Here it is... the 1000th picture we have taken with our digital camera! Granted, it is not the best picture we have taken, but it is of the girls, of course. Lori snapped this one Wednesday night while they were playing on their blanket.

1000 pictures. That's 42 rolls of film at 24 exposures each. Which adds up to a lot of money saved by having a digital camera. Our camera is the Konica Digital Revio KD-400Z, which I highly recommend. It's a 4 megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom and dual memory slots. It's small enough to fit in your pocket. And it was one of the top 5 digital cameras ranked by PC World last month.

Here are two more pictures of my girls. The picture of them in their crib is how they often greet us when we go in there first thing in the morning--all smiles! It's great to walk in there to that.

Here's a picture of the girls in their bathing suits and another one of them in their dresses. Gracie has turned into a very happy baby, smiling quite often. Lillie has always smiled and still does when she sees me, especially first thing in the morning. Lillie is always looking around, often looking for me or Lori. It's cute, except when you are trying to feed her.

Speaking of feeding the girls, we have started them on cereal. Gracie has taken to it quite nicely, almost finishing a whole serving of cereal and pears tonight. Lillie isn't keen on the whole idea, much preferring her bottle. I know she'll come around eventually, but when she's sitting there with a mouth full of mush and crying, it makes you want to get her a bottle to make her happy.

Here's another recent pic of the girls. They are doing fine. The girls and I ventured out today, going to Lori's place of employment for a visit. They were on their best behavior, and everyone doted on them. Lori's co-workers said I must be doing good at this Stay-At-Home-Dad stuff, because the girls were healthy and dressed nice and I looked well-rested. That's nice to hear from someone outside the family. It means that I must be doing something right.

You may have noticed the new section on the right side of this page titled "About Me." If you read down that section, you will see that I state that I have 2 dogs, 8 cats and 2 fish. Unfortunately, that is no longer true.

With the fish, I tend to let them do their thing. They were two rather large fish, consisting of an Oscar and a Pleco. The Oscar wasn't the largest Oscar I've ever owned, but he was pretty good sized. The Pleco, on the other hand, was the largest fish I have ever had, measuring at least two feet long. I've had the Pleco for years, getting him when he was a mere 3 inches long. He's outlived all of my other fish, and I was sort of proud of him.

Recently, I had been considering going to some local fish stores to see if they would take my fish, as I was thinking about getting out of the fish hobby for a while. Well, as of Monday night, my hobby is officially over.

We noticed a strange smell in the house Monday night, and I sort of assumed another field mouse had died somewhere in the house. We usually only get mice in the winter, but this year, the trap has gone off well into the summer. As I tried to trace the scent with my nose, I noticed that the aquarium water was cloudy and dirty. Immediately, I realized that I had a dead fish on my hands.

Turns out that I not only had one dead fish, but two. I mentioned that I tended to let them do their own thing, checking in on them only occasionally. Last I checked on them, they were doing fine. That was no longer the case.

So, now I have an 80 gallon aquarium tank of water and rock that I need to empty and move into the basement. Lori is sort of happy about the whole situation, as she's wanted to get the aquarium out of the living room for some time now.

I'll have an aquarium again some day, probably after the girls are older. And it will probably be a smaller aquarium. I've got a 29 gallon aquarium in storage in the basement that I will probably bring up someday for the girls. But for now, I no longer own any fish.

**Note: It is customary on the Internet that when you talk about Plecos, you substitute an asterisk for the letter "e" in the word "Pleco," resulting in "Pl*co." This is because some people have noticed that when they talk about their Plecos on the Internet, they have tended to die shortly thereafter. The asterisk masks the word and protects their fish. My Pleco died before I talked about him, therefore there is no need to mask the name.

I'm wanting to redesign my website. I've been looking at other sites, trying to get ideas. But right now, I lack the skills to do what I want to do. So, I'm considering taking an evening class at RVC, studying web programming or HTML. It's something I've been considering for awhile now, plus it would get me out of the house a couple of times a week.

I feel a little cooped up some days, watching over the girls like a mother hen. Every once-in-a-while, I take off after Lori comes home from work, to get some fresh air and see some new views. Since a job doesn't seem to be on the horizon, a class at RVC that gives me some new skills sounds like a good step forward. Plus, it's where my interests currently lie. Maybe I'll run out there later today and pick up a catalog.

There are my parents' four grand-daughters. Alison and Anita came to visit last Saturday and were thrilled to see their cousins. They are both great girls, and they make me look forward to the day my girls are their ages. Not that I'm in any hurry. My girls are growing up fast enough. (I think Lillie actually said "Hi" earlier today!)

We started the girls on cereal over the weekend. Neither one liked it at first, making terrible faces when we put the cereal in their mouths. But Gracie is starting to accept it, eating a fair amount when we feed it to her. Lillie, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with it. She much prefers her bottle.

I'm beginning to think that Lillie is more stubborn than Grace. It used to be the other way around. Besides not wanting to eat cereal, Lillie must be on her belly. She even tries to turn over onto her belly when she's in the swing. And look out if she can't turn over! Somebody's going to get an earful.

Besides that, the girls are wonderful. We took them to a restaurant on Sunday, and they behaved beautifully. It seemed like everyone in the restaurant wanted to see them and know their names. It's fun taking them out places.

The girls are really growing. They went to their four-month checkup on Tuesday. Everything is going fine. They didn't very much appreciate the shots they received, but other than that, the doctor said that they are pretty much average as far as height and weight go. And they seem right on track doing what they are doing (rolling over, raising their heads, etc.). The doctor did say to start feeding them cereal, which we are going to start tomorrow. Gracie will probably appreciate that the most, since she has the bigger appetite.

About two weeks ago, Gracie started "talking." Not real words, of course, but baby words. She'll just sit and "talk" for quite awhile. Lillie has done it a couple of times, but not to the extent that Gracie does. Lillie, on the other hand, will sometimes laugh out loud. Both things the girls do are really cute.

Lillie's in the crib right now, because she wanted to roll over and take a nap. Gracie is in front of the TV watching Winnie-the-Pooh on Disney. I did go out and purchase Piglet's Big Movie for the girls' viewing pleasure. I also picked up Daredevil for me.

Well, gotta run. Gracie's through with the television for now, and requesting some more food. Catch you later.