Fall 2012 photo dump

September 2012
Robyn was blessed and we went to the Great Lakes Science Center, both over Labor Day weekend.  We visited the Greater Cleveland Aquarium a few times, including on International Talk Like A Pirate Day.  Benjamin even came with us once.  Julie started preschool, the "real" kind, not the mom-run kind.  Julie also did soccer, which entailed sitting and crying on my or Ben's laps for an hour because other kids didn't let her get the ball.

Robyn in her blessing dress.

Olive fingers!

Robyn is not impressed.

Sweet girl, waiting for a checkup with the doctor.

Daddy came with us to the GCA.

Jellyfish!!

Another visit to the GCA a few days later for pirate day.

First day of soccer

Doctor Julie.

Ben gave me these pearl earrings as a wedding gift.  My earlobes got infected about six weeks after we got married, and I never had a chance to wear them, until almost seven years later.  I feel a little giddy and twitterpated when I do get to wear them

October 2012
Robyn started to become more fun.  She became interactive, deliberately comical, and much more responsive than ever before.  We had a Halloween party at church, with a costume parade that Julie participated in.  Halloween was also delayed a few days because of a huge snowstorm.  (The cities around here have specific trick-or-treating hours, so they all rescheduled.)

Mountain girl

Bathtime fun

Twinners (we planned this picture back in July, but then we were each out of town for different reasons for almost two months before we were able to do it!)

I did a really deep de-cluttering in the basement and a couple other areas in the house.  Every time I found a hair decoration, I put it in my own hair.

More bathtime fun!  (Glowstick bracelets + turn out the lights!)

Dinner at a local pizza place for a fundraiser for Julie's school.

Costume parade

What the girls wore on Halloween

November 2012
Julie moved up to a booster seat in preparation for Robyn to graduate out of her infant carrier.  Election day.  Ben wore a tuxedo for an event that only required jeans (he did it on purpose).  We went to a bar mitzvah celebration for one of Ben's scouts.  We got to eat, chat, bowl, and play whirlyball in the court that wasn't being used.  Robyn turned one and we did absolutely nothing to celebrate.  We skipped stake conference one Sunday and went for a family hike instead.  I went out to dinner with some girlfriends to celebrate one of their birthdays only to find out that it was also for my birthday.  Julie got her very first LEGOs and immediately fell in love with them (as did Benjamin).  We celebrated Thanksgiving with some friends.  We got our first snow.  We had a quick overnight visit from Grammy and my sister (Auntie Candice).  Probably most exciting was that we got a piano!!

Not a very helpful picture, but Robyn was a skunk for Halloween.

The Halloween haul.

Election day -- patriotic colors!

Julie took a nap in the chair, and Robyn was rocking her.

Whirlyball

Bowling

Robyn, on her birthday, wearing the dress I wore when I was blessed as a baby.

Thanksgiving food, including a lemon cheesecake that I made!!

Silliness!

Pruny feet

Just chillin'

Sistersbutnottwins

Our piano!!!

Thankful November: Day 23

Today I am thankful for Christmas music. Wahoo! I get to listen to it now! I start listening on my birthday, or Thanksgiving, whichever comes first. Actually, I think my birthday is the earliest that Thanksgiving can ever be. But I'm listening to Christmas music now, and unless you hit the "pause" button above, so are you!

Thankful November: Day 16

Today I am thankful for music. I like a good variety of music, and I enjoy listening to it. At church, I am in charge of selecting the hymns to sing each week, and conducting the music as well. Music evokes emotion and memories of many things. But mostly I just like having music on during the day, whether it's the radio, a CD, or a playlist on the computer. It keeps me company, and it's just fun.

Wishful Wednesday: Concert Tickets

Last week I heard a radio commercial for a concert that will be in Cleveland in November. It features these two (yes, two) fabulously talented ladies:

Kelly Clarkson and Reba McEntire have a history of performing together. Okay, they appeared on CMT Crossroads, but they will be here in Cleveland on their 2 Worlds 2 Voices tour. What a fun show that would be!

Part of this Wishful Wednesday is my confession that I have only ever been to one (yes, one) concert, and it was while Ben and I were dating. We went to see Green Day, with Jimmy Eat World opening for them. It was fun.

What do YOU wish for today?

Wishful Wednesday: iPod Bundle

Since I have far too much time on my hands, and I tend to spend most of it online, I see a lot of things that I would like to have/try/eat/make. To help share those things (or perhaps to give me something specific to blog about), I will be starting a weekly series on my blog called "Wishful Wednesday" in which I will share what I wish for that week.

