Friday, August 29

• Marin Shakespeare Company presents Much Ado About Nothing at 8 pm. Special event: Pay What You Will: donations of amount accepted at the door. Forest Meadows Amphitheatre at Dominican University of California, San Rafael. More information: www.marinshakespeare.org.

• Film Night in the Park will be showing Shaolin Soccer on Friday evening at 8 pm at Creek Park in San Anselmo. Suggested donation $6 for adults and $3 for children. For more info, go to www.filmnight.org. 

Saturday, August 30 

• The 56th annual Sausalito Art Festival takes place Labor Day Weekend on the Sausalito waterfront at the Bay Model Visitor Center and Marinship Park. Enjoy a wide selection of art and artists as well as fabulous live music. There will lots of children’s entertainment including Tim Cain and The Magic Family Cirucus show. Saturday hours are 9 am to 6 pm. Adults $20, seniors 62+ $10, juniors 6–12 $5, children under 6 free. 3-day pass is $30. Advance tickets: (866) 468-3399 or www.ticketweb.com. More information: (415) 331-3555 or www.sausalitoartfestival.org.

Now that summer is almost over, it’s once again time to sign up the kids for fall classes. One thing my kids really enjoy are music programs. They love to sing and dance to the music and play the different instruments offered. We’ve tried a few different classes around Marin and the North Bay, and really like the Kindermusik programs offered here in Novato by Music with Melissa and the Mary Ann Hall's Music for Children. Regardless of which program you choose, there is a music class for every child from newborn to grade school.

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Marin Mommies is pleased to present a guest post by photographer Norm Levin, owner of Natural Portraits: Family and event photography as nature intended. He offers some valuable tips on photographing your children's soccer games (and any other sports activity). Read on to learn how to capture that perfect sports photo. You can visit Norm online at www.naturalportraits.smugmug.com

Where did the summer go?

It seems like yesterday that school was out and we were taking the little ones off on a family trip, or to camp, or swimming and baseball practices. As a parent with a camera, which eliminates practically no one, you’ve attempted with varying degrees of success to capture your child actively enjoying his or her outdoor pursuits.

Those cherished summer events are mostly behind us now, living on in our memories and stored on our digital devices.

If your refrigerator door is anything like ours, it’s already displaying your child’s fall soccer team assignment precariously held under a magnet. When the soccer season starts, which should be any minute now, you know you’ll be there digital camera in hand to get the photo goods. May the god of pixels be with you.

Who doesn’t love cupcakes? These delectable little cakes are currently very trendy, and for good reason—they’re sweet, tasty, cute, and of course all yours! They’re especially great for a birthday party, as there’s no cake cutting and its attendant mess involved, and no fighting over the size of cake slices and who gets the frosting flower on their piece.

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Friday, August 22

• Marin Shakespeare Company presents Amadeus at 8 pm. General admission: adults $27.50 advance, $30 at the door; seniors $22.50 advance/$25 door; youth 18 and under are $15. Forest Meadows Amphitheatre at Dominican University of California, San Rafael. More information: www.marinshakespeare.org.

• The North Bay Shakespeare presents A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Hamilton Amphitheater in Novato. Performances run from August 8–October 5. This Friday's performance will benefit Novato's School Fuel program. Performance starts at 7:00 pm. For more info, go to our article.

• Enjoy Jazz & Blues by the Bay this Friday at Gabrielson Park in Sausalito from 6:30–8 pm. For more info, call (415) 289-4152.

• Film Night in the Park will be showing Ratatouille on Friday evening at 8 pm at Old Mill Park (300th block of Throckmorton Ave.) in Mill Valley. Suggested donation $6 for adults and $3 for children. For more info, go to www.filmnight.org.

Get ready to dance in the aisles at the Marin Symphony Family Concert on Sunday, September 28 at 3 pm. The theme of this family-friendly concert is “Gotta Dance!”, and features famous walzes, tangos, can-cans, polkas, and ballet music. The Marin Symphony’s Family Concerts are special one-hour programs designed to introduce children to the wonders of symphonic music. Conducted by George Thompson and narrated by KDFC radio’s Hoyt Smith, the concert features classical works by Strauss, Hayden, Offenbach, Tchaikovsky, and others. The concert takes place in the Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium at Marin Center in San Rafael.

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Congratulations to Cheryl K., who won the 2008–2009 BusyBodyBook organizer! We hope you get some good use out of it. It's a great product. Thanks to About Your Time, LLC, publisher of the BusyBodyBook for sponsoring this giveaway.