The Banana and I were outside playing, making red maple leaf sandwiches and running around in circles, when she took a little break and pulled out her plastic toy cell phone to make a call to Sophie, our former babysitter who departed to Indiana several months ago now.  The Banana…

We were in the car on our way to pick up Mr. Sneaky Pants from preschool.   The Banana:  What color is Noah's preschool? Me:  Do you mean the outside? The Banana:  Yes. Me:  (Envisioning the brick exterior of the church that houses the preschool)  We'll it's brown.  Dark brown.…

It's fall, and the mice are on the move.  More specifically, the mice are on the move into our house.  We have an old house, and this is just to be expected.  I don't really get very alarmed about the notion because there isn't anything I can do about it.…

Music class started this week.  It is always so fun to see everyone coming together in the same room after much gathering and planning and coordinating that takes place at my desk for a few weeks before the start of class.  On the first day of Thursday class, one little…

On Friday morning I asked The Banana and Mr. Sneaky Pants if they would rather paint pictures on big pieces of paper at home or go and climb their favorite tree at Hartley Nature Park.  They picked the tree, hands down, instantly.  This didn't really surprise me very much.  We…

I'm just loving these pictures of Ya Ya.  They capture her personality.  Serious one second.  Wild with maniacal laughter the next second.  Second grade is going so well for her.  I'm so relieved.  And happy.  

They were so very delighted to have gotten through the gate first and and to have locked me inside the fence in the flower garden.

I have been looking out my kitchen window at my neighbor's amazing maple tree in it's full, brilliant glory all week, lamenting the fact that I probably wouldn't make it up the north shore to bask in the inland maple forests.  We are having a late fall this year, and the previous…

She had done something she wasn't supposed to do.  I resorted to my overly calm, dreadfully serious, deep Mama voice, "Tell me the truth, Hannah." "No."   In an even deeper voice with a stern face, I said, "Tell me the truth right now, or there will be a BIG…

   In the middle of August while we were at the cabin, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law Dot, and I were browsing through some shops on a rainy morning.  I happened to pass by these three boxes  of storytelling cards, and I knew immediately that I HAD to have them.  My…