Gads...three years ago today...I KNOW what I was doing. Labor, hard labor, from 6am to 2:28pm without a break! Yeah, today is Monkey#2's birthday, and he is the big 3! Or Fwee, as he pronounces it.

He awoke promptly at 6:45am today, wanting us all to know it was his birthday, and could he have some cake yet? After convincing him he had to wait on cake until his sisters awoke, he was then persuaded to come look at the presents in the laundry basket, I managed another 15min of rest whilst he examined the basket contents.

Not to be denied, he soon rousted up both his sisters. This involved letting Cody the dog lick Monkey#1's feet until she woke up! Yuck! Poor Cody!

Soon we were all scattered around the living room table and the basket of goodies was controlled by Dad. After the cards from both sets of grandparents, it was time for a gift box!
Wow! Summer clothes from Grandma Sybil & Grandad! Thanks! Things progresses rapidly from there--after all, there were still unopened presents! Meanwhile, with no food being conjured up for their amusement, the dogs decided to go back to sleep, lazy mutts!


More presents!


And at last...the BIG BOX! Ooh, what is in the BIG BOX? He's not sure, but Monkey#1 vows to help him find out and they both begin ripping the wrapping paper off the BIG BOX! I say it's a big box, 'cause it's darned near as tall as my son! Is this a happy boy, or what?


You see, Monkey 2 is now into airplanes, and Dad found this behemoth at the local Toys R'Us. I'm still deciding if he got it for the birthday boy, or for himself! I think we're going to hang that one in the corner of Birthday Boy's room from some fishing line, and that way the plane won't get destroyed by Godzilla, aka Monkey#3! ( For those not in the know, that's the shortest one, in the red PJ's in the first pic!)

Oh and before I forget, there WAS cake!

The Creative Muse has been worked to death shoveling dirt.

Well, Texas Tornado was out to do the storm shelter installation on Friday. Boy have we learned a lot of lessons on this one.

First and foremost, I still always manage to find the hard way to do things, I thought you were supposed to get older and WISER? Why is it I just get older?

The smart thing would have been to go down to the local "Mexican's R'Us" store, wave a couple of $20 bills at them and have them come out and move the 5,847 tons of left over dirt. I guess my hind sight is still 20-20 though even if my regular vision isn't.

You would also think that for the low low price of $2795 installed and complete that the installation would well, be complete! They just forgot to mention the necessary clean up required. Of course being me, I want to get the backyard back together and get it done RIGHT! That means a lot of hard work. Both Vicky and I have spent the weekend working like a couple of rented mules and are definitely feeling it and paying the price for that hard work.

It only took about two days of solid hard work but things are about back together. As of now, there is a little more dirt work to do and then sod the mound. The fence is now repaired courtesy of a kind coworker.

As to the clay that's been compacted into the lawn and taken the consistency of concrete, I guess I'm going to have to rent a jackhammer. It's either that or take the shovel and start whanging away till either the shovel breaks or I fall over. Vicky did get some of the bigger clods beat down the other morning. Guess she was out there swinging the shovel with a really good overhand stroke whaling away all her frustrations. I can just picture the dogs huddling in one corner of the yard and the monkeys in the other. Both groups thinking, "Oh crap! What have we done to irritate Mommy!"

Now for some pictures for you all, or in Texas speak, Y'all.

Of course the monkeys and the mutts all think this new dirt/mud pile is great fun. Once the construction guys were gone and it was relatively safe to turn them loose they all immediately decided to play king of the mountain on the dirt pile and top of the shelter. They also decided to play the really fun game of lets all see who can get muddiest! I think that was a tie between Olivia and Charlie. Their most favorite game though for all of them is "see how much mud they can track in". They are all doing real well at that one, at least till Mommy and Daddy's patience snaps.

One of the "nice" parts about living here in this part of Texas is the "nice" black clay we have for "dirt". It's that type of clay that no matter how hard you whack it with a hoe or a shovel it just doesn't break up like you want it to. Of course if it gets slightly wet, then it becomes slicker than a greased pig and sticks to everything. Charlie discovered this earlier this morning. Both dogs were out to do their business and run around the yard. Of course this consisted of wandering around in the wet clay. We discovered Charlie has the doggie equivalent of Vibram soled boots, you know, the kind that really hold the mud in the lugs. Poor Charlie had mud balls stuck to the hair on his feet. Vicky pulled handfulls off of him before she let him back in the house.

The monkeys have all been more than willing to explore inside the shelter, the mutts, they won't even go in for peanut butter. I'm thinking that should a tornado come by they can have three choices, get in the shelter willingly, get in the shelter with the assistance of a high velocity toe applied to their backside, or take up flying.

Of course though by putting in a tornado shelter we have just guaranteed that our neighborhood will POSITIVELY, ABSOLUTELY, IN NO WAY, will ever have a tornado, that's just the way my life works. Now earthquakes, biblical floods, asteroid/comet impacts, those odds just went up significantly.

Please don't be shy!

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Blackmail material, (take 37564 aka, I hate HTML formatting and I'm going to shoot the computer!)

Vicky and I have always planned to save some "special" pictures of the monkeys to be brought out and shown off at "appropriate" times.

We think this one should do nicely to scare off any of Emelie's potential future boyfriends. If not, there is always "Plan B", a Remington 870 12 guage and a large double bitted axe.



If I remember right, she was mad at Eli for not eating his dinner.

Three small children + one large cardboard box = Rocket ship to the moon!

Well as you all know, our hot water heater blew up a while back. After all was said and done we ended up with a new hot water heater and a large empty cardboard box.

As you can imagine, the monkeys immediately claimed the box as their own. Both Vicky and I can remember doing exactly the same thing as kids.

Of course having one opening into this box and having three monkeys was a bit of a problem. #1 monkey put in a request for doors and windows in their new "rocket ship". A little work with a now dull as a post pocket knife and there you have it!

Here they are in their new rocket ship ready for blast off!




























And here they are in deep space heading for the first star on the right.