The Banana has a way of just deciding that she is now more grown up than I think she ought to be.  For example, last summer, she crawled out of her crib at a much too early age, and took to sleeping in a toddler bed, or her big sister's…

My cousin Lisa was born when I was a spritely eight years old.  I was terribly excited that there was finally another girl in the family on my mom's side.  Even better, my aunt named her one of my favorite names:  Lisa, AND it turned out that she was born…

I was thrilled that my Auntie Nannie and my cousins decided travel my direction for their vacation this last week.  It's been years since anyone from my family besides my parents have visited me, and I just had a blast.  I had forgotten how funny my family can be.  At…

Yesterday I loaded up the kidlets and drove up to Lutsen, a ski resort on the North Shore.  Obviously we weren't skiing.  In fact, I simply don't ski.  Skiing would be bad news with my degree of uncoordination.  Instead, we took a gondola ride over to Moose Mountain to observe…

Between the three of them, our adventures to the park involve one person swooping down the slide, squealing with laughter, one person climbing up to the slide, and one final person running from the bottom of the slide to the ascent.  They rotate through this routine over, and over and…

They really do well together.  Although Sarah fights with Mr. Sneaky Pants, and Mr. Sneaky Pants fights with The Banana, the biggest and littlest ones of the bunch work fairly well together.  That doesn't mean that there is frustration when The Banana knocks down Sarah's block creations, or that The…

On Friday morning, the weather was beautiful!  After sending Sarah off to school on the bus, The Banana, Mr. Sneaky Pants and I decided it would be a good morning for a little preschool-sized hike.  We drove to the nature park nearby, and hiked up to rock knob, one of…

My children seem to think my hammock is as comfortable as I do.  This means I don't get to use it as much.  They see me coming out the back door and they run to the hammock before I get there.  

We were so excited to have Gramma Kathy stay with us for four entire days last weekend.  We kept her extremely busy, dragging her along to show off all of our favorite places:  the rocky beach, the sand beach, enormous boats swooshing through the canal, the farmer's market, the bread…

Mr. Sneaky Pants has been waiting MONTHS for preschool to start.  Last April we visited his preschool while they were having an open house, and he has been desperate for fall to arrive ever since.  I was more than apprehensive about whether or not he'd be ready for preschool, but…