Every time I go to the vegetable gardens at the Chicago Botanic Garden I can’t help but snap a hundred pictures. I just can’t get enough of those beautiful vegetables and herbs! I love this herb garden – it’s the size of my whole vegetable garden. Tomatoes for miles! I want to try potatoes next…

After recovering from jet lag and finishing the mountain of laundry we are in full on Summer mode around here. We’ve been chasing lightning bugs, making lemonade, going to the pool, eating lots of ice cream cones and waking up late. Last week the girls and I picked strawberries. They were really cute (the girls…

Well, Switzerland did not disapoint us. There were some things that I needed to be reminded of after a year. I was reminded how much I love the cheese. I was reminded how amazingly efficienct the Swiss are. I was reminded how tiring it is to travel internationally with kids. We had a great time!…

For the second part of our Swiss getaway we went to the southern area that is right next to Italy.  Whenever you see a fountain in Switzerland you can take a drink.  Lugano is nice and easy and it has a lovely park along the lake.  Here’s Claire and me a few years ago at…

We’re back from our trip to Switzerland. While I look through all our photos and try to keep the girls from fighting like cats and dogs here is one little photo. We saw a rainbow when we were in Lugano. Bea said “do rainbows only happen in Switzerland?” It was a good question since we…

In our family the traditional Father’s Day gift is a mug with a picture of two daughters on it. So Brian got that again… even if he is sick of it. And he also got the most traditional Father’s Day gift of all, a tie, from Bea. We are definitely in a stage where Daddy…

These are little things, but they really bug me. The first is from a bag of topsoil. We had to fix that hole in the backyard that the falling tree made. It was just a bag of topsoil from Lowes – it says CAUTION: KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. If soil is dangerous to children…

Claire had her last ballet class until Fall: As you may have noticed… it’s peony time!!! After months of putting it off (and waiting for the weather to be warm enough for painting in the garage) I finally started painting the light fixtures that will go into Bea and Claire’s bathroom. They used to be…

We tried making and using chalk painting today. It gets two thumbs up from all of us. We mixed one cup corn starch and one cup water then added food coloring. Couldn’t be easier.  First Claire and I painted while Bea was at school. I have trouble engaging her in things sometimes – she just…