The Official Blog of Bobs & LoLo

As many of you know, when we first started performing for kids, we did a lot of birthday parties…A LOT! On average we would fit in 4 parties per weekend – a schedule we kept for nearly 3 years!

Molly’s birthday party! (Jun 2006)

Birthday bookings proved a great way for us to practice new content and learn what worked well with the kids. Plus, the experience gave us the confidence we needed to move onto larger audiences and transition from living rooms or backyards to real stages. Due to an increasingly busy schedule, we stopped offering our birthday party packages a couple years ago, but we have been thrilled to continue hearing from families that still include our music during their family celebrations.

We were excited by a recent Facebook message from the Wang Family, and we wanted to share the story of their daughter, Hayden’s, 1st birthday celebrations!

From Hayden’s Dad…

It was my daughter’s 1st birthday, and since she loves B&L, we had a B&L themed party.  We had B&L playing on the stereo (all 3 CDs I might add), and we had the On Your Feet DVD playing on the TV.  Everything my wife did in terms of décor was fashioned like the cartoon-y images on the DVD (bugs, trees, butterflies, flowers etc).  The room was filled with them. I even made little B&L name cards for the kids. There were also cut out music notes and flower confetti on the tables and “grass” centerpieces.  We even tried to get the cake like the DVD images with trees, lady bugs, flowers and more!

As the icing on the cake (pun intended!), here’s a copy of the text that the Wang’s included with their guest invitations – those of you familiar with our songs will surely recognize some of the words! We were super impressed with this…

Something special is in the air,
Flex your muscles and let down your hair,
Just like that I’m turning one,
Let’s go marching together and have some fun,
Musical adventures are what I adore,
Get on your feet and let’s hit the floor!
It’s sure to be an action packed day,
Just be ready to shake it up, okay?
If you haven’t guessed Bobs & Lolo are the best!
Get on the right track and I’ll take care of the rest,
One year already, how I go, go, grow,
So skip, hop, and jump and I’ll see you at the…..PARTY!!

It’s nice to be polite so please RSVP!

Our thanks to Hayden and her family for sharing stories of the birthday adventures with us! We were so flattered and touched to see how much they enjoy our music!

While on the subject, we wanted to flag a couple of great birthday ideas/resources. Be sure to head to Green Planet Parties for lots of tips and ideas for eco-friendly party planning and products. And, if you’re in the BC Lower Mainland area, check out the new nature-themed birthday party packages in Stanley Park! The Stanley Park Ecology Society will host a tailor-made party for your active, nature-loving kids. Bug hunts, forest walks, nature art and more! Program booking also includes use of a great party space (w/ access to kitchen) for snacks and gifts in the historic Stanley Park Dining Pavilion. For more info, visit www.stanleyparkecology.ca or call 604-718-6522.

Hope to see you soon!

Bobs & Lolo

It’s been another action packed month for us with lots of live performances and many exciting projects behind-the-scenes. We’d like to start off with a big THANK YOU to all of the superfans who came out to help us sing in the spring during Spring Break at the Vancouver Aquarium. The venue was jam-packed this year and the kiddie mosh pit was definitely the place to be! We loved meeting all of the new faces and connecting with familiar ones too…especially those of you that showed up for not one or two, but three or more shows over the week! If you have any pics that you want to share, send them our way and we’ll post some on our blog and our Facebook page!

Speaking of new faces, we’d like to welcome Green Planet Parties to the B&L family! We had the pleasure of meeting the company’s owners (both named Suzanne!) at the Coquitlam Family Fair. Green Planet Parties offers a great service with their selection of eco-friendly party planning ideas and products. We’re excited that party planning wannabes can now discover our music in the mix of great tips and tools on the Green Planet Parties site!

If you haven’t had a chance to pick-up your own B&L CD or DVD yet, you do have a limited time opportunity to get them for FREE! Soapboxmama is hosting another colossal gift basket giveaway, and we’ve added some goodies to the loot bag. Click on the image below to enter for a chance to win over $800 in prizes!

We hope to see all of you at a live show sometime soon. Be sure to keep an eye on our calendar for full details on all the musical adventures! Upcoming shows include the Kiddies Korner Imagination Fair in Port Coquitlam (April 4), two special family concerts at the Errington Community Hall in support of the Errington Cooperative Preschool (April 5) and the Pedagogy Toy Store’s Anniversary Celebrations in New Westminster (April 11).

