Bat Conservation

Jennalee loves anything that has to do with nature and she also loves to watch cooking shows. This video is kind of a mixture of both. Her style of narration is what comes from cooking shows - don't worry, she doesn't try to cook the bat! The floating sucker is courtesy of Adeline. This is not the most amazing video ever - the sweetness lies in the fact that stuff like this is happening all the time at our house.

My favorite quote is kind of hard to hear, Jennalee tells us, "Bat make'n is kinda hard, you know?"

Slugfest

If you look at our blog while eating your breakfast, then I apologize.
Otherwise, enjoy...

Pets: Number 12 & 13

We have some new additions to our family! But before we get too far into this we should say that we took these with the express stipulation that we will return them when/if the girls lose interest. Our eleven pets over seven years of marriage demand that disclaimer.

We have a friend who has a farm and on that farm she had 5 ducks... our girls fell in love and have brought two of them home to shower with affection.

Here is Adeline with her duck - named Duckers. Duckers is a prolific pooper and seems to prefer Adeline's shirts to just about any other medium for her artwork. Duckers also carries the burden of being loved by Adeline, which makes her pretty susceptible to injury.

Here is Jennalee with her duck - named Gloria. Gloria has more social graces and has yet to defecate on our eldest daughter. She loves people and is much more adventurous than Duckers. We should also mention that Jennalee is fantastic with this little duck. Gloria even follows Jennalee around the yard!!!!

Here is the "temporary" lodging. We know it's ghetto... but it's our ghetto. And yes, that is "duck" tape you see holding the thing together.

Frank's Labrador bells were ringing pretty hard at first and it was all he could do to not kick into Retriever mode.

But by the end, his Labradoodle genes took over and he mellowed to the idea of having roommates.

Frogger

Hope you weren't eating breakfast while reading our blog!

Apparently, this frog was in need of some kind of rectal examination.

Extreme Makeover - Dog Edition

Frank went to the groomer today. I really don't know what to say beyond that...

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Holy MOLE-ee!

Tonight the girls and I went for a nature walk... they have been watching a show about baby animals and as we gear up for a camping trip the animal craze is hitting a fevered pitch (as an example, they will both be skunks for Halloween). So we go on this nature walk and on the way I meet an old man who was a delight to speak with. For the entirety of our conversation, the girls were playing with something that I couldn't see. After about 10 minutes of playing, they come up to me with a dead baby mole in their hands -- a DEAD. BABY. MOLE. It was probably about two to three inches long. I knew it was dead because it wasn't breathing/moving, and because the mortal wound was there for all to see (and hands to touch). Meanwhile, that dear older man was sharing some spiritual experience that might have led me to talk about Christ, but I simply couldn't get over the horror of the dead mole, my two girls, and an empty bottle of Purell in the van.

I am not sure how we got everything straightened out. I do know that I officiated my first funeral and both girls prayed and sang as we buried the dead mole by the trail. Both girls prayed earnestly for God to heal the baby mole, so I felt a little bad burying it immediately following their prayers, but, I assume, if God can bring the baby mole back to life he will also be able to pull him from the two-inch deep grave.

In case you were wondering, this is about what the little mole looked like.

LET'S HOPE "THEY" ARE RIGHT...

Are dogs' mouths really cleaner than humans?
They say so... and we hope so.

Tonight we saw Adeline use her own toothbrush to brush Frank's teeth. And before we could get her toothbrush from her she proceeded to give her own teeth a once over.

JAIL BREAK!

We still love Frank. And he is not going back to the pet store, which actually is a real threat at our house. In fact, he is the sweetest dog in the world.

His one sin is that he can scale our privacy fence... yes, our 5-6 ft fence! The other night he got so wound up he hopped over it while I was in the backyard with him. Lee Ann caught his return trip on camera, and we thought we'd better share Frank's athletic achievements with the world before we put up an electric wire that will (hopefully) keep him in our backyard.

A "FRANK" CONFESSION

Considering our history (the six animals we posted about and two mice we didn't), it seemed wise to swear off all animals until our children go off to college. But, alas, we have broken our own rules and taken the plunge again - but this is completely different. We would like to formally welcome Frank into our home.

