Recognizing that the backyard is already comfortably crowded and cluttered, the kidlets have been laying plans for the (comparably) pristine and spacious front yard for quite some time.  You might recall a long time ago how YaYa desperately wanted to install an asphalt bike path around the perimeter of the…

I love homemade applesauce.  My Grandma Edna used to spoil me with homemade applesauce all the time when I was a teenager and in college.  One time she even brought homemade applesauce to my voice recital, and the jar sat right up on the flower table on the stage while…

I am loving the way The Banana refers to Junie B. Jones in the chapter books we are reading out loud as “Junie B. Bones.” I am loving those quick moving toddler feet that tromp miles each day, even though they seem to lead my little bug into all sorts…

We couldn’t go to Bayfield and NOT stop to play at what has become one of our favorite parks ever.  We love the wooden climbing structures, the  pretend boat, the wonderful tire obstacle courses and climbing structures, the musical chimes, the terrific zipline.  The kidlets were very busy, including Mr.…

Driving over to Bayfield and picking apples at an orchard is another one of those things that has been high on my list of things to do, and something we haven’t done in the five autumn seasons we’ve lived here.  I think it is an experience that is definitely worthy…

In my maternal heritage, there is a long lineage of women who are fantastic verbal story tellers, spanning multiple generations.  When they get together it is noisy and the stories compound and are told with magnificent gusto, and those listening are generally thrown into hysterical laughter . . . the…

I haven’t posted about our favorite reads around the this house for a LONG time!  There’s a lot of reading going on.  YaYa goes through spurts of being a truly voracious reader, especially when she gets caught up in a series of books she really likes or a certain novel…

Being a Mama of a toddler is a rough and tumble job.  During this last week I’ve been clunked on the head with sippy cups, pans from the toy kitchen, sticks from the forest, and books.  I’ve been scratched on the nose. It bled and I looked like Frankenstein.  Yesterday…

This week we had our first very hard freeze.  It’s much earlier than normal for us here next to the Big Lake, but it happened nonetheless, and while it has been met with a bit of wistfulness and shock (it was so very warm just a few days ago)  it…

It happened a couple of days before her birthday, of course, that The Banana had her first day of preschool for this school year.  She had been waiting fervently since the last day of preschool in the fall.  Suffice it to say that my social girl thrives at preschool.  She…