Three Weeks

Happy New Year everyone!

I cannot believe that it is already 2010!! The theme for this blog seems to be “3 weeks”, since it has been that long since I updated everyone, and in less than 3 weeks I will be in Las Vegas with 52 other girls competing for the title of Miss America.

December 30th, 2009 at 10:59 PM CST, was the deadline for raising money for Children’s Miracle Network. Thank you to everyone who donated to my account by either purchasing a CD or making a cash donation.

It was a horse race until the end. Miss Louisiana, Miss District of Columbia and myself, Miss Minnesota all going back and forth with a final push for donations. All day long I had donations coming in to my account and I planned on making one large final donation from my CD sales right before the deadline. I wanted to wait so I could make sure that all CD sales for that day would count to reach my goal of 12 thousand dollars.

With about 10 minutes to go, I visited my CMN home page and clicked on “Donate Now.” I filled out all the information for the donation, and I was so excited to see where my grand total would be. It was crazy at my house, my dad was talking on the phone with people getting donations, my mom was moving money from the PayPal account from CD sales, People were texting me what the totals were and then it happened. I screamed “Oh NO”!!!!!! When I hit donate, my money from my CD sales somehow when into Miss Louisiana account.

Everyone one came running into the office and after a few moments of panic, I called and spoke to a CMN representative. I had to laugh because they knew me right away and asked what’s wrong, you see this is the second time this has happened to me when I transferred money in from my CD sales so I knew that CMN would figure it all out. I think the CMN computers were working overtime and things got a little crazy towards the end. On Monday morning everything will be figured out and my totals will be corrected. The great news is that all this money goes to help children and families and that is the most important thing of all.

The grand total for Children’s Miracle Network from the state of Minnesota (drum roll please)

$12,407!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations to Katherine Putnam, Miss Louisiana, for raising over $13,000 for Children’s Miracle Network!

Now let me take you back to three weeks ago (I told you it was going to be the theme) when the Holidays in the Kilgarriff household began.



I always start the holidays off with my annual creation of our Christmas gingerbread house, and I try to outdo myself each year. This year the theme was the princess gingerbread house. The frosting was hot pink, and of course I decorated the house with a huge crown on the back!

Now that the holidays are almost over, the other Kilgarriff family tradition which my brothers find very entertaining is how to destroy the annual gingerbread house that I have worked so hard to create. Last year they tried to blow it up using fireworks. It just caught on fire and we all watched the Santa toy melt and the smell of sugar burning. My Brother Sean has made some suggestion this year the first was shoot a flaming arrow into it, Mom vetoed that one. Drop it from the roof, throw footballs at it, run over it with the SUV, (yes, you can tell these are all the ideas of a 15 year old boy with his drivers permit.)


Back to the holidays, all the traditions were the same this year. While driving to cut down our Christmas tree we played our Christmas song game. Each person goes around and sings part of a Holiday Song. If you cannot think of a song, you're out and we go around until we have a winner. I have been the reigning champ for the past 3 years now!

My brother, Sean and I found the perfect Christmas tree. That was just before my dad and I both fell in an unexpected hole at the tree farm. No one was hurt, just a mouth full of snow!


Next on the list was our annual picture with Santa Claus. My Mom last year made an appointment with our favorite Santa that we have seen for the last 17 years at the Mall of America. But this year everyone must have decided to make appointments instead of waiting in line for Santa so when she tried to get an appointment they were full. So she asked me if it was "Ok" if she pulled the Miss Minnesota card to see if we could get an appointment. This is sort of like a get out of jail free card in Monopoly you only get one per year and my Mom had not used hers yet. My Dad had already used his! So my Mom called back and asked if we could be placed on the waiting list and she just happen to mentioned that I was Miss Minnesota and wanted to take a photo with Santa. It worked and she got a call back in less than 5 minutes with a time for our annual Santa photo. It was good to see Santa again and he was surprised when I showed him my crown and sash…. I even let him wear it in the photo!

I know everyone wants to know what did this year’s matching PJ’s looked like. Monkey Gingerbread men. Yes, I did say Monkey Gingerbread men, they are awesome!

In the midst of all the Christmas joy, I performed the National Anthem at the Serving Our Troops Ceremony at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium. This was an incredible ceremony that honored troops over seas. Families who had servicemen in either Iraq or Kuwait could visit with them via satellite and enjoy a holiday feast with all the trimmings! It is such a blessing to meet the parents, spouses and children whose family members are defending our country.


Later that day I visited The Patriot radio station again with Mitch Berg. We talked for about 30 minutes about my preparations for Miss America, and Children’s Miracle Network. Last time I visited with him was at the State Fair, and things were a little different. I was able to wear the radio head phones this time around, since no one could see me with my crown on. They had a webcam that was broadcasting the interview, so no slouching during commercial breaks!



