We watched a nice family movie recently called The Amazing Panda Adventure. The movie, released by Warner Brothers in 1995, is rated PG.

The Amazing Panda Adventure is a children's action-adventure about a young 10-year-old boy who, while on a visit to China to see his father, tries to save a baby panda from poachers and return the baby to it's mother. Some of the movie was filmed - quite obviously - with animatronic pandas. However, real pandas were used in other portions of it and they are extremely cute. Definitely worth the price of a rental but we bought it.

I've got this really bad habit of letting 'stuff' accumulate in my car. Not sure why it is but it's easier to leave the day's mail sitting in the passenger seat and return to bring it in later than it is to pick it up right then and carry it into the house even when my arms are empty. In the case of non-mail 'stuff', it'll sit there for weeks and even months.

I usually reach a point when it's time to clear out the mess. It's simply one of those intuitive moments when my gut (not to be confused with Carmi) says, "it's time".

This morning I had one of those moments. I was going to be driving my car for the first time in about 1-1/2 weeks because the license sticker expired on the 15th and I only renewed it on Monday. Have I ever mentioned before that I also procrastinate?

Before leaving the house, I moved a pile of debris into a garbage bag and even pulled out the vacuum cleaner. Man it felt good...almost liberating. Too bad I don't do it more often.

Carmi usually leaves before me and Eliana but this morning we all exited the house together. I opened the back door for Eliana to crawl into her seat. As the door swung open and she moved in closer, she paused and said, "Ooooh...daddy cleaned out his car..."

As I've said before, we have a very perceptive child.

Forget cavities. Look what birthday cake does to your tongue!

Today is Carmi's birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, sweetheart!

I've been told that you don't tell a woman's age so I defer you to my own birthday post from March. I am only one month older than Carmi. YOU do the math and I'll stay out of trouble.

She gets to be lazy today because her company provides it's employees with a day off on their birthday.

You've come a long way, baby!

I came in from work this afternoon to find a dandy little mess in the dining room floor. Seems that little miss Tommi cat has been exploring where she had no business. If only she would do it when I'm around...

We measured Eliana again this afternoon and she has grown another half an inch in the last month. She now stands at exactly 40 inches tall while barefooted.

Darn it. She could no longer fly for free when she reached 2 years of age. Now she can no longer get free kiddie cones of ice cream at Brusters. That's right...they have a 40-inch height limit with a little chart outside the ordering window. Tragedy.