Ingram the Conqueror: 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