The following week I was invited to do Celebrity Bell Ringing at Southdale Mall. It was fun to see John and Elizabeth from Twin Cities Live, and other local news anchors. While ringing my bell (which I have multiple techniques now) a dollar floated from the sky into my hands. Whoever was on the third floor and donated towards the Salvation Army, Thank you!










This past weekend I sang the National Anthem at the Timberwolves game, and they won! I have performed for every Minnesota sports team except the Minnesota Wild and Minnesota Swarm... So far every Minnesota Home Team has won when I sing the National Anthem, so I am just saying if you are in need of a win call me! (Here is the video from the game... remember my father is video taping!)



A couple days after Christmas I performed at a Holiday party on Summit Avenue in St. Paul. The house was a beautiful old mansion with a marbled floor foyer and a circle stair case, it even had a ballroom on the second floor. The party was hosted by a Music producer here in the Twin Cities and many local music artists performed. I performed a Christmas song and one of the songs from my CD. I had the opportunity to talk about Children’s Miracle network and sell CDs. It was fun to hear all the children sing Christmas carols and enjoy performances of other musical artists.



Still waiting on the roommates, and I cannot wait to find out! Hopefully it will come soon!

Also my Mom has blogged again in what I will call “Crystal AB HF SS20”!

Always,
Brooke


MOM BLOG

Happy New Year

Thank you to everyone who has supported Brooke this past year with her efforts to raise funds for Children’s Miracle Network.

As of December 30, 2009 at midnight we believe Brooke raised over 12 thousand dollars for CMN. We will not know the exact amount until CMN has a chance to deposit all donations and checks, but we think that Minnesota is the second highest contributor. Again, Thank you to everyone who supported this cause, whether you purchased a CD or made a cash donation, you have made a difference in the life of a child who needs medical care.

It is exactly 20 days before Brooke leaves for Miss America and I thought I would give you an update on where things are at this point.

Right now Brooke is focused on working out with her trainer and meeting with the seamstress doing alterations on her wardrobe. As well as working on tanning. Yes, that tanning thing again. There is so much to do in such a short time, shoes to be bought, make up to be matched and hair to be styled.

Brooke's evening gown arrived a couple days before Christmas and I thought about hiding it and putting it under the tree for her, but she was home when it arrived at the door. Brooke and I had traveled to New York in October to meet with dress designer Stephen Yearick to create a custom gown, so we were excited to see how the gown had turned out. It is Beautiful!!!!! This gown will be added to the other gowns we purchased from Sherri Hill, and Brooke will have the difficult decision in picking which one she will wear.

This was Brooke’s first time competing in the Miss Minnesota pageant so she did not have a lot of gowns to use for Las Vegas. Each night of the Preliminaries in Las Vegas Brooke needs to wear what they call a ramp gown for the end of the night as awards will be announced. So we needed 4 gowns!

Brooke received information about ordering swimsuits on December 21, so we are not sure if they will be here in time for the Send off Party. They promised to have them shipped by January 11th that would be 2 days after the send off party. Miss America has a sponsor for the swimsuits and Brooke was able to pick 2 free swimsuits from 6 different styles.

So what will I be doing with 20 days to go? Shopping for clothes! I think the sales ladies at Nordstroms and Bloomingdales think I am crazy. I go and purchase a couple dresses for Brooke bring them home for her to try on and return what doesn’t work for her. You may wonder why she doesn’t just come with me. Well she doesn’t have time.

I have also started sewing on beads and rhinestones onto her gowns. I guess you can never have enough rhinestones. Trying to keep the cost down I told the seamstress I would go ahead and order the rhinestones online and she wrote down the website where I could order the stones. I am good on the computer but this website for rhinestones and beads had me just baffled. I would put in the order number that she wrote down for me and it would come up “sorry could not find”. I tried searching, but crystal AB HF ss20 could not be found. The seamstress had to walk me through it over the phone to find the stones we needed to order. I felt so inept.

I was also asked to go to the Bead It store here in Eagan to try and match beads for Brooke’s blue dress. So I put the little plastic bag of extra beads that come with the dress in my purse so I could use it to match the beads. When I got to the store there were tables with beads everywhere I knew my best chance of getting out of there quickly was to hand the little plastic bag to the sales girl and ask her to locate the beads in the store. I could not find it in my purse. I had to dumped my purse on the counter and use the little flashlight I received in my stocking for Christmas to locate that little plastic bag. Then I waited while this young sales girl counted out beads for me. The store was closing and all the beads were 50 % off that day. 275 beads later I was done.

I also need to find stuff that goes on the bottom of shoes so Brooke doesn’t slip and fall on the stage.

Oh and I need to put name tags on all her clothes and even her jewelry.

And I need to learn how to use a hot fix thing before the rhinestones show up!

Happy New Year
Miss Minnesota’s Mom