I know, I know, Stinky Mouse has his own blog, but his life is pretty deeply entwined with Kai's so he still gets time on this blog too.

First, I want to give a shout out to some online friends who have linked to Mouse's blog from theirs.
Our friend Princess Brinley gave Mouse a really nice entry and even mentioned The ChouChou Shu Online Store.

Also our friends Michael and Kimberly from Iowa, who are waiting for their referral (I was going to say patiently waiting, but I don't know anyone who waits patiently for that!) they gave mouse a nice plug on THEIR BLOG too!

Mouse loves all this attention and encourages everyone with a blog to give him a link!

Now, the real reason I'm writing about Stinky Mouse is because of the ongoing controversy regarding his real identity. You loyal readers (both of you) no doubt recall that the original Stinky Mouse had a fateful encounter with a bottle of Febreze. I confess, it was me who sprayed him down, but if you had smelled him when I did it, I don't think you would blame me. Anyway, Tina replaced Stinky Mouse. This is much like what happened back in 1969 when the REAL Paul McCartney died and was replaced by a look-a-like. (If you don't remember this you can click HERE, but after you finish reading that stuff remember to come back!)
Well anyway, the original Stinky Mouse, who was now no longer stinky, but rendered unlovable by a cheap, industrial quality cologne was hidden away in Kai's pajama drawer. His replacement became greatly loved and continued to rise in fame and fortune - just like the guy they replaced Paul with.

Well this weekend, something terrible happened. Our oldest son Cam is graduating from high school this week and we are going to be having lots of company and family visiting. So we've been fast-tracking a number of reclamation projects around the house in an attempt to conceal how far we've let things slide since bringing a toddler into our lives. To aid in this, I rented a pressure washer. These are amazing tools, but they run on gas and the one I rented seemed to have a loose gas cap. No one saw this happen, but it was parked by our backdoor, and at some point either Kai or Mouse got too close to this thing, because they both smelled like gas. We were able to clean up Kai, but Mouse had attained a whole new level of stink - dangerous toxic stink!

It was bedtime before we realized it was the mouse that was stinking of gasoline.
Kai wasn't happy with him.
It was Tina again who saved the day. She said to Kai, "I'm going to give Mouse a quick bath. You wait here." She took him down the hall and switched him with the original. Stinky Mouse #1's months of exile in the pajama drawer had diminished his Febreze induced repugnancy to a tolerable level. Kai was so sleepy he just needed someone with big soft ears to snucker on. The switch went undetected!

Now the amazing thing is that Mouse #2 had actually logged more hours of usage, and it showed. We had given him a number of sponge baths (using only water and Kai's baby soap) to keep the smell down, but general wear and tear was showing its affect. Mouse #1 looks all fresh and new in comparison. What an amazing bath!

So we are now planning on stocking up on a few ChouChou Shu clones as backup in case disaster strikes again. Oh and if you don't appreciate the importance of backing things up, check out the latest entry on Cady's Blog.

It's a new month here at Hui-Hui's world, so if you need to catch up check out the monthly archives in the sidebar.

Kai has been doing great since his surgery. I haven't written any new entries for his blog, but I did get one together for Chou-Chou Shu. CLICK HERE to check it out!

Stinky Mouse finally got an update, CLICK HERE to see what he's been up to!

Stinky Mouse has had a bit of a makeover and now has his own blog. Yes, that's right, it's the blogosphere's version of a spin-off! Everyone here in the production headquarters for Hui-Hui's World is hoping for a successful launch of this new quality programming outlet, and that all of our beloved readers will check out Stinky-Mouse's new digs! To visit this exciting new website, just click on the picture below!

Regular programming here on Hui-Hui's world will continue as usual. We appreciate your patronage and promise updated entries on a semi-regular basis.

Okay! As promised - the pointless arguments with media wonks have been set aside and we return to our regular pointless content...

Just in time for your weekend entertainment! It's another installment of:

The evening we got home from Children's our oldest son Cam got out the crayons and sat down with Hui-Hui at the little table. Cam used to fit at this table much better, but it was great to see him still using it. A bit later he handed us what he had drawn it was a still-life portrait of Stinky Mouse

When I saw them sitting together at the table I wanted to take a picture but didn't want to distract them. Here's a picture of Cam and his girlfriend Brittni having "tea" with Hui-Hui at the little table from about a month ago...

It's a whole new month here at Hui-Hui's world, so if you're new here you might want to scan through the monthly archives in the sidebar!
And now, due to the massive response Stinky Mouse received last month (5 comments!), we are starting out March with his next adventure!

Our older two sons make fantastic movies with our video camera. I thought it would be great fun to make a movie about Hui-Hui's friend "Stinky-Mouse". But I couldn't really think of a story line and don't have time to film it, or edit it. (I should be editing the rest of our video from China) Then I learned about a really cool piece of software called Comic Life from our online friends Karen and Scott. So I spent this evening cranking out the following...

I want to make an accusation:
It was Scott,
In the kitchen
With the Febreze.

For those who don’t remember wasting rainy Saturdays trying to develop their deductive logic skills with the help of the Parker Brothers, that's a reference to the boardgame Clue.

The victim in this case was Stinky Mouse.

I have blogged about Hui-Hui’s predilection for “thumb snuckers” before. For the most part he’s not terribly picky about a specific toy to cuddle, but over the last couple months he has developed a preference for one particular stuffed animal. This little favorite has come to be known as “Stinky Mouse”. Actually most of the stuffed animals that get any regular rotation as a “snucker” start to take on a distinct odor. Stinky Mouse by virtue of his heavy use had become quite smelly. I wanted to wash Stinky Mouse, but he couldn’t go in the washing machine because he had beans inside him, his label said to “surface wash, air dry”. I suggested we spray him down with Febreze. Tina protested this idea very strongly. She hates the smell of Febreze. My argument was that Febreze kills bacteria and I was pretty sure that bacteria was what was giving Stinky Mouse his unique aroma. Tina said if I sprayed him with Febreze that Hui-Hui wouldn’t like him anymore. I was willing to risk it. I looked up the Febreze website to make sure it was safe to use on children’s toys. It seemed perfectly harmless, so I lightly misted him down and let him dry overnight.

The next morning Stinky Mouse was a new man. His stink was gone. He did have a slight cologne quality to him, but it wasn’t heavy and you could tell this wasn’t masking the old smell. You couldn’t hope to mask that. But not only was his smell gone, so was his mojo. Hui-Hui would have nothing to do with him. It wasn’t like this was a big tragedy. There’s plenty of stuffed animals he’s more than happy to snucker up with. But still I felt bad. Stinky Mouse had become a bit of a sidekick to Hui-Hui.

Tina, of course, put everything right again, She took Hui-Hui to the store and found Stinky Mouse 2.0. As you can see in the photos below he is every bit as serviceable as his predecessor was before I did him in. The stink is coming on nicely and should be at full potency in no time.