Updates

Here are a few updates on past posts.

Yesterday Remy received his Canines for Clean Water bandana in the mail. He was so excited and pranced around in it. I received a free window cling too. It's teeny tiny (about the size of a smaller Post It note). Very cute. I will send this photo of Remy in to receive my free 'stool tool.' The kids will really appreciate it I'm sure. :)

Remember the walking stick pets I acquired about 10 months ago? I had 3 originally. Well, the last of the 3 passed away on Thursday. That was Sydney. Bill passed away about a month ago. I have two new babies who will be living in Sarah's classroom sometime soon. I am done having WS as pets. There is a lot of selective reduction if you want these insects as pets. I wasn't prepared for that & I don't like doing it (it has to be done if you don't want 100's of WS at once). Sad but true. I was cautioned about that but didn't really take it too seriously. :(

Happier times.

I really love sillouhettes and have two of my kids. I want one of Remy too. They are so darn expensive. I found this site and Nas is going to make one of Remy for me. She took this shot of Remy as a starter. A fun project for break. Here's a link if you want to purchase vinyl sillouhettes.

Here is an updated photo of Matty's cast. You can see MARY hogged up a whole lot of space so Omid & I had to write small. Sadly, we weren't the first to sign the cast. Sniff, sniff. Oh! Here's an interesting tidbit....I was hoping Matty would choose green...but he told me it wasn't my 'hope' that influenced him. He asked a GIRL at school to choose his cast color! Wonder if that girl is MARY. Interesting.

I brought my walking sticks (Bill & Sydney) home from school today. We are supposed to get lots of snow tomorrow and I thought I would be proactive and bring them home today...instead of waiting until there were 3-4" of snow on the ground. As you can see, Bill was very happy to be home.

A death in the family

It's a sad morning at our house (at least for me, it is). One of our walking sticks, Gus, passed sometime between midnight and 8 a.m. He was the friskiest of the bunch too. Poor guy! I checked him again and again to make sure he was really gone (WS are masters at 'playing' dead). Omid even checked him for me this morning. Sorry Sarah! I promise you I took very good care of him; it must have been his time.

Remy & the Walking Sticks

We are really enjoying our new pets (the walking sticks). It is so fun to hold them. The biggest one (Gus) is the friskiest of them all. He just loves to walk. The other two (Bill who is missing several legs) and Sydney (the smallest) are very quiet and play dead a lot of the time. Remy is really interested in the WS as well. He is frequently looking at & sniffing the terrarium - trying to find the insects.

This afternoon, I had the bright idea (& told my sister about it who agreed with me) of placing one of the insects on Remy's head & snapping a photo. Gus was too frisky to sit still (which is too bad as he's the largest & easiest to see). We used Sydney who played dead for the photo. Remy with Sydney on his head.

Nas took this movie of Remy & Gus. I was trying to distract Remy with a cookie while Gus ran around Remy's back. Then Gus fell off and Remy tried to find him. It was so funny. One warning: the movie has the "shittake mushroom" word in it! So sorry! We tried but couldn't edit it out.

I am married to the best guy! He endures my eccentric side (which has been present a lot lately) and helps with so many different projects. This morning, Omid went out and bought plants, rocks and screen material to make our new terrarium look a little snazzier (than the way I initially set it up).

Matty holding the largest Walking Stick, Gus.

Finished product.

New Pets

Today I am one step closer to having the house full of animals I've always wanted. This morning Sarah, a co-worker & fellow blogger let me have her left over science project. Now we have 3 new additions to our family - Walking Sticks! Yay! I have been wanting some of these cool insects for quite a while. These WS will remain at school for one more week and then reside with us for the summer (& hopefully longer).

Somewhere in these brambles there are 3 walking sticks.

Following Sarah's advice, I held onto the blackberry branch with scissors while carefully looking for the camouflaged insects.

Here was the first one I found - hiding out on the ledge.

I put him in a paper cup and continued to search for the rest. A 5th grade student helped me with this process. He really enjoyed it and received a vocabulary lesson at the same time.

When I got home, I called my neighbor Jodie we talked terrariums (she's done this before). She gave me a 5 gallon tank she had. I cut some rose bushes and the little guys settled in.

If you look real close, you can see one in the middle right picture and another in the middle left. There is a tiny third one in there somewhere, but he is hard to spot.