Bad Pants Fashion Show

Every year the Texas Children's Neonatal department does a huge fundraising campaign to raise money for research and programs and what not for the NICU.  The kick off event is the Bad Pants Fashion Show!  This fashion show is a little different.  NICU staff, media personalities, and NICU graduates all dress in bad/wacky/crazy pants and parade down the makeshift runway for all to admire.  We were invited to participate this year and I thought, why not?

I was instructed to dress the whole family in funky printed pants or shorts that all coordinated together with a theme.  Easier said than done with a family of 8 and kids in all different sizes!  Oh yeah, and very little time to shop or make our own pants.  There was no way I was making pants.  Thankfully, Old Navy came to the rescue by putting all summer inventory on clearance!  I found Hawaiian print shorts for the big boys and went from there.  I was able to find beachy/Hawaiian print shorts/dresses for everyone all on sale!  The best part was when the cashier was ringing me up he missed an item; I pointed it out and he gave me 10% off for being honest!  I also had a coupon and gift card, so all in all, I got away with only spending $14 on outfits for 8 people!!  That was the most thrilling part :)

I describe the actual show day as chaotic fun.  Did we enjoy doing it?  Yes.  Would I do it again? Yes.  Was it a completely chaotic crazy day? Yes.  Did my children cooperate during the show?  Of course not!

We got to the hospital on time (yea!) and immediately did a live spot on a local news morning show.  Live TV is super scary to me, but it went better than I thought it would.  The kids were busy exploring the backstage area until it was our turn to go on.  Ben was raring to go, but he had to wait a minute for the group in front of us to get off the stage, and he did not like that one bit and would not walk after that.  Andrew crawled out of the curtain and sat and cried.  Neither Allison nor Levi would move.  Leah was perfect!  Caroline actually did slowly walk down the runway.  Eventually I had to carry both big boys (won't attempt this again) and Allison ran into the crowd to my grandma.  Levi was carried by our media personality and was the only one who waved to the crowd. You just can't expect too much out of a bunch of 1 year olds.

It was really nice seeing NICU staff and other parents we hadn't seen in a very long time!

Allison headed straight for the crowd

We're not going to walk!

Waiting for the show

My arms hurt!

Leah was so good the whole time!