parenting 101

why, oh why, have we spent a small fortune on legos when all it takes is a couple of cardboard boxes and you have hours of fun....

the house on the creek

in preparation for our upcoming housewarming party, i've been moving old CDs of pictures over into iPhoto so that we can make a "before and after" slide show to show during the party. during the process, i came across these pictures of the "house on the creek" taken when we were in south dakota for christmas in 2004. i think that was the last time i was down there. i suppose it's deteriorated significantly since then. does anyone have more recent pictures of it that they can share here?

we sent j-p up a stick to retrieve a small scrap of those purple shingles for posterity.

look how little sabinochka was!

going down there to see the house and imagine all those kids in those small rooms is something that i've always loved doing, even tho' now you have to walk quite a ways to get in there. i love hearing the stories of the prolific watermelons in under the trees and of walking cross country to school and the one about little ralphie just wanting to hold a cookie for a minute. i don't know if sabin will remember having been down there at that age. i'll have to be sure to take her again before there's nothing left to see.