Once upon a time there was a mother who had three children, a big girl with lots of ideas, a medium boy with lots of emotions, and a small, but zesty girl with a great desire to be included.  The big girl with lots of ideas happened to have a…

It all started four years ago, on a sweltering humid summer Sunday afternoon in Wisconsin.  We were miserable.  It was sticky inside.  It was sticky outside.  I sent my husband to Walmart to locate and purchase a plastic swimming pool. Plastic swimming pools, up until that point, had been a…

The Banana heard Dr. Peds drive up in his car this evening and zoomed over to the window in the office to holler down "Hi Daddy!"  To her delight, he brought home pizza to commemorate Father's Day. She was a very happy girl. We celebrated Father's Day by going to…

Today was marathon day!  We loaded up the kidlets, five apples and a sack of graham crackers, two lawn chairs, a blanket, and five 3-bell jingle sticks (to make noise for the runners) and settled in on a grassy spot near the 24 mile mark.   The kidlets made signs…

Tomorrow is Grandma's Marathon, which means that today was the annual Whippersnapper (usually referred to as Snippersnapper around here) race.  Mr. Sneaky Pants has been waiting one full year to participate in this race.  He was hooked after our runner friends, the Penns, visited during the last marathon.  He was…

When the cat's away, the mice do play, and play, and play, and play.  Mr. SP was off with Dr. Peds for the afternoon, and The Banana had a great time trying out the precious plastic knight helmet.  She was pretty proud of herself, marching around with a strut that…

We had a spontaneous picnic supper with friends at the beach tonight, complete with ice cream cupcakes with frosting.  They were drippy and tasty, and Mr. SP and The Banana slurped them right up.   It was a fun night of wave watching, rock climbing, baby cuddling, munching, and super…

One of The Banana's first words was "Ya Ya!"  screamed from her carseat as Sarah ran down the sidewalk to catch a school bus to kindergarten last year.  Even though The Banana can say "Sassa" (what she called herself as a toddler, followed by Mr. SP and the rest of…

We'd been contemplating a visit to a Renaissance Faire this summer for several months now, knowing our young knight would be pretty fascinated.  We had planned on making the trek down to The Cities in September for the gigantic Faire, but a couple of weeks ago Dr. Peds brought home…

I found this tiny, tiny weed blooming in my yard.  I braved the biting mayflies to snap the picture, but they took a chunk out of my forehead.