Pachelbel -- stole this from Sass

I've seen this one before, but it still cracks me up.

Sass posted it, so I'm stealing it... if you have time and haven't seen it, it's really cute.

Post from Justin I've got to share

Justin posted this video on his blog -- I love bluegrass, I love shape-note music, I love old hymns... I had to share this with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKbH6Dga3zo

(and I'm pretty excited that I figured out how to embed a video)

Dinner

There's a good reason we don't go "out" to eat that often.

Really, it's just more comfortable for the public when we stay in.

And besides, we get to have craft time.

And the kids prefer it, anyway.

The rest of the album is here... Dinner with the Boatmans.

Halloween Photos

At last, Halloween Photos! The whole album is on photobucket -- you should be able to click any of the photos and get there, if you want to see them all.

Gideon was a Ninja Turtle, in an inspired night-before creation courtesy of Larry (the Shells are GREAT, and made with stuff we had around the house already). However, he got tired of the Shells after just a little while, and took them off -- so he's just wearing a green sweatsuit with a blue mask. Larry said, "It just looks like we didn't try!" But we swear, we did try!! The best laid plans ...

Willow was going to be a flamenco princess in her beautiful new flamenco dress from Spain, but at the last moment was infatuated with the hoop on her purple princess dress-- so she was princess Willow (and remained princess Willow for several days after Halloween. We did finally get her to take it off.)

Glen was Albert Pujols (another stroke of genius from Larry -- we already had everything we needed).

So this year's Halloween was an unparalleled success! We spent $0.00 and everyone was thrilled with their costume!

Willow and Caiti.

Gideon, with the shells on!

Mr. Pujols.

In case the links don't work on the photos, the album is here:

(Caiti, there's a bunch of good ones of Cole there!)

A little self-promotion

First:

I promise that Halloween Photos are on the way, and will have been posted by the weekend. They're great!

Second:

This Christmas Season, I am just thrilled to have found myself wrapped up (and filled up) with music again! I have lucked into some really wonderful gigs, and am surprised to feel how deeply I'd missed all of this. It's a part of life that I've let go undeveloped too long... (so here's hoping they all go well!)

Here's a list of where and when, if you can make it out:

Nov. 22nd, 4:00 pm -- Seraphim will sing at the Festival of Trees (Orr Bldg, state fairgrounds)

Nov. 30, 5:30 pm -- Fealty (ancient music group) will be playing at Cantrall Methodist

Dec. 2 -- Meagan Turner and I will be entertaining a women's group from a local church with flute/violin and vocal duets (this is just for their women's group, no public, but I'm excited about it and have to mention it anyway!)

Dec 12, 13: Fealty will play at the LLCC Madrigals dinner (they'll play on the 14th too, but I had this other gig...)

Dec. 14: I'll play flute with the Prairieland Voices chorus for the Charpentier "Messe de Minuit pour Noel" at the Episcopal Church at the corner of 2nd and Lawrence (St. Paul's, I believe).

I can't express how excited I am about all of these!

And below, a photo of Seraphim:

And another:

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.