If we’re not in your neighbourhood in the near future, keep an ear out for our tunes on Treehouse Radio. The digital radio network, hosted by Max Trax, has just started broadcasting some of the songs from our Action Packed CD as part of their regular programming - be sure to send them some feedback if you like what you hear! You can send in your requests here.

Well, we’d better get back to work! We’re hiding away in rehearsal for the next couple days while we prepare for our ArtStarts in Schools showcase. On Wednesday morning, we’ll be delivering a 12-minute snippet of a show we’ve developed for elementary school-aged audiences. ArtStarts in Schools is a not-for-profit organization offering educators, artists, parents and students a broad range of  programs, services and resources to promote arts and creativity among BC’s young people. We hope to work with the ArtStarts team to share our music and programming with communities throughout BC during the 2009/10 school year. Wish us luck for the showcase (we’re a little nervous!) and check us out in the artist directory at the end of April! www.artstarts.com

Here’s a cute little video that ArtStarts posted on YouTube to wrap up this post:)

Hope to see you soon!

Bobs & Lolo

Those familiar with our music and programming are most likely already in tune to our love of the outdoors and our goal of connecting children to the wonders of nature through music, movement and make-believe. And, while our audience (the kids!) are our main focus, we also definitely value connecting with like-minded individuals in the greater community too. We’ve been thrilled that the worlds of Twitter, Facebook and MySpace have introduced us to a diverse network of socially-conscious artists, entrepreneurs and educators.

Recently we stumbled across the website of a Vancouver-based company called Naturebag. Created by Sylvie de Sousa and Katharine Byers, two moms with one vision, Naturebag is designed to help children and their families reconnect with nature through hands-on, curiosity led games and activities.

We love what these two moms are doing…so much so that we have offered to sell their product at our live performances! Be sure to check out the Naturebag website or email us for more info. The kits really are fantastic tools that inspire exploration and discovery with kids, and the organic cotton bags are perfect for carrying around a snappy snack or two as well:)

Besides connecting with fun and creative small businesses like Naturebag, we’ve also been blown away by the vast and supportive world of bloggers who value many of the same things we do. Below is a short list of some of the sites we have connected with recently. One of the greatest things about these sites is that most are written and hosted by moms - true experts in the realm of kids! In addition, a lot of these sites feature tons of product reviews and give-aways. If you love free stuff (who doesn’t!?) be sure to check them out!

Feisty, Frugal and Fabulous
Tot Trends Weekly
Kid Trends Weekly
BarefootMommy
4BabyandMom
Modecokids

Things also continue to be busy for us away from the online world and back in the land of live performances. We had a great time throughout the month of February with shows all over the Metro Vancouver area as well as trips to Vancouver Island, the U.S. and the Gulf Islands. Highlights at the end of the month included a fantastic sold-out event at the Roundhouse Community Centre, a beautiful trip to Saltspring Island to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Saltspring Island Daycare Society and a number of amazing school shows, specifically Qualicum Beach Elementary (Qualicum Beach, BC), Hillcrest Elementary (Victoria, BC), Holly Elementary (Surrey, BC) and Kingsford-Smith Elementary (Vancouver, BC). March also started off on a high note with the Coquitlam Family Fair on the 1st of the month, and there’s still lots more to come!

We are really looking forward to seeing some of you during Spring Break at the Vancouver Aquarium. We will be performing three shows daily in the Underwater Beluga Gallery (11:30am, 1pm & 3pm) from March 14-22, 2009. Please join us for lots of singing & dancing and a chance to say hello to all of your favourite animals while also checking out the new Birds of Prey in Flight program. For more information, please visit http://www.vanaqua.org.

And finally, while we put out a call for votes a couple of weeks ago on Facebook, if you missed the announcement, we are thrilled to let you know that we have been nominated for a Canadian Indie Award for Favourite Children’s Artist of the Year. Final winners have been selected by fans - voting closed on March 6th. The winners will be announced at the 9th Annual Independent Music Awards on March 14th. Keep your fingers crossed for us and stay tuned for more soon!

Phew - we jammed a lot of info into this post!! There’s lots more to share though, and hopefully, we will get a chance to write again before the end of the week. We do want to sign off with a BIG thanks to all of you for your continued support and encouragement. You are truly helping make our dreams a reality every day!!

Bobs & Lolo