To kick things off, I have a confession to make. I do not have an MP3 player. No iPod, no Zune, no nothing like that. We have a three-disc CD player on our main floor, which Ben bought partly because it looks cool, however, with the discs sitting nearly vertical they don't play very well. They skip a lot and it won't play homemade discs. So except for a $20 Wal-mart radio in the kitchen, I don't have any music upstairs. It's all loaded into iTunes on our computer in the basement. And now that the entertainment center has moved to the basement, I'm even more S.O.L.

So today's Wishful Wednesday covet is this. It's an 8GB iPod Nano bundled together with a speaker system that includes a radio and a clock. It's small enough to be portable, but good enough to be permanent. And after the rebate, it's only $209.99 (which is probably pretty good for the player AND the speaker system). In not having this, I guess I can take comfort in the fact that Ben checked out reviews and they were all mostly 1 and 2 stars out of 5 anyway.

What do YOU wish for today?

Musical feature

Today's feature is somewhat of a repeat, but with more detail. I will be highlighting all my musical links.

First, you may have noticed that I have removed the music player from my blog. Mostly it's because I don't listen to the radio as much anymore now that I'm not out in the car every day, so I wasn't hearing any new music. I may put it back up at some point in the future. We'll see. In the meantime, the website I used to create my playlist (you can create multiple lists, with different themes if you want even) is Project Playlist.

Next up we have my friend Erin. I've mentioned her previously as the giver of a unique gift to Ben, Julie, and I. I have two links on my page to her music. The first is to her MySpace page, which doesn't have her newest work on it, but enjoyable tunes nonetheless, and an occasional blog entry. Her other link requires a little explaining.

Every year for the last three (I think) years, Erin has participated in February Album Writing Month, or FAWM. It is a challenge that songwriters participate in in which they try to write 14 songs in 28 days. This year, in addition to her regular FAWM activities, she is participating in the 50 Song Challenge -- 50 songs in 90 days, or 50/90. The song she wrote for Julie was her first of the challenge. She continues to upload songs to her 50/90 page as she gets the demos recorded. So far, I get to listen to a new one about every 2-3 days, which is really fun.

Awesome gift

Okay, so I said I'd have more on our friends Dave and Erin later. This post is about them. Well, more about Erin (sorry Dave).

Erin is an amazing musician. She plays lots of instruments (I don't even know how many), and writes her own music. As a gift to us, she wrote and recorded a song for Julie. It's called "All of My Heart." Click here to listen to it and to read the lyrics.

If you enjoy it, click here and here to listen to more of Erin's original music.

Thank you so much Dave and Erin! This was truly a beautiful song (not that we're biased at all), and a most unique gift.

American Idol

In honor of the American Idol season finale and crowning of the winner next week, I've temporarily changed my music playlist to play only songs recorded by this season's contestants. These have been some of my favorite performances. You can tell pretty easily from looking through the list who I'm rooting for.

Weekly highlights

Sunday: Ben came home from his camping trip, and we didn't get the snow that was in the weather forecast (okay, maybe a few flakes, but not really enough to count).

Monday: This isn't really my highlight, but Ben's. Ben got to go to the Indians game on Monday (which to him was really the Red Sox game), and the Sox won! I was going to go, but a couple weeks ago I decided that I probably wouldn't enjoy myself a whole lot since I likely wouldn't really fit into the seats. So Ben went with a friend instead.


Tuesday: The highlight of Tuesday was definitely American Idol. David Cook was even more awesome and amazing than usual. I also went out for a walk this afternoon.

Wednesday: Got shelves to put inside my new kitchen cabinets, for organizational purposes.

Thursday: My dad stayed with us Thursday night on his way across the country to take the car to my sister at BYU. She was accepted into the nursing program there, and they require her to have a car. Weird. And it was so nice that we ate dinner on the patio out back.

Friday: I slept GREAT (comparatively speaking) on Thursday night, so when I woke up Friday morning, I felt really well-rested. Oh, and my dad told me this morning before he left that, other than the baby itself, I look like I've lost weight. Yay!!

Saturday: Nothing great really happened on Saturday. I suppose maybe the highlight was that Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was on TV this evening. I'm not a big Harry Potter fan (I have no interest in the books whatsoever), but this was my favorite of the movies, so it was fun to watch it.

