When he was a preschooler Mr. TOF was obsessed with marching bands. He would pretend to be a marching band every day, and my mom even sewed him a marching band costume for Christmas one year. He was so excited. He grew up watching YaYa and then the Devious Snail…

This, in some form, happens almost every day. Not only is the drumming exuberant, but there is also glorious singing to go with it. Let’s just say it is capable of waking even slightly comatose teenager brothers.

He’s actually pretty handy with a rake! Did he do a lot of jumping in leaf piles? Not as much as I expected, but he did love throwing balls into piles of leaves and then pretending to be a dog that found the ball. He got the idea from our…

It is the special edition, in which The Banana models a sweatshirt with her college logo on it! It’s actually my sweatshirt, but she somehow managed to end up wearing it to the beach. I made sure it didn’t leave in her car when she went back to college. To…

YaYa was here for one Sunday Night at the Beach, and by the next Sunday Night at the Beach she had departed and The Banana had arrived! Again, the weather was a lovely temperature for autumn, and Peanut Maximus soaked up some awesome sister time.

After YaYa departed it was only a matter of days before The Banana was scheduled to arrive home for a tiny visit since she had a little break at college. Peanut Maximus was counting the days until her arrival. Two days before she was going to arrive, The Banana texted…

This is what happens when you are practicing the piano and your teenager decides that you should pay attention to them. I kept playing. He kept adding sticky notes. I played through the first couple of sticky notes, but eventually I did have to stop because I couldn’t remember all…

I persuaded YaYa to leave me with some art to admire on the chalkboard next to the back deck before she left, and of course Peanut Maximus wanted to help. I love the juxtaposition so much!

He’ll make a pretend musical instrument out of pretty much anything: a block of wood, a hose, a spoon, whatever he gets his hands on, and then he usually drags out a music stand and swipes someone’s music books to do his own “practicing.” He pretends to go to school…

YaYa was visiting! We needed to drop off Mr. TOF at a rowing banquet and pick him back up after about an hour, so we decided to stay down at the sandy beach. The weather was a lovely temperature, although there was a brief rain shower, which made for some…