Although I love winter, and I'm not even all that terribly tired of it yet, this week, yet another week of extremely cold temperatures and a lot of staying inside, has made me crave green foilage a little bit. Aren't house plants nice? Mine would be even nicer if I…

It was a festive morning at Mr. Sneaky Pant's preschool today.  The Banana and I attended a parade, where three long dragons wound themselves around the room.  The dragon heads were boxes painted by the students, and behind each dragon head tromped many dragon feet under a long piece of…

Today, in the car on the way home from preschool: Mr. Sneaky Pants:  Did you know Mrs. Lindgren has those things on her teeth? Those bracelets?  And she can't ever take them off until summer time.  That's a long time from now.  She has to eat her cheese stick very…

The entire St. Olaf choir concert was breathtakingly beautiful, but there were a group of three pieces by the barely-older-than-me composer Eric Whitacre that have stayed with me for the past few days.  It would be safe to say that I am seriously hooked on music by Eric Whitacre now.…

On Saturday evening Greg and I zipped down the hill to attend the live broadcast of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion.  To say we were excited about this would be a major understatement.  We had been wanting to get tickets to A Prairie Home Companion since before we were even…

Inspired by the new windows in my office, Dr. Peds and I decided to do a little rearranging with the writing/art space for the kidlets.  We moved out our old kitchen table that served as the writing table, and Dr. Peds found a more narrow table that fit against the…

Last week during our cold snap, my cozy indoor life was interupted by a phone call from a desperate mom whose son attends preschool with Mr. Sneaky Pants. Her little boy was having a birthday party on Saturday, and was convinced that Noah would be attending.  Could he come?  I…

I'm copycatting my friend Sara who made a list of numbers on her blog a few weeks ago. 6 . . . The number of days I stayed inside my house without even setting one toe out of the door last week during our cold snap into the deep freeze.  I seriously…

Here is my husband.  He's online shopping for long surfboards.  Again.  He's been rather obsessed about getting a surfboard for the last several months.  I keep trying to hold him off, but it's not working.  I never envisioned contemplating owning a surfboard, especially while living in Minnesota.   He wants…

A design by the Little Ones.  I'm actually not sure which little one it was. A design by me, last night, checking to make sure we haven't lost any pieces during the day.   I love, love, love these puzzles.  We have a couple different varieties, and this octagon made of…