Super Rachel Zana's Spot

We’ve had some very busy chefs. They love to use the children’s picture books for their cookbooks and “read” recipes. I’m sharing a favorite recipe from Mr. Sneaky Pants: Banoni Soup salt fried eggs cheese slices sugar milk bread pancakes slices of bologna Cook in soup pot on medium heat.…

Yesterday afternoon The Banana and I took a trip down to the sandy beach while the others were off with Dr. Peds. It was a beautiful winter day, and The Banana has just recently learned to walk in her little red snow boots. Probably because it was the middle of…

Potty training has not been overly successful here. Despite Mr. Sneaky Pant’s initial obsession with bit boy underwear last summer, he really doesn’t see the importance of using the toilet. At all. We’ve tried rewards. We’ve tried persuasion. We’ve tried sticker charts, M&M’s and the promise of special, exciting prizes.…

Grandma Kathy and I have been contemplating, planning, and researching getting this gender neutral pretend play kitchen for months and months. In our previous homes we didn’t ever have room for a play kitchen, which was fine. But I’ve always wanted for my kids to have a wooden kitchen to…

Sarah was invited to a birthday party for one of the girls in her kindergarten class. This was a very, very big deal. It was so important she could hardly eat her lunch. Sarah spent an hour and a half waiting in the “cabin room” with her present for Sofia…

I am so excited about the puzzles we gave our kids for Christmas this year. You might have noticed Sarah’s puzzle featured in my blog banner. Her puzzle is a round circle with intricate small pieces in multiple colors that can be placed together inside or outside of the wooden…

Words we can say: Mama (if she’s extremely desparate) Words we can sign: eat more milk hat coat shoes done more eat. more eat. more eat. more eat. (The girl really loves her food, let me tell you) In other news, we went to tuck her into bed last night…

This week The Banana has fallen in love with the act of putting on her big brothers tennis shoes over her own pair of leather inside toddler shoes. Often she gets one shoe on just fine, and then gets very frustrated with the other one. Most of the time they…

It was nearly lunchtime last Saturday. We were sitting on the futon, contemplating what to eat, watching the squirrels frolic in the snow out the window. Greg: Maybe we should catch one of those squirrels and eat it for lunch. Mr. Sneaky Pants: No Dad! They’re WAY too crunchy!

Several family members have been railing me with emails and letters, concerned that our financial situation is in shambles and we cannot afford to heat our home, and that we are neglecting our children, depriving them of a warm environment. So I’m taking a small moment to publicly clarify that…