids were all so excited to see each other - the adults were just as excited too! Seriously, they're like family now and since we aren't at St. Jude every day, when we do see them it's just great! Even after finding out what they were going to do (Empire State Building and the Natural History Museum), the girls still decided to go with us over to CNBC. It was amazing too. I thought Craig's trading floor was impressive, but walking into the CNBC building then onto their floor was way beyond cool. Of course, poor Craig was so nervous that the kids were going to act crazy or distract people from their work and that he wouldn't ever get called to be back on any CNBC shows in the future. I'm happy to say that all three of the kids did great and I honestly think the people they met liked them too (maybe even more!). Each one of kids held their own conversations with the different producers, anchors, and the executive producer at CNBC. We even got to go into the Control Room as they were producing one of the shows and watched another show from the floor while they were on the set. It was so intimidating to see them putting together a live show and all the things that go on every second. We all were very much impressed with how easy they make it look!

Next up, a trip to the M & Ms store with all three of the kids... and Craig! Craig had never been in the M & Ms store and he had no idea what he was in for since all four of us could live on M & Ms. I am pretty sure Craig knew he was in trouble when Ingram, Lindsey, AND Madison started jumping and down when they saw all the M & M possibilities once we were 10 feet in the store!! We ended up at the self-serve M & M station (by the way, this is way more dangerous than letting them loose at Gracie Bleu getting their own yogurt and toppings) and each one grabbed a bag to make their own special mix. Craig helped Ingram and of course he wanted to make a rainbow bag of M & Ms (Craig tried to teach Ingram who Roy G. Biv is!). The girls went a little crazy and got more than we told them and they both had a different excuse; one of them said "the handle got stuck!" and the other said "at least I didn't get as much as her!" I, on the other hand, got much less than they did and got some super fun colors that I had never seen before. I don't think I have to say that we all got more M & Ms than we needed and definitely paid more than we should have! Oh well, this is a one-time deal and we will gladly share with anyone that comes to our house as long as our stockpile lasts!

We came back to the hotel and dropped off our loot and then went to meet one of Craig's friends from work, Kevin Warsh, at his office. We tried to catch a taxi, but after about 15 minutes of getting passed up, we decided to head out on foot... about a mile-and-a-half... with three kids! The girls walked the whole time and Ingram was able to catch a ride on my hip, on my back, and on Craig's back along the way; did I mention it was about a mile and a half? This was another one of those nervous moments for Craig because it's work-related as well. Kevin is a former Federal Reserve Board Governor and came to Memphis to speak at the Vining Sparks Bank Summit this past Spring at the same time Ingram was starting radiation and Craig spent time with him when he was in town for work. Even though Craig had been to his office before, this was the first time that the whole crazy crew had been into his office... and they gave the kids candy!! Even though three Dismuke kids in a conference room with candy is a very bad combination, they were as well-behaved as they could be cosidering how much sugar they had running through their veins as we got to spend over an hour with Kevin. Just like other places we've been in town, the "Black and Gold" conference room will never be the same again!

As a reward for having to do "business," we took the kids to F.A.O Schwarz a few blocks away and entered mass toy chaos! Toys of all kinds were everywhere, three floors worth of toys and snacks. But once again, we managed to make it out without purchasing anything! I know it's crazy that we were at F.A.O Schwarz, the most famous toy store in the world and we didn't get anything; it was almost too much to take in and we had been out all day already. To avoid the inevitable meltdown, we left while we were ahead (barely ahead)! We were so excited when we found Bill's Bar and Burgers for dinner; this was Craig and the girls' favorite spot to eat last year when they were on their daddy/daughter trip during the holidays. The food was great and we all came away in such good moods once we ate and were able to just sit down for a bit.

We came back to the hotel at the end of the night and were surprised to get tickets to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from some friends that live here in the city. Craig's friend Elizabeth, from CNBC, had arranged tickets to the parade through one of her friends, Marie Griffin, who has her own public relations firm in town. She came over with her sister Bunky to bring the tickets and they even brought the kids a special gift too. They brought the girls a Hello Kitty Carry-On Case for the plane and brought Ingram a Nerf Gun that he won't take into the plane or else someone's going to be in trouble! Hopefully, the people that walked into the target zone of the lobby tonight weren't too upset with having to rearrange their route to get through the lobby. Of course, I'm very happy that Ingram decided not to shoot the people that held the elevator door open for me; I think they were relieved that they didn't have to ride up 38 floors with my three kids without adult supervision!!

http://www.viningsparks.com/ext_vs/video/cnbc_video112112.htm
This is the link to Craig's segment on World Wide Exchange from this morning!

So Proud Of Craig... On CNBC's WorldWide Exchange!

As If Being A TV Star Isn't Enough, He's A RockStar Dad!
He Was Ironing The Kids Clothes For Me In One Room While I Was In The Other Room!
Since He Did That, We Were Actually On Time!

Ingram And All His Girls!
Lucy, Madison, Helen, Ingram, Lindsey, Winn, Mae, And Bailey!

The Whole Crew On The CNBC Set...While A Show Was Going On Behind Us!

Madison And Lindsey With Amanda Drury From "Street Signs!"
I Won't Name Any Names, But You Can Probably Tell From The Picture Who Was Extra Excited
Since She Had Just Said How Pretty She Was In The Hallway!

Ingram Got Included In Today's Street Sign's Show...At Least On The Dry Erase Line-Up!

Can We Say Chocolate Overload??

The Total Is So Embarassing, But Since The Girls Already Have It Memorized And Have Told Everyone We've Met,
We Figured We Might As Well Be Honest!
Plus, Three Of Them Are Gifts So At Least It's Not All Staying At Our House!