Pop quiz answers

To those of you that played my Christmas carol game, I'm glad you had fun. It's time to post the answers and see if you got them right! If you haven't played yet, and you want to, click here before reading any further in this post.

1. O Come All Ye Faithful
   
   
2. Deck the Halls
   
   
3. The Little Drummer Boy
   
   
4. I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas
   
   
5. Silent Night
   
   
6. We Three Kings
   
   
7. The First Noel
   
   
8. Silver Bells
   
   
9. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
   
   
10. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
    
    
11. Let it Snow!
    
    
12. We Wish You a Merry Christmas
    
    
13. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
    
    
14. Santa Claus is Coming to Town
    
    
15. Walking in a Winter Wonderland
    
    
16. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
    
    
17. O Little Town of Bethlehem
    
    

The hardest one for me (even a year later after I already know them) is number 4, because the title is technically just "White Christmas," and that's how I've always known it. Trying to figure out the whole phrase from the wordy clue was difficult when the phrase isn't what I would have had in mind to begin with.

On a side note, to hear the most annoying (and pointless) Christmas song ever recorded, click here. But don't say I didn't warn you!

Pop quiz!

I love Christmas music. I know everyone says that, but I really do. I like fun stuff, classic stuff, new stuff, original stuff, and hard-to-find stuff. Last year I came across a list of Christmas carols that had been "re-named" in technical legal-ese type language. It was a quiz to see how many you could figure out. It's not too hard, and it's fun. The list is re-printed below for your enjoyment. I'll post the answers toward the end of the week.

1. Move Hither the Entire Assembly of Those Who Are Loyal in Their Belief
   
   
2. Embellish Interior Passageways
   
   
3. Vertically Challenged Adolescent Percussionist
   
   
4. First Person Singular Experiencing An Hallucinatory Phenomenon of a Natal Celebration Devoid of Color
   
   
5. Soundless Nocturnal Period
   
   
6. Majestic Triplet Referred to in the First Person Plural
   
   
7. The Yuletide Occurrence Preceding All Others
   
   
8. Precious Metal Musical Devices
   
   
9. Omnipotent Supreme Being Elicit Respite to Ecstatic Distinguished Males
   
   
10. Caribou with Vermilion Olfactory Appendage
    
    
11. Allow Crystalline Formations to Descend
    
    
12. Jovial Yuletide Desired for the Second Person Singular or Plural by the First Person Plural
    
    
13. Commence Auditory Reception the Announcing Cherubs Vocalize
    
    
14. Kris Kringle Will Be Arriving in the City in the Not Too Distant Future
    
    
15. Bipedal Traveling Through an Amazing Acreage During the Period Between December 21st and March 21st in the Northern Hemisphere
    
    
16. Its Arrival Occurred at Twelve O'Clock During a Clement Nocturnal Period
    
    
17. Exclamatory Remark Concerning a Diminutive Municipality in Judea Southwest of Jerusalem
    
    
    

Good luck, and have fun!!

Quick note about music

For those of you who wanted to put a music player on your blog, or who wanted more info about mine, this post is for you. If you scroll down my page a little and look on the right, you'll see a little box entitled "My Current Favorite Songs" in which you will see a music player. The address where you can build your own such music player is http://www.projectplaylist.com/. You can search for music by title, by artist, even by album if you want. Set up a username and password, and create your own playlist(s). To add them to Blogger, simply go to the "Template" tab on your own blog, then click on "Add a page element." The element that you want to add is the one called "HTML/JavaScript." When you open that up, paste the HTML code that Project Music Playlist generates for you into that field, and it will come out looking like mine. Feel free to email me (or comment) with any questions.

The best music ever recorded

I'm a music person. Not a musicAL person, mind you, but a music person. I do play piano, but it's been many many years since I've been able to spend any time playing. And I don't sing. Period.

But I love to listen to music. I love to have it on in the background. I like a variety of different types of music. In the coming months, I am excited to listen to Christmas music again. I think it's my favorite, but Ben won't listen to it any earlier than the end of Thanksgiving dinner.

I recently found a new (to me) radio station here in Cleveland that I have just fallen in love with. It's WKHR FM 91.5: Keeping your memories alive. It's got great music from the first half of last century: Bing, Rosemary, Frank, Ella, Louis, all the greats. It's fabulous music to just put on in the background, whether I'm cooking, reading, have company over, or just doing housework. Even thought it's all very much before my time (and in some cases even before my parents' time), I'm falling in love with this music the more I listen to it.

Just wanted to share.