EMNS Middle School Sign Language Club Holiday Concert Performance

Kennedy with her Sign Language Club, performing "Mary's Boy Child"...you'll notice she's the one to give a big bow, wave to the crowd and make a 'heart hand' to them. No shyness here...;)

For those of you not on facebook, here is the link to the youtube video:
http://youtu.be/6xlp2NO52R0

Enjoy!

Empty Stocking Fund 2011

Here is a video of Kennedy singing with her choir on TV this past weekend - they sang, "Somewhere in My Memory" (from Home Alone). This telethon has run each year for the past 75 years in Saint John to raise money to help families give their kids a xmas when they might otherwise not have one. I was also on the telethon with choirs when I was her age - glad she is continuing the tradition. This is a video her dad took while we were there live. She's the first one on the bottom row on the right... Enjoy!
PS - it does zoom in after a bit so you can actually see her better!

Kennedy Channeling Sally Brown

Thought I would share this video from last night's theatre class - the parents were invited back to see the little thespians perform monologues at the last class of 2011. I also thought I better try for at least one more post before the end of 2011 - it's been sparse this year! Not that we haven't been doing too much, I have just been doing too much, that's the problem.

Kennedy's monologue is a classic piece from The Great Pumpkin, where Sally rakes Linus over the coals for making her miss out on Halloween. Here is the text so you can follow along if your audio isn't the best:
Sally Brown: I was robbed! I spent the whole night waiting for the Great Pumpkin when I could have been out for tricks or treats! Halloween is over and I missed it! You blockhead! You kept me up all night waiting for the Great Pumpkin and all that came was a beagle! I didn't get a chance to go out for tricks or treats! And it was all your fault! I'll sue! What a fool I was. And could have had candy apples and gum! And cookies and money and all sorts of things! But no, I had to listen to you! You blockhead. What a fool I was. Trick or treats come only once a year. And I miss it by sitting in a pumpkin patch with a blockhead. You owe me restitution!

Winter Carnival 2011

To update my last post, Kennedy's appointment was canceled at cardiology because of her bad cold/fever. We will see them again in June hopefully. I will be sure to update everyone after that appointment is over.

Last week was Kennedy's Winter Carnival at her school and on Friday, which was also 80s Day, there was a Gong Show in the afternoon. Kennedy choreographed and practiced her heart out on this dance number - she didn't get a single gong! She brought down the house. Now to continue practicing for cheer competitions, her spring theater performance and of course, CHARGE Conference Idol 2011!

Grade Six Speech

Hi everyone it's Kennedy!! :D This is the video of me doing my speech for Grade six and its about IACT and I hope you all enjoy this video!!! :)

Lots of Love,
Kennedy Weir
xoxoxoxoxo

Kennedy Directing Her School Sign Language Club Signing Rudolph

Today was the holiday show at Kennedy's school. Each Monday, she and her interpreter run a noon hour sign language club. They had been practicing the song, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and performed it today. It's a great video but since Kennedy is directing, we mostly just see the back of her! They did a fabulous show and I'm so proud of all of them. Way to go!

Kennedy Presenting Charge Syndrome To Her Classmates...

Many of you have seen this on Facebook or through the Charge yahoogroup but I know some of you follow the blog only so I'm reposting this video that Kennedy did on Charge syndrome for her classmates. Some of the terms were changed/simplified and some things didn't go too far in depth - it was more of an "intro" for her classmates to help them understand Charge. This was orignally set up for a sign language club that Kennedy & her interpreter are running at the school, to introduce why Kennedy uses sign. Another teacher of the other grade 6 requested her to do it for her class and finally her own teacher had her do it for her homeroom class.

Kennedy Presenting CHARGE Syndrome from rykykk on Vimeo.

Alice in Wonderland - Pics and Video

I'm not sure how many of you readers of the blog are not also Facebook friends but just in case, I'm going to post the video here of "Alice in Wonderland", in which Kennedy played the Queen of Hearts (as well as part of 'the black hole' and the Jabberwocky gang in other scenes...but the Q. was her main part). It's about 44 minutes long; if you're looking for K's main scene specifically, skip to about the 25 minute mark. If you have time, though, to watch it all, it's pretty darn cute. (I know, I'm biased.)

If you are a Facebook friend, I apologize for the redundancy but I can't help how cute, wonderful and talented these kids are!!

Pictures I took at the show can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=149270&id=587985427&l=3778778a89

Alice in Wonderland - IACT August 22, 2009 from Lisa on Vimeo.

Kennedy's Performance

For folks who aren't on Facebook, here is Kennedy singing at the first ever Conference Idol last Friday night (07/24/09). As I mentioned in the video description on Facebook, she only got 1/2 way through and folks started clapping thinking it was over but she was okay with it and it was still super cute.

Eyes/Corneas/Colobomas/TV

Sorry about the length of time between posting, folks. Between me graduating from University and starting a full time music teaching job, getting Kyle ready to graduate high school and Kennedy to transition meetings for going to her new, humungous middle school, things have been busy. I'll post more about these events soon. I want to talk eyes today.

