Christmas card photo shoot

Wow! The Christmas card photos came out really great this year. Thanks to my beautiful subjects, as always. Allen, in particular, was a very good boy and deserved the sugar mice he got in return for his cooperation. Actually, he deserved a lot better than sugar mice! Ick.

These include some outtakes that didn't make the card but easily could have. For the whole lot, click here.

We had a nice lunch first at the Trailhead brewery, and then watched the Main Street St. Charles Christmas parade... It was very Victorian and really got us all in the spirit of the holiday (even though it was pretty darn warm out!).


We met some nice ladies on the porch of the wine shop who volunteered to take some shots of all four of us... so rare! In return, I took pictures of all four of them -- with all four of their cameras!

A trip to the English Shop for candy (including the aforementioned sugar mice) rounded out a very successful day.


Merry Christmas, everyone!

Thanksgiving snow

We ought to have snow every year... because the turkey came out awesome!

Maybe the cold and wet made the fire burn even more slowly. Who knows?

We had all our usual fixings, and everything tasted great. So much to be thankful for!

All-Orange Lunch Day

Mmmmmmm. Monochromatic!

Many of Allen's favorite foods are orange... so you can imagine how happy he is on All-Orange Lunch Day. Pork chops in red-pepper glaze, carrots with butter and soul food seasoning, and Velveeta shells and cheese. Orange juice makes the perfect pairing!

And, as you can tell by his attire, it was darn warm outside, too!

Getting 'Gross' with my boy

We had the day off school, so Allen and I decided to take in the "Grossology" exhibit at the St. Louis Science Center.

Subtitled "The Impolite Science of the Human Body," the exhibit teaches us about all that great stuff: Farts, burps, snot, scabs, barf... Things that 5-year-old boys love to titter about in abundance. Here Allen is, crawling on skin. The handholds and footholds represent the various blemishes that mar our bodies...

We even walked through a giant nose, and Allen took my picture cozying up to the septum!

Elsewhere in the Science Center, we studied some fossils and checked out a truly amazing mummified baby. Up on the bridge, we checked the speed of the cars going by -- perhaps they were going too fast, because an accident had gummed up traffic for us on the way home!

To see all of the photos from Grossology, etc., click here.

Lunch at Tiger Town

Something you discover in sixth grade: Mommy is not really welcome at school. Certainly not when she's going around calling herself "Mommy." OMG!

So, when you get an invitation... to actually come to school... when there's actual kids around... you know it's a big deal.

All sixth-graders take a rotation of classes that are kind of like the "home ec" and "shop" that we remember. FACS stands for Family and Consumer Sciences. The big finale of the class was making a mock restaurant. They named theirs "Tiger Town." (Mizzou's mascot is the tiger.)

Emilyn was the hostess... She needs to work on her people skills, though, because she hustled me out to wait in the hall! ("We're not open yet!!" Maybe she wouldn't have done that to someone who wasn't her "Mommy." heeheehee)

The menu consisted of pretzel sticks (in three flavors), pizza (cheese or pepperoni) and chocolate-dipped pretzels (white or milk).

Everything was very tasty and very filling. Our water glasses were always promptly filled. They anticipated an overflow crowd, but really didn't get one. So I wish Daddy and Allen could have come along. I brought them a doggie bag of chocolate-dipped pretzels.

For all the shots from my lunch at Tiger Town, click here.

Meet the Crescendo Singers !

What's the worst night for the child of a "news Mommy" to be in a concert?

You guessed it! Election Night! And I was most distressed because I knew I would be sitting around doing basically nothing but waiting for election returns while Emilyn was on stage and knocking 'em dead.

So I hatched a plan, and my very sweet bosses went for it. I came in early and stayed late, but took a 2.5-hour break in between to drive home, watch my girl sing, and drive back. And it was so worth it! Great job, kiddo!