8 Thumbs Up!

We just got back from Ratatouille and it was fabulous. I highly recommend it. Fabulous story, beautiful "art", and RATS! What more could a person want?

Four Happy Homes

I asked about Captain Jack and heard back today that he was adopted a couple of days after his sisters, they just forgot to call me. So, HOORAY! It makes me happy to know that I was able to give them a good start in life. We'll probably get another group of kitties at the end of this month or early next month, if they need us.

Just heard today...

...that Peanut was adopted on Saturday! Yippee!!

Family Fun!

We had a Family Reunion with my parents & siblings & their children last week up at Downata Hot Springs in Downey, Idaho. It was a lot of fun and a great break from routine. On Friday we did a slew of games, including sack races, water balloon tosses, push-up contests, and more. The push-up contest involved David & two of my nephews each having a kid on their back and doing as many push-ups as they could. David won, with 18, I think. My nephews both got one less, which was pretty impressive as they had to keep up with my SIL counting them out. After the contest, a bunch of the kids dog-piled David.

Wheeeeee!

More happy news!

I talked to Barbara, the other foster coordinator at the HS, and Tigerlily was adopted yesterday! Now we just need homes for Captain Jack and Peanut.

Happy News!

I heard from Juli, the foster coordinator, that Blossom has been adopted! Yay!

Adieu & Good Luck!

We took Peanut and the kittens up to the Humane Society today to be placed for their forever homes. I've really enjoyed being their foster mom. What a treat to help raise such cute, well-adjusted furballs! I took these pictures to attach to their adoption cards. I made Peanut a whole collage/info sheet so that's why her photo doesn't have her name on it.

"I wish, I love you"

This is the song Spud was singing over and over again the other day in the car. And he was doing it in his cutest, sweetest, highest little two year old falsetto voice. It was enough to melt you down to a puddle. Sweet sweet sweet!

Bring on da FLUFF

We tried the "show" method of brushing Daisy while blow drying her after her bath on Sunday. Talk about FLUFFY!! It took both David and I to do it, but I actually like the result. She's softer than a teddy bear now, too.

sometimes the milk is smiling at me...

This was left after Spud ate his cookie & milk.

Oh the cuteness! (Part II)

The foster kittens are now 6 weeks old. These pictures are from they were 4 weeks old.
From top to bottom we have Blossom, female. She's the most adventurous as well as the quickest to learn. She walked first, ran first, drank from a bowl first, and used the litter box first.

Middle: Tigerlily, female. She is the most shy of the three, but super cute and sweet. She has a big freckle on her nose so it looks black. She's Spud's favorite.

Bottom: Cap'n Jack, male. So named for his "pirate patches" on his back, of which there are three.

They all love to chase each other and wrestle. One of my favorite things is watching two of them wrestle while the odd one out attacks the wrestlers' tails!

Farewell Sweet Marco

My dumbo rat boy Marco passed away today. I knew the end was imminent, as he has been quite frail the last couple of weeks. David and I had been saying our farewells the past couple of days. I am relieved that he went as quickly as he did, though, and didn't suffer much. He was able to stay in with the pack until the end, and was even still eating. I think his little body just had worn out. He was about 26 months.

Oh the cuteness!

This is Peanut and her 3 kitties, about 3 weeks old now. We just picked them up from the H.S. tonight. They are really sweet and beautiful. I'm dying over the super-striped tabby kitten!

Oh, I forgot to mention here that we've decided to adopt Minnie, our first foster cat. She and our Noni just fell in absolute love with each other and are fast friends. It seemed very wrong to break something like that up, especially when all my cat-lovin' friends tell me how rare it is. I'll post some pics later this week. The other morning I walked into the hallway to find Noni's "arm" across Minnie's shoulders, and she was licking his face. Talk about sweet!! So, now we have two black cats. A theory on why they have grown so close is that they might have both had all black family members. We know that Noni's mother and siblings were all black, and often animals have positive memories with mother/siblings so they associate those feelings with other similar looking animals. Also explains why Daisy was tickled