finally. a movie to look forward to.
craig and i love to go out to the movies. unfortunately, there has been a serious lack of good movies to go and spend 20 bucks on. however, this weekend i have a reason to fight the maddening traffic to bellevue....... LARS AND THE REAL GIRL.

honestly, i would watch ryan gosling iron shirts for two hours, but that is hardly the point. i think he is an incredible actor, and has a knack for picking quirky and inspiring scripts. anyway, i hope somebody else out there in the blogging world goes and watches Lars and the Real Girl so we can talk about it.

select a candidate quiz
go to this website and take the quiz. it is a short/not-too-complicated quiz to show you which candidate you line up with the most on views and opinions. i was so surprised to see who my "number one guy/woman" (dont want to give my answer away) is!

http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460

our pumpkin search
we take this process very seriously.

notice how my scarf is orange? i even color coordinated my outfit with the outing!

we loaded that sucker to capacity. by this time, craig was sweating. :)

do you see that very prominent wrinkle in the middle of me forehead? well, when i was only a couple years old, my cousin pushed me into a corner of a wall and it permanently dented my skull! i had it rough, growing up.

this was craig, being mysterious in the corn maze. sometimes, during our lame photo-ops, i feel like people think we are a little annoying. they just wish they could be as uninhibited as the smiths. :)

louis, sizing up the harvest. he takes this sacred pumpkin-picking event as seriously as his parents.

cranberry bread
so, i have been wanting to put some recipes on my blog for some time now. my grandma, "mom", put together this huge cookbook of all our family's recipes and i love trying out new ones! this was the first time i made cranberry bread, but it turned out pretty well. so, for any of you that are in the mood for some good old autumn-time-comfort-food here is the recipe:

cranberry bread
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, beaten
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons hot water
2 tablespoons cooking oil (vegetable)
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup nuts (optional)
1 cup cut fresh cranberries
grated rind of one orange

sift together dry ingredients. add beaten egg, oil, orange juice, hot water, and sugar in separate bowl. combine wet ingredients to dry ingredients only until moistened. fold in nuts, cranberries, and orange rind. bake in greased bread tin (lined at the bottom with parchment paper) at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes. cool.

*i guess i must be hallucinating, but i could have sworn that you were supposed to put coarse sugar on top of the loaf halfway during the baking process..... but when i consulted "mom" about this, it was news to her. but i did it anyway, and it was a yummy addition.*

i know, i know mom.
i know that my mom gets slightly offended by intimate pictures of husbands.... but i thought this one was too cute to pass up. i found craig last night....... "studying". rough life.

its the most wonderful time of the year
the smith family would just like to say "happy October 1st".

the ultrasound
so excuse my distorted belly, but this is me after my ultrasound. it was twenty two minutes of pure bliss. i didnt want it to ever end! i am five months and one week along.... and everything is going well. we feel so incredibly blessed.

this is baby's face. he/she woke up halfway through the ultrasound and started kicking like crazy. i was uncontrollably giggling because i loved being able to finally see what i am always feeling.

when the technician measured the legs i looked away and she stopped the recording (we were recording the whole ultrasound on a vhs tape). so i still dont know the sex of the baby. but this is good picture of the spine and head.

post script. after reading that last caption, i realized it sounded like it was a big mistake/horrible coincidence that i didnt see the baby's wee-parts. but the truth of the matter is that we are holding out to find out the sex of the baby until the day he/she decides to show us in person.

this is the best picture! i love the little fingers. sadly, craig was not able to make it to the ultrasound. it was his first day of his second year in dental school and there was just no way he could skip it. so my mom was my companion for the day. i was so grateful that she was able to come with me, it made the day even more special.

i hope these shoddy videos work. they are a recording of a recording, but i thought it might get the idea across. the first video is of the baby yawning. the three cord-y looking things is the umbilical cord. the second video is of the heart, the face, and then the little hand. too cute!