Sensory Safari

Caleb and I spent the morning at Nature Camp! Aldo Leopold Nature Center hidden in Monona, Wisconsin encourages children and adults to "discover and explore the wonders of the natural world". This week we learned all about the five senses...

Sense of Touch


Homemade touch book

Touching plants and dragon fly wings


Sense of Smell

Sniffing hickory nuts

Sense of Sight

"Look! It's a toad!"

Sense of Taste

Tasting bananas, apples and strawberries


Sense of Hearing

We listened to apples crunching, banana peels ripping and birds "yelling". Caleb did his very best to listen to the teacher teaching, but in his full two-year-old spirit tended to lag behind on mini-Caleb-explorations ultimately strengthening his "sense" of independence.

One LOVELY day in Madison 3 - The Children's Museum

The Madison Children's Museum

As if running like mad, devouring sights and sweets and exploring an expansive labyrinth-like government building wasn't enough, we ALSO stopped at the Children's Museum to dabble in a cornucopia of childrens' diversions. Aaaah, what a lovely day...

One LOVELY day in Madison 2 - The Sights

The Capitol Building & Capitol Kids

A day in Madison is never complete without a tour through the capitol building. Okay, so I've never actually been on an official tour, HOWEVER, for whatever reason, our family spends a fair amount of time singing through its cavernous halls, roaming around its winding stairs and gazing into its spacious dome. This trip was particularly eventful because it was our first time climbing the spiral staircase to the "tippy tippy top", the observation deck mid-way up the dome, for a glimpse of the church steeples, landmarks, and lakes of the isthmus.

Did you know that Capitol Kids, a local toy and children's clothing store, hands out free helium infused balloons on Farmer's Market Saturday mornings? Yup they do. And there's a nice little nook at a church nearby so when your child DOESN'T WANT TO GO IN THE TOY STORE, yes you heard me correctly, you have a cozy little cove to discover its playful properties.

One LOVELY day in Madison 1 - Chasing Market Memories

The Dane County Farmer's Market



Look at the masses of humanity streaming along the sidewalk in the background! The Dane County Farmer's Market brings in vendors that encircle the entire Capitol Square and buyers that fill up the sidewalk moving in ebbs and flows as people stop to peruse, sample and buy.

I try to make the endless supply of bright fresh vegetables, fresh cut flowers and various unique vendors (think cheese samples and honey vendors with live BEES) a source of entertainment. However, I usually end up suckered into buying a cookie, scone or a Madison classic like cinnamon rolls and warmed hot cheesy bread.

Today was a cookie and cinnamon roll day.

Regardless of what we buy at the market or how far we make it around the square, we never seem to escape the draw of the Capitol lawn. Good for running, rolling, jumping, and instigating a good old fashioned game of "monster chase", the Capitol lawn is always free of elbow to elbow shoppers. Although we tend to be the only ones running wild, the lawn is often sporadically littered with small groups of very happy people wasting their day away while thoroughly enjoying the weather and sampling their recently purchased fare. It may have been inspired by my two-year-old, but I think the Capitol lawn is now my favorite part of the Farmer's Market. RRROOOOOAAAARRR (monster speak).

One LOVELY day in Madison - Intro

Madison, Wisconsin has been our place of residence for a majority of the last fourteen years and a full blown official "hometown" for four. Last winter, we braved multiple concurrent days of sub-zero temperatures and a record season snow fall of 100+ inches. Spring typically brings swarms of blood-thirsty mosquitoes as well as quaint little streams burbling in our basement. Summer humidity levels in our fair city rival those of the ancient Roman bathes. Fall is absolutely lovely, but I'm afraid its gloriousness is shadowed by the lingering mosquitoes who don't die off until winter.

Forget it all.

Life in Madison, specifically on May 30, 2009, was totally worth every extra layer of fleece and every swollen mosquito bite. We live through the chill, the snow, the mosquitoes and the humidity for mostly-sunny 70-something degree days where fellow Madisonians are teeming around the state Capitol, strolling down State Street and gathering at the Memorial Union Terrace.

SWEET!!!!

My mother grew up on a dairy farm outside of Loyal, Wisconsin. As any child toted to the farm would, I have fond memories of cats in the haymow, baby chicks in the coop and cows in the very intriguing but none-the-less stinky barn. But my all time favorite memory of their farm is of Vern's Super Sweet Corn.

My grandpa grew the sweetest, the juiciest, the crispest corn I have ever tasted. My brother sold it in a stand by the side of the road. My grandma and mom would cook it, cut it off the cob and freeze it for winter. Given my age, I had very little to do with the planting, growing, picking or selling of the corn,but as with the rest of my family, I ate it religiously. Right around the end of July almost every meal included a side of freshly picked sweet corn, and undoubtedly there were a few meals that consisted of ONLY sweet corn.

My grandparents moved off the farm when I was still young and have since passed away, but Sweet Corn Season still lives on. I get giddy when the grocery store starts carrying sweet corn again, and despite the fact that I KNOW FOR A FACT that it will not be nearly as good as Vern's Super Sweet Corn, I buy it to tide me over until the farm stands pop up in late July. I will do everything in my power to make sure that Sweet Corn Season lives on, which includes enticing the very young ...

Gosling Games

Our local beach in Vilas Park is home to a plethora of feathered friends. I can't say I'm a big fan of the yard waste that a plethora can accumulate, nor did I appreciate the mama goose who hissed at my two-year-old; however, I called everything even after we spent a good hour enlisting the feathered friends help to play a new rendition of an old childhood favorite.

DUCK, DUCK

GOOSE!