Meet Howard

This is Howard the ladybug.

He lives in our car.

I have no idea how he got there, but he's been there for at least two weeks.

Don't ask me why his name his Howard, or how we know he should be "Howard", and not "Howardina".

It's just how we do things around here.

R.I.P., fishies

We came home from vacation to find that two of our fish had gone on to a better place.

Alas, SarahBellaLinaRiffSammyYoungbergEbert and Nemo (aka Memo) have gone to meet their Maker. (Ellie wants to know when Heavenly Father is going to send them back.) We lay no blame on the friends who were feeding them for us, although they feel terrible.

We had a nice little funeral for them last night, around the toilet bowl. We all said goodbye, and Ellie told Nemo, "I love you." Heartbreaking. Then we flushed them away and moved on. They were fish, life goes on. We will probably replace them in the next few weeks.

The craziest impulse purchase we've ever made

Those are fishbowls. We are no longer petless people. Chris saw those in the Chiasso catalog and said, "We should get these." I said, "Okay," and way more money than we care to admit later three funky fishbowls arrived on our doorstep. But we had no fish (of course we didn't - we didn't have any fishbowls yet!) So the girls and I ran to the pet store yesterday after school and came home with the five newest members of our family. Here they are:

This is Ellie's fish, Memo (which of course translates as "Nemo" if you speak Ellie, which fortunately I do). She named him by herself. First he was "Purple", which is fitting, seeing as how he's a brilliant blue color. Then he was "Alex and Leah", who are the kids on Signing Time. But "Memo" has stuck, and I like it, although I think having a blue fish called Purple would have been awesome.

This is Lexi's fish, Sarahbelle (Sarah for short, of course). She's a Singapore Beta - you can tell because of the white in her tail. The pet shop guy said it like it was a big deal. You can click on the picture to see her better. Sarah is Lexi's current favorite name, but apparently plain old "Sarah" isn't fancy enough for her. Except that all fish need nicknames.

You will most definitely have to click on the picture if you want to see Vicki's fish. Since she's already had a Beta once, many years ago, she chose the other variety of fish that the pet store guy (who I think honestly believed I was out of my mind, walking in there with this crazy fishbowl and asking all kinds of questions with three kids alternately hanging off me and running wild through the store screaming things like, "Puppies, Mama, they have puppies! Aaaaaaaaggggghhh! The puppies are barking at me!") said could live in our bowls: White Cloud Fish. Mostly they're clear, though. He said up to three would be happy in there, so say hello to Annabelle, Rosalina, and Lizabeth, called (of course) Anna, Rose, and Liz for short. We have no idea which is which.

We're so cool now that we have pets.