Jingle Bell 5K, and Fall-ish photos

Last year, I raised funds for the American Red Cross through "Run Red" -- this year, I'm choosing the Arthritis Foundation.

So I'll be running the "Jingle Bell 5K" as part of a team that is raising funds together. (Glen, my mom, and I ran it last year, too, but didn't do any extra fundraising).

PLEASE do not feel obliged!!! But if you want to help me raise funds for the Arthritis Foundation, there should be a link here to my "donation" page, and you can just do it online. There is also a lot of information about the foundation itself.

http://springfieldJBR2008.kintera.org/faf/r.asp?t=4&i=277505&u=277505-237848954&e=1980741017

And now for photos!

We had a cantalope grow into the chain link fence -- it was so much fun to watch it grow there! And it harvested just fine, although it required some on-the-spot surgery.




Larry snuck a picture of me singing.




Our little princess got all dressed up for the ball, but fell asleep before dinner.

Gideon, pretending to be asleep on Madi.

Man, that boy can throw.

The stumps we use for seating around our fire pit have grown the most astonishing lichen this summer. We can't even bear to sit on them, for the beauty of it!

Willow, ascending the play fort in the backyard. (lip gloss first).

Peeking Gideon.

There's a whole album of great September and October family photos at this link, if you want to see more -- http://s304.photobucket.com/albums/nn184/ssmith0130/October%20Photos/

The photos from Indiana

It has been brought to my attention, ahem, that I didn't specifically state that there are a lot of pictures on photobucket of our trip to Indiana, but you have to click on the photo posted here to see them.

So if you click on the photo posted in the "Indiana Dunes, 2008" post, it'll take you to the album in photobucket where the rest of the photos are, and you can see them, too.

Do it! Click it! You know you want to.

Owned

Mommy's gotta stay out of the potty treats.

I have this weakness for skittles... and skittles are Gideon's "potty treat" of choice. (We reward successful potty attempts with one skittle).

This morning, he got his potty treat after doing his biz-ness, and then mommy might have had a few as well.

She also might have grabbed a small handful on the way out to the car, surreptitiously so that none of the Little People would notice (and then demand their own, even in absence of potty-ation).

Chewing my three skittles privately, I leaned in to buckle Gideon's car seat. He had been babbling on about the ninja turtles, and waving his hands to illustrate his point, but he froze, looked up, and sniffed twice, like a hound that caught the scent of a raccoon in the tree above.

He looked right at me and said, "Skittle. I want skittle."

I so got caught.

Haiku time

I'd forgotten how much fun it is to write Haiku.

And they're short and painless, so I'll share. (Since it's just the 6 of us anyway...)

Try one! They're fun!

(and no, I don't stick to the exact syllable structure...that's not the main defining characteristic of haiku anyway...)

dusk falling coldly
smell of fire and burning leaves
lonely autumn road
__

boats rub the bumpers
mud dobbers swarm the boat dock
bluegill play hide and seek
__

gentle running stream
crawdads hide under flat rocks
cold on my bare feet

__
smell of cold
outside the window
snow drifts
__

three jackets by the door
dripping snow melts on the floor
warm dryer running
__

empty summer school
under the second desk in the front row
six colors of bubble gum

August, 2008, Camping

In August, we camped with the Boatmans out at their grandma's farm, just 20 minutes out of town (which meant that we could camp but still make it to all our 'required' weekend events... it was perfect)

The whole weekend was marvelous. We got to try the most wonderful zucchini relish, went home with enough cucumbers to make our own pickle relish, got to go for an early morning country run, got to see an old cemetery, and got to sleep in the old Ted Williams Tent from Sears that's bigger than our first house together...

And we played and played and played.

Here's a few pictures of the boys (Gideon and Cole) playing on the big tractor together.

Indiana Dunes, 2008

Still learning the ropes, so pardon if this is laid out a little funny.

I uploaded all the photos from our camping trip to photobucket, but we'll see if I'm happy with this... I may end up pasting my favorites in here anyway.

But enjoy!! It was such a wonderful trip, and we had so much fun.

Photobucket Album

Sand Angels

We went camping this past weekend at the Indiana Dunes. None of us had ever been there before -- it is just beautiful, and I loved the campground we stayed at. It was, however, COLD. I guess that's what we get for camping in October... But coldness aside, it was a wonderful experience. I haven't downloaded all the photos yet, but I'll get to that later this week -- for now, here's one of Glen making sand angels on the shore of Lake Michigan.

The first moment we got on the beach, all three of our children immediately fell to the ground and rolled around in the sand. We protested for a second, but it was hopeless -- we may as well have dropped them in the middle of a pile of candy, they were so happy to be at the beach.

Camelot photos

Larry was smashing as Sir Dinadan in Camelot recently, and here are some photos for you to see (credited to Donna Lounsberry, not us). He's the handsome bald one in chainmail.

(I also played in an ancient music ensemble with some lifelong family friends -- we were pretty awesome, too. We're just not in the picture.)

Yes, I know I scanned them in crooked. I rule.

Slugabed

Dictionary.com word of the day -- I find these are relevant to me suspiciously often...hmmmm:

Word of the Day for Wednesday, October 1, 2008
slugabed \SLUHG-uh-bed\, noun:
One who stays in bed until a late hour; a sluggard.
Slugabed is from slug, "sluggard" + abed, "in bed."

As in:

"Starting on Monday morning, there will no longer be a slugabed in the Smith household, for we shall be slinging newsprint, faithfully executing our shiny new paper route."

:)