We met Frank at the Fayetteville Farmers Market and fell completely in love. He was a rescue dog and we couldn't help but adopt him. He is four-years-old and totally housebroken. He is a Labradoodle and is simply amazing. Labradoodles are often used as therapy dogs for young children and we can attest that Frank is so gentle that either one of our daughters can handle him on a leash. It is quite a sight to see a 30 pound little girl walking a 50 pound dog!

Since these pics were taken he has gotten a really short haircut due to his horribly matted hair. We will probably let his hair grow back to more this look.
The girls can do anything to Frank and he patiently puts up with them. We have so often tried to get pets the girls would like. This was the first pet LA and I wanted for ourselves, and the girls have been way more into him.
Lee Ann would want you to see his eyes.
Welcome home Frank!

Remembering Catalina

Okay, this is pet number seven. We didn't count her in our previous post because, as a fish, she does not really intrude on our life like the others have done. (There is another such pet -- Maisy the Mouse -- that will be blogged about later.)

Catalina became, hands down, the greatest pet of our married life. She did eat her roommate -- another Beta fish -- but after that she turned very docile. She would sit at the edge of her fishbowl and watch us go about our day. And she would even come over to us if we put our finger near her bowl. She was more than just a fish... she was the only pet to actually complete its life cycle in our home. And if you read the previous post you know that this is a great accomplishment.

During the recent ice storm we were without power for six long days. We put her in our basement, which was the warmest part of the house, but when the lights came back on she was never the same. Two days after regaining electricity, Catalina went to the fishbowl in the sky.

We will miss you 'ol girl.

Six for Six!

Many of you know our history with pets... and some of you may have had bets on how long our current pet would last. Well, today we sent Pip to live with a friend. The girls were afraid to walk around the house because Pip wanted to play/scratch their feet. Not to mention the fact that ACD was almost abusive to him (in love, of course). JRD, who got Pip for her birthday, begged that he "go back to the pet store" -- a very ominous and real concept in our family.

With the exit of Pip it seemed appropriate to take a moment to reflect on the SIX pets we have had in our SIX years of marriage. (NOTE: the numbers in parentheses are not ages, they are the various lengths of time each pet stayed at our house.)

1. BLUE (1 week): he was a green parakeet we had our first year of marriage. We basically had to take him back because I was jealous of how Lee Ann doted on him. (This would only happen to newlyweds!) - no picture exists of Blue
   
2. BUZZ (1 month): he was a very high-maintenance cockatiel we had in our third year of marriage - named after Buzz Lightyear. Note-to-self, if you do not like having a $10 parakeet, don't go buy a $75 cockatiel -- there is just more to hate! We are not bird people and will never own one again. A bird is what happens when you live somewhere you can't get a real pet (sorry to any bird lovers).

1. ANNIE (1 month): Annie was my dream dog - an Australian Shepherd. Things started well but as Annie grew she decided she was above our 1 year old in the family pecking order. It was not the sweet match between little girl and a puppy - ACD got bad scratches on her face. But Annie went to live on a friend's big farm where she was very happy until she was run over by a truck. JRD was fascinated with the news of her death but was convinced that Annie had "died on a cross."
2. DARREN MCFADDEN (1 week): This cat was named after the Arkansas running back during his first Heisman campaign. We are not cat people but our eldest daughter is, so we thought we would give it a go. D-Mac might have made it had he not come with a bad case of ring-worm. The vet told us not to touch him for 10 days without thoroughly washing our hands -- you try to do that with two toddlers.
3. NELLIE (3 months!!!): Nellie was cute enough to be in commercials but the vet's analysis was telling. After just a few minutes she told us "this puppy is ornery." She almost destroyed our air conditioner and certainly all kinds of wooden things around the house. Many months later, we still get calls that she has been "found" - I wish her new owners would put their info on Nellie's collar!
4. PIP (6 weeks): he was a good little cat we got for our cat-loving daughter's birthday. His only sin was that he loved to play, but he was too young to be declawed and was scratching the snot out of our daughters. We'll miss having another man around the house, even though the girls made him wear a pink "necklace" and referred to him as a girl.