Since the last post, Kennedy had a visit to the IWK Children's hospital for ophthamology. They said she is doing fabulous, her corneas look wonderful (surprisingly, they said, with her facial palsy and one not closing all the way for all these years), they gave her a new prescription (minor changes) and took some WICKED pictures of her optic disc, showing her two colobomas (these are the areas in white in the pictures below where there is incomplete tissue development). I am going to post the picture here but also on her main web site as I think it really speaks to the resiliency and ability to compensate that our children display. To think there's that much missing and she manages to see and do as well as she should with not only the vision issues but everything else going on in her little body - well I think it's just unbelievable. Yeah, I know. I'm biased.
Here is a picture of those colobomas (you can click on it to enlarge as well)


During the time we were down there, we had an opportunity to have a visit with dear friends Jeanie & MacKenzie. As some of you know, Kennedy & MacKenzie have been friends since they were babies. MacKenzie was named as this year's Champion Child for the IWK Children's Hospital for the Children's Miracle Network Telethons that take place last week of May/first week of June. She has been quite the little celebrity, on TV, going on trips in Canada & the US, doing various interviews and attending other functions. We are so proud of her and happy to see CHARGE syndrome awareness increasing because of this amazing little girl.

So they had a visit at the hospital as MacKenzie had an appointment the same day, but they also had to go to the TV station for Mac to do an interview. Kennedy was SO excited, asking a million questions, etc. MacKenzie had done enough of this in the past little while that she was as cool as a cucumber. Kennedy was asking, "Do we say 'Action!'?" and telling everyone she was an actress. It was really cute. The director gave her a 'director's' chair to sit in and told her that she would get to say, "Action!" when it was time and he counted down to her. She was just tickled.

After the interview the host of Breakfast Television, Jayson Baxter, took us all around for a tour of the newsroom set for CTV Live at Five and the news at 6, and introduced us to a bunch of folks we see on TV every night. Kennedy thought it was great (so did I to be honest!). I just want to say that the folks at CTV were generous and kind, giving up their precious busy work time to do a little something special for the girls. As we were leaving, Jayson grabbed a camera operator outside and said, "Kennedy, we're going to get you on TV" and taped a short spot with her telling everyone her name, where she was from, and to watch the IWK telethon. It meant the world to her and she was so excited to see herself on TV the next morning.

Here are a couple of pictures from our visits with MacKenzie and from the TV station visit:

Kennedy and MacKenzie - at the IWK, the first place we ever met...


Kennedy & MacKenzie with Jayson Baxter from BT (super nice guy!):


Kennedy & MacKenzie with Steve Murphy, long-time host of the Evening News at 6 (and native Saint Johner):


Kennedy & MacKenzie with Liz Rigney, who works on CTV's Live at Five:

Kennedy As Miley Cyrus

As many of you know, Kennedy got her beloved Disney Sing It for the Wii for Xmas. As promised, here is an early video of her belting out "Start All Over" by Miley Cyrus.

Kennedy Xmas Concert '08

Just a couple of shots of K in her Xmas show - her class sang "Jingle Bells" (all four verses - did you know there were four???) and played recorder on the chorus. We were so proud of her and how well she did with the recorder. I was excited to help her learn as I'd played the saxophone for many years and the recorder is very similar so I hauled out my old recorder and worked with her; we had many "Jingle Bells" duets here at the house before the show! Unfortunately I had only my Digital SLR camera with me without video capabilities so I didn't get any video. Maybe Santa will bring me a digital video camera! ha ha...:)

Singing Shot:



Recorder shot with her class:



Recorder shot close up:

Another Smashing Performance!

Well my little princess did fabulous again tonight, along with the 40 something other children who make up the group who performed at Summer Jam 2008. She was in five songs tonight, had a line of her own, which I missed on video and a singing line of her own (which I caught on video!), and many dance steps to learn in five short days. She rocked it out... She is really looking forward to going to Theatre classes beginning in the fall; Mommy couldn't be happier about that. Watching her up there on stage is sheer and utter joy! This is a song from Anne of Green Gables called, "Summer" - Kennedy has a short solo near the end of this clip, at about 3:16...

Tonight is the Big Show

Well, after a week of crazy rehearsals, including one 9 1/2 hr day, Kennedy will be performing with her group tonight in the 'Summer Theatre Jam' at the Imperial Theatre tonight. I am so excited for her; I would've loved to have had the opportunity to perform at the Imperial Theatre (it's really an amazing place that was restored after my music career was finished!), and here is my dolly doing her SECOND show there. She had also danced there a couple of years back.

We are having a relaxing morning as she has a two hour practice this afternoon followed by the show this evening. I am so excited for her. I will be posting pics (if they let me take any...it's pretty strict there) of the show and if not, some pictures from after the show.

Home from Deaf Camp and Back to Theatre Camp

She made out great at Deaf Camp - she was dirty but happy when I picked her up on Saturday morning. I was informed that she & her group won the talent show, she & another girl, Taylor, sang "If We Were A Movie" by Hannah Montana while the other girls in the cabin backed them up with home made instruments, they were a big hit and won the whole thing.

This week, she's back at Theatre Camp for 'Production Week' - where all the other themed camps (Broadway Bound, Disney, etc...) get together and come up with one big show of them all. I can't wait - it's this coming Saturday!

Here she is with her cabin mates:


Here is the little missy singng her heart out at the talent show...I don't know where she got that pink hat, but it's so Kennedy...

Following the Leader

This is from the Peter Pan movie, the song is "Following the Leader." This will be the last one from the show. There was another video clip of Kennedy delivering her lines but the audio didn't pick them up as she was standing further away...:( She did great though, we were all very proud.

I've Got No Strings

Another video from the show - this one is 'I've Got No Strings' from the Pinocchio movie. Kennedy is on the far right.

Disney On Stage!

Kennedy had a great time at Theatre Camp, at the end of the two week camp, they performed a "Disney On Stage" production with different song/dance numbers from the different movies over the years. Here she is in the finale, "We're All In This Together" from High School Musical, which I think was everyone's favourite!