Old Man

My 11 yr old has befriended an older man whose back yard meets up with our back yard. They're both outside in the nice weather quite often and chat over the fence about all kinds of topics. However, when referring to the man, she can never remember his name and instead tells people about "the old man that lives in our back yard."

Safety Matters

For Christmas the man in red brought my kids a 12' tall teepee. When the weather was nice we had the teepee up in the back yard a few times, but never bothered with staking it, and it kept being blown over in storms, so we put the cumbersome behemoth away for a while. Last weekend I finally got out tent stakes and the kids helped me make sure that thing isn't going anywhere.

The kids like to have backyard campouts, and sleep in a regular tent, so I thought they might like to sleep in the teepee instead. My 6 and 11 yr old kids jumped at the opportunity, while my 8 yr old balked at the idea, and said, "But the doors only TIE SHUT, it's not safe like a tent with a ZIPPER."