Waddles

I digitized this little guy last night and stitched him out this morning.  It came out pretty well except that my bobbin tension needs to be adjusted (at least I think that was the problem).  You can see that the black outline stitching pulled out along the bottom edge of his tummy.  It is loose on his beck and feet too.

From the close up you can see the one thing I think I really need to change.  The outline around his eyes is too far out and I think I am just going to get rid of the black outline between the green and white parts of his eyes.  Overall I am pretty happy with how he came out!  Now I just need to get my sewing machine manual out and find out how to change the tension!

My Busy Bee

We brought home a big pack of paper towels from Costco. It is AJ's job to help me put them away. He hands them too my while I stand on a chair to store them over the refrigerator. He is always so proud when he helps Mommy! This time though before we put them away he wanted to play first. This is what he did.

This is what I found when I came out of the bathroom.

I guess AJ needed a jumping break.

Back to work

He was very serious about this.

Finally Aj stood back to check out his masterpiece!

Full tank shots

Right side view

Up close center

Not quite so close center

Full tank view (I couldn't get a shot without the flash reflecting).

So that is my tank.  There are a bunch of other little critters in there that are too small to get pictures of.  I am always finding new things in there.  

I will post more pictures next week when the new things from ebay are in the tank and I can take the tool off my mushroom.  In about a week my tank should be much more colorful!  I can't wait to see the new stuff.  It was the first time I bid on anything on ebay and I won all 3 auctions I bid on.

And even more critters!

Peppy my peppermint shrimp. (I know really original name...Trav named him).  He hide out in the back of the tank most of the time but when I feed the tank he will come sit on my finger and eat out of my hand.  I have only had him about 2 weeks.  He is getting friendlier.

One of my snails climbing the back wall of the tank.  

A sexy party!

And more critters

The pipe organ coral again.  One of my left handed hermit crabs is on it.  That is probably why it is closed up.

Another left handed hermit crab and above it a funny purple mushroom coral.  Both came from my brother Johnny! (So did the anthlia and pipe organ coral)

In this picture you can see bit of my red legged hermit crab poking out of his shell.  You can't see it but he has a little feather duster growing on his shell.

My green star polyp.  Also from Johnny!

My Critters

One of my sexy shrimp on my anthelia.

Pulsing red seas xenia with a baby nest to it on the left.  

My ugly polyps on a pretty purple rock.

I had to wrap tool around my rock to hold the little green mushroom in place.  It should attach itself to the rock in a few days.  Then I can take it off.  All my shrimp really like the tool.  

On the very left of this picture you can see my pipe organ coral.  Unfortunately it is closed up in this picture.  But on the bottom center of the picture you can see a small frag of the pipe organ coral that broke off, that is open.  

Look what Trav brought home!!!!!

I am so excited!!! Look what Trav got today!!!

The Smurfs was one of my favorite cartoons when I was little. 

Hubby-Pooh

Okay Jenn stop laughing at the title (no I am not talking to myslef.  If anyone doesn't know I am Jen and my friend who is also Jennifer is Jenn)!

Well since Trav is a photographer I guess it makes sense that there are almost not pictures of him around.  I have a good one but can't find it! That is why there was a post about my tank before a post about my hubby!  So here is his self portrait.  I will post better pictures of him if I can get one with his eyes open!

More Tank Stuff

Here are some more recent pictures of my tank.

The other night I fed my tank and two of my sexy shrimp shared one pellet of food.  They usually get territorial over food so it was fun to see them share!

I took these this morning.  This is a mini brittle starfish.  It was a hitchhiker in the pipe organ coral from Johnny.  They have been busy reproducing and now I have them all over!  They are fun to hunt for.  I like to see how many I can count at once.  The record so far is 15!  This is a great picture because most of them only have 3 long legs and 3 very short ones.  They split in half to reproduce then re-grow the missing half.

The green spot on the rock in the middle of the picture is a new mushroom I got yesterday.  It was a bargain and once it feels at home and opens up it is going to be beautiful!  I am hoping it will have lots of babies and cover the rock.  

And this is one of the sexies saying hi to the xenia I got a couple weeks ago.  My mom bought it for me on a birthday shopping trip!  It is doing great and already has lots of new growth.  It is only about an inch and a half tall.  (Laurie, you should show this picture to Andrew.  He cut the rock it was on for me because it was too big.  It go a bit banged up in the process and I was worried it wouldn't make it.  I think it is my favorite thing in the tank right now!)

I forgot to take a full tank shot this morning.  I will try to get one soon along with some close up shots of all my critters and corals.  I know not very many people are as interested in this as I am but I don't mind.  My feelings won't be hurt if you skip over my tank posts!

My Reef Tank

So other then my sweet angel boy my other obsession is my reef tank. I set it up in February and have been making good progress with it. It has been so much fun! It is more work then I thought it would be but more entertaining too!  Is is a little JBJ 6 gallon nano-cube.

Before setup

Added Live Rock

Added sand and and rearranged the rock. Then realized that the rock on the lower right looks like an um... boy part.  Never noticed it until I took this picture!

So I rearranged things yet again and added a few corals.  Most are frags from Johnny.  Or "Uncle Goby" as AJ was calling him for a while!

Here are my 5 sexy shrimp.  They all sleep on that pipe organ coral every night.  

I guess I am at my limit or pictures in one post so I will post my more current tank pictures in a separate one.  

"Pick it fwowers for Mommy!"

Last night while I was out Trav and AJ went for a walk. The first thing I heard when I walked in the door was AJ's sweet little voice saying "Pick it fwowers for Mommy!" When I walked up the stairs if found this little bunch of lilacs on the counter. My boys brought me flowers back from their walk and AJ was so excited to give them to me. So sweet!

They smell so good!  Our whole living room/kitchen/dinning room smells like lilacs from just this little bunch!  I really want to get a lilac bush.  I just need to figure out where to plant it!

Monkey Faces

I love all of the faces my sweet Monkey Boy makes. He is so expressive! Here are just of few of the many faces of AJ.

"No ike it vest Mommy!"

This is the day after AJ's first big boy haircut. He really didn't like me messing with it and putting gel in it. He loves it now though and will ask for "gel hair pwease Mommy pwease!".

My little sunshine boy.

This is a funny face AJ makes trying to copy one that Trav makes at him. He does it a lot! It is even cuter in person!

Trav sent this one to me the other day. I don't know when he took it but boy is my Monkey cute or what?!

Trav took this one last night when he was tucking AJ into his big boy bed. AJ has discovered that the cuter he is the harder it is for us to leave him in bed. So now he really plays up the cuteness at bedtime. Anything to stay up just a few more minutes!

AJ's First Ice Cream Cone!

AJ had his very first ice cream cone the other day. I was going to Baskin Robbins and AJ requested "gween i cweam Pwease". So I got him a mint chocolate chip clown cone. He thought it was wonderful! And he ate it all!