We have season tickets to the symphony this year.  This is a very, very big deal for me.  For at least five years of my adolescence, I diligently asked my parents for tickets to go see the symphony in Bismarck.  Every year, it was at the top of my list.…

A few years ago my neighbor was having a garage sale and selling a really nice trumpet.  Of course I could not LEAVE the trumpet there!  Garage sales . . . musical instruments . . . I could not resist that lovely combination.  The trumpet was in excellent condition, but…

We haven't QUITE figured out how to attach the helmet!  When she found her brother's favorite motorcycle toy, though, The Banana knew that she needed a helmet to drive it around, even if it was just a little motorcycle.  She searched out Mr. Sneaky Pants' bike helmet to complete the…

I forgot to mention that amid our other houseguests, my mom and sister-in-law came to visit several days ago.  While my husband, The Banana and Mr. Sneaky Pants were taking an extended Sunday afternoon nap, the rest of us went on a beautiful fall hike, a quick drive down Seven…

We were excited to have our medical school friends who now live in The Cities come up for the day on Saturday.  After a very crazy lunch (seven kids and four grown ups is a lot for our dining room table!) we drove down to the rocky beach to scramble…

I've been waiting to blog about this for weeks, thinking that I'd take a picture to go with what I wanted to say.  I did take the perfect picture, but it accidentally got deleted from my camera!  Drat.   Over the past six weeks I've been working very hard in…

The Banana has been tickled with the leaves that have fallen on the sidewalk.  She likes zooming down the hill on her plastic foot bike and crashing into a pile at the corner of the sidewalk, where I have plopped myself to make sure that non of my children miscalculate…

One growing boy.  One  well-loved Big Wheel bicycle, courtesy of a dad who couldn't resist giving his son the opportunity to scoot around like he did.  One superhero cape poorly sewn by a non-sewing mom.  One gleeful ride down the sidewalk.  

We were so thrilled to be able to have our good friends from residency in Wisconsin come and visit us from the great state of Montana.  Our two nights and one full day with them were spent in fantastic conversation, and sprinkled with lots of fun kid activities.  We played…

Look what Mr. Sneaky Pants did on the long car drive home from North Dakota last weekend.  I unfortunately didn't know that the coloring book Grandma Robbie gave him had a sheet of stickers in the middle of it.  Oh Joy.