Hot Dog Dog!

We've gotten fond of dressing Timmy up in outfits. What dog would be complete without a hot dog??

And going with the theme of dressing up things...

1 and 2 have decided what they will be for Halloween! 1 is going to be an Enchanted Princess. And 2 is going to be a Ghost Pirate.  Dressing up things is F-U-N!

Super Puppy!!

The first episode of Super Puppy is complete!! It is however located: Here!  Keep in mind that the kids created it. I took the pictures and helped with spelling and that was it! Story line, words (other than some truly minor suggestions), punctuation, EVERYTHING, was 1 and 2!

 What's going to happen??! Will Super Puppy defeat the evil villain?

Timmy!

After much sadness over the loss of the Danes, we have added our newest "family" member: Timmy! He is about 12(ish) weeks old now and is full beagle. He has absolutely the best temperament of any puppy you could hope for including the important aspects of not peeing in the house, not chasing the cats, and not being TOO rough with Minnie. Minnie adores "her" puppy toy. She had gotten very, very depressed with the loss of Luke. She is so in love with Timmy and only chews on him a little bit when she gets climbed on and used as a toy.

Timmy will also be our super hero in the upcoming homeschool project "Super Puppy". Everyone else will have staring roles in the upcoming feature as well. *IF* for some reason you happen to know of a great, cheap, place to get animal costumes (or have some that come in either a GIANT mastiff size or a small beagle puppy size or even perhaps a cat size we could borrow for an afternoon and then return) let me know. I'm looking to make this into an epic story in multiple installments.

Our soon to be super hero: Super Puppy!

 Timmy and Minnie just playing a little.

This wee man has taken a particular fondness to holding the puppy on his lap. Mattie was never very comfortable with the Big Boys and the puppy is a bit more solid than the cats. Plus after a few minutes, Timmy just falls asleep. 

Snuggles on the sofa with his favorite kids.

 

Hiding under the sofa. THIS activity isn't going to last much longer. 

Luke

The last of our big boys has been put down. The kids are surprisingly ok with it. The grown-up are ok. Minnie. Minnie is struggling. She won't go outside by herself. She bays at weird stuff. She mopes. She has turned into a bowling ball of darkness at random times  in the house (wood floors + no stopping = bowling ball effect).  Basically, the last remaining dog is massively, horribly depressed. She lays on the sofa and sleeps or runs around like a loon. She's never really been into either of those before.

Soooo. A photo tribute to the big boy:

More recent pictures ARE available, I took several with the kids (they needed a way to say goodbye) on Saturday before we took him to the vet. The big guy wasn't looking his best though, so I figured I would put these up instead when he was looking lively and happy.

Sooo we don't really have a 'Zoo' anymore. We have a depressed mastiff and some cats and a fish tank and some gerbils. We've even trimmed down the fish tanks to 1. *Sigh* We are now on the hunt for a perfect puppy. My dear, sweet friend has a friend with a litter of beagles that we are going to attempt to get one of. If/when that occurs pictures will most joyously follow. Hopefully a puppy will help alleviate Minnie's ennui, because WOW.

Morning Snugglers

Perhaps the only time of day that the monkeys actually sit still. And are quiet as of late. And look adorable.

If only the adorable time occurred more than once a day or perhaps not AT 6 am everyday.  Ahhh well. Take what you can get I suppose.


And here is Molly, the exchange cat, being posed with:

Because a little exchange cat fun helps the day go by?

Fourth Of July

The Fourth of July is Abbys favorite holiday is a lot of aspects.  It's been one of our longest standing "nontraditional" holidays that we celebrate. We stay up late. We have been going to our friend's house (Thanks Friend!!) for the last several years. They have a barbecue, fireworks, cookies, chips, a kiddie pool, some of her best friends. For a little kid - how can it get better? This year, we let her play with sparklers. They both reached the magical age of 5 (which we deemed the age of sparklers for our since they tend to be uncoordinated..) and were allowed to have the delight of swirling light bits of magic about. Now, we shall just pretend that Mattie didn't almost burn some other kid's behind, nor shall we mention Abby kept trying to catch her OWN hair on fire.. BUT.. The magic of sparklers. AND someone brought a BABY to play with. Mind you, it was more of a toddler and not really brought for HER to play with. She'll never know the difference.

 Mattie waiting his turn.

 Abby with her sparkler!

Abby waiting her turn.

 Waiting for the BIG boys to make stuff go off.

Sparkler magic.

Annual Art Show

This is the last year that the kids can go to Betty Rowlands. This is VERY tragic for some of us. They are a fantastic group of people and have an annual art show. Here are some pieces from that showing:

As you can tell from comparing the wee girl's sunflowers to some of the others, she's improved drastically in the last bit. Her flower LOOKS like an actual flower this time vs last years. The Boy's aren't too far behind as his pictures are fairly recognizable, definitely boy-ish, but you can tell what they are.

CAMPING

The kids decided they wanted to go camping. But, lets just be realistic, none of us should be outside with fire and sleeping on the ground. It's just spells DISASTER.  So we had a camp-in. A tent was made with some ropes and sheets and an air mattress inside.  There was a demonstration on fire (and on fire extinguishers and NO nothing was caught on fire that wasn't supposed to be). Popcorn was consumed. There was much running around outside with flashlights. And the worlds fluffiest smores were made. According to both kids, the smores were the best part of the evening. Which is rather ironic since THOSE can be made without stringing rope across the living room, pulling out all the sheets and pillows, and rearranging.

Smores...

Matthew is 5 in 4 days!

My baby boy is almost 5. He's HUGE and probably no longer classifies as a baby, but will always be the baby. But he's 5 whether I agree or not (and 5 has not been a good age for us).

 Shall we have a wee peeksie back at my wee baby boy through the years? WELL good, because we are.

 (freshly hatched)

 (freshly hatched)

 (at 1st birthday)

 (at 2nd birthday)

 (at 2nd birthday)

 (at 3rd birthday)

 (at 3rd birthday)

 (at 4th birthday)

(At 4th birthday)

Family Pictures

My friend is a photographer and took a set of pics for us last week and she's just lovely.. I just need to find a way to repay her now - she keeps insisting she doesn't want any kind of payment, but keeps giving us the best pictures of our kids EVER. Trickery must now be done. This is really ok with me, I do enjoy trickery..

Forgive the "mouth-breather" appearance, it's spring and I can SOOO never breath outside in the spring. Something about the severe allergies and air being a necessity..