This is my dad. He looks a little grumpy and like he might be hard to live with. I know sometimes my mom thinks so. Growing up he was VERY different with us than he is now with our kids. He has invented the "Grandpa Clause" which basically means that when we parents say no to our kids, Grandpa can come in and override us. He has been through a lot in his life and I am sure my brother and sister and I have put him through a lot more since then. ( More them than me, of course) 
This is Midnight. He is VERY mellow, o.k. he doesn't really move much.
This is Simba. He is called the "no, no cat" He is slightly psycho and tends to attack, maim and/or destroy for no reason at all. He will let you pet him and then thank you with a chomp.
I have put the remote next to them for sizing purposes. I really don't feed them alot. They don't get treats or people food and they are on dry food for old, overweight cats with hairballs. Though you wonder how they get hairballs when they have such a hard time rolling over. When Elvis was alive, they did get more exercise. Maybe I can convince Clark that we need another dog for health reasons. What do you think??
She thinks these are the neatest shoes. She waited two weeks to get these.
When you are bored and are trying to hide from your brother and he takes too long to look for you, this can happen. Its really quite sad.
Our first Tooth Fairy
This is how people think of Lauren. Rough, tough, rather be in boys clothes (in fact, she sleeps in her brother's outgrown boxers). She wants to be a rock star general when she grows up. We have had several conversations about how she does not want to be a girl because boys get to do fun stuff. I have had to explain that she can do anything that a boy can do except be a father and pee standing up. Even then, I figure she'll work on the pee thing. We have talked about girl race car drivers and girls in the military and that soon there will be a girl President. If she works hard enough, she might even be the first girl President. We have a poster that show all the space shuttle missions that had a Girl Scout on them, so she could even go into space. We have read about Marie Curie and talked about scientists. We have also read about Sacajawea and how she was the one who led Lewis and Clark. She thought that was funny. 
The infamous lizard! This is as close as we could get for Jarred. Maybe his mom can blow it up for him. The kids had a journal that they filled out as we went. We rubbed tree bark and traced leaves. We also rubbed footprints that were in the Texas walk. We rolled down hills and walked and walked and walked...... We also fed koi and snapping turtles. It seems that we paid more attention to the wildlife than the flowers and plants. We did go into the rose gardens. The kids seemed to like how strong the roses smelled. We passed one lady who was there who had stronger perfume than the roses and I really had to hustle to keep the kids from saying anything. They did wonder why you would wear perfume like that. I couldn't help them with that one. The cardinal in the other picture was really posing for us. He must have sat there puffed up for several minutes. The kids thought he was cool especially since we had seen a female one and talked about camouflage and why it was important.
As we walked, I wanted to give them a little freedom so they could experience things so as we left an area I would quack. Yes, I said quack. They had to quack back to let me know that they were paying attention. I just figured that since they had to follow me like duckings, that we might as well act like ducks. Jarred did ask why we had to quack and I told him that we could tweet instead if he wanted. He opted for quacking. As my mom would say..You always have a choice. Sometimes its between peas and carrots, but its still a choice.
I am about to leave for afternoon carpool, but have to fold a load of laundry first. Man you leave it for even one day and I think that it reproduces!
