The Cat, the Dog, and the Vacuum Cleaner

The title says it all.

The Eyeball Incident

Yesterday during a church event, the girl got punched in the eye by her favorite buddy. I don't think it was intentional from what we can gather. We think the other girl was just swinging her arms around, and our girl's eyeball walked into the path of her fist. Her eye was fine for awhile, but towards evening it started getting poofy and tender and she said it hurt. We put a cold, wet rag on her eyes and that made her feel better.


We kept the cold rag on her eyes through suppertime, and I had to feed her. A funny story there - - -. We have been trying to have her eat cantaloupe for 2 years now. Well, this was my chance now that she couldn't see what she was eating. So in the midst of scooping chicken pot pie in her mouth, I put a piece of cantaloupe in, too. She chewed it up and yelled out, "Yummy - it's an apple!!" Well, I kept shoveling in the cantaloupe, and she kept saying funny things like, "Juicy apple - I have water dripping off my lips!!" She ate alot of it. We finally took off her rag, and she saw what she was eating, and she was fine with it.



I wonder if she will like cantaloupe the next time we offer it to her.

The Purdue Football Game

I managed to pick up some free football tickets from a friend at work. We have wanted to get the girl to a football game some time. We both thought it would be alot of fun for her. So a big thanks to my buddy who gave me the tickets. Unfortunately, he only gave me 2 tickets, so just the girl and Mom went. I believe this was the Purdue / Northern Illionois game from September 19.




We got to the campus in the early morning for all the pre-game festivites. There was a concert and then pictures in front of the big bass drum and the Boilermaker Special.

I took the boy home and we napped. The girls had fun at the football game (incidentally, the girl calls it a football "show"). Afterwards, the girl went running around the fountain and got all wet, of course. It was a good day for them.

The Last Zoo Visit for the Year

This past weekend, we went to the Columbian Park Zoo on a whim. We packed a picnic supper for the late afternoon. On the way there, the girl had a nose bleed that got all in her hair. And once we got to the Zoo, we discovered it had just closed for the day. At that time, the girl tripped and fell and skinned her knee all to shreds.

When she tripped and tore open her knee, she cried so hard her nose started to bleed again. Geesh!

The boy did real good. He enjoyed climbing on all the big jungle gyms. He didn't spill any blood this day like his older sister.
Here the kids are posing on the big cannon.

We finished the day with frozen custard across the street from the zoo.

The First Haircut

The boy hasn't had a haircut since we was born. We decided that since he looked more like a girl than a boy, it was time to cut his hair. Here he is in good spirits BEFORE the haircut

Now the scissors come into play. He did really well for the most part. At the end, though, he was a little sad.

When I put him to bed 20 minutes later, he kept rubbing his head and crying. I think he misses his hair.

The 100 Inch Lawnmower

A few months ago, I bought a new lawn accessory. It is a lawnmower that you pull behind your existing lawnmower. This pull behind lawnmower is made by Swisher. I bought it used off of Craigslist.

The Swisher lawnmower is powered by its own engine, and it has a 60 inch mowing deck. I prefer to pull it behind my John Deere 316, for that lawn tractor has a lot more weight; hence more traction for going up and down the hill in front of the house.


Since the John Deere has a 46 inch mowing width, and the Swisher has a 60 inch cutting width, I can theoretically mow a 106 inch swath. However, I overlap the two mowing decks by 6 inches, so now I am mowing a 100 inch swath of grass.

It has cut down my mowing time considerably. I can now finish the yard in about 90 minutes as opposed to 3 hours without the Swisher.


The two pictures above show one round - one pass to the east and the return pass coming back to the west. You can see how wide of a swath it takes. The only problem I have found is that sometimes I start daydreaming, and the Swisher mower falls into the creek. This has only happened twice.

The Tractor Drivers

Their first solo tractor drive, the kids

managed to not run over the lamp post.

(Click Play to view the video)

The Broken Baby Food Jar

How high will the tower go before the top baby food jar busts
into a thousand pieces? Watch the video to find out.

(Notice those nice curls, too)

Fixing the TV Antenna

A couple of months ago, the TV antenna twisted too much and pulled off the reception box. We only got 2 or 3 channels with that antenna anyways, so it wasn't a big loss. I thought I would try to climb the tower and plug the reception box back into its port. It wasn't a very high tower, but it was scary enough.

I did get the box successfully plugged back in, but now the rotation mechanism has broken. I'm not soo sure what the problem is with it. I'll continue troubleshooting. I hope to have more than 2 or 3 channels if it all gets fixed.

Monkey #1 - Birthday Party

Today was Monkey #1's birthday. (Monkey #1 is her code name for this public blog) She has been totally excited about it for the last week. We had a few friends over. There were a total of 13 little kids running around. She really liked her chocolate cake.

She sure has a big mouth. No need for a fork!

Here is a little video clip of Leah blowing out her candles. We'll see if this upload works!

Strange Sleeping Habits

At the foot of the bed by the hamper:

Sick in front of the TV with the chum bucket:

Under the bed:

On the kitchen rug:

Under the bed again:

Pictures of the Kids

Orbital Welding

I am the orbital tube welder at work. I have a nice machine ($40,000) that makes perfect welds on stainless steel tubing. This tubing is used to run gases throughout the building. Our tube welder will work on 1/4", 3/8", 1/2", and 5/8". It's a fun job - one of my favorites.

Monkey #2 and the pancake griddle

I got a call from the wife saying that Monkey #2 (code name for the boy) melted the compost bowl on top of the pancake griddle. She said she was on the computer when she smelled the faint scent of pancakes wafting through the house. She gets up to go the kitchen and sees the plastic bowl for our compost had melted flat on the pancake griddle. Monkey #2 had turned on the griddle after climbing up on a nearby chair. The griddle is fine.