Super Rachel Zana's Spot

If you pay an extra one time fee for the summer months, our garbage collection company will give you a large bin to fill with yard waste, and pick it up for you each week.  Not having to find a place to haul leaves, grass, and half rotten crabapples is…

 Whenever we are out in the woods, Mr. Sneaky Pants is on the lookout for sticks.  Stick hunting and hiking just go together.  While tromping about the trail, the sticks become swords, axes, hammers, walking canes, rakes, and all sorts of things a knight or a pirate might need.  I…

She says to me today, "Mama, when you get to be my size, you can borrow this pink shirt of mine."  

If you ask the kidlets what their favorite part about the afternoon visit to Pattison State park, they will unanimously and loudly tell you that they loved the swings.  There are two especially tall swingsets at the park near the swimming pond, the kind of swings that have such a…

We were blessed with beautiful weather on the weekend, so on Saturday afternoon, we loaded up the kidlets (with their freshly painted faces from the Harvest Run festival)  and took a quick trip over to Wisconsin to Pattison State Park.  We had visited this park when we were living in…

The Banana and Dr. Peds were up and out of the house early this morning, in time to go downtown and catch the scenic train to see the start of the Harvest Fun Run.  No one was running the regular 5K race from our house, but those two snatched up…

I almost didn't let Ya Ya make these a few weeks ago.  I wanted to keep my large collection of wooden people turnings pure and unadorned, ready for extensive imaginative play.  But she begged and begged, and how could I say no to creativity?  Then The Banana wanted to make…

They were supposed to be having quiet time while I worked for a bit in my office this afternoon, but it turned out that while I was teaching a piano lesson earlier, they had sneaked into my office and stashed away both the packing tape and the scotch tape in…

I was busy tending to some other things in the kitchen this morning, and when The Banana asked for a few more raisins in her oatmeal, I handed her the canister  and told her to go ahead and put a few more in herself.  I rounded the corner and found…

After hiking through the gorgeous trees in Lester Park on Friday, I splurged.  I picked up a babysitter (one of my students, actually, who is GREAT with the kidlets . . . they were so excited about her coming) and drove just a bit down the road to UMD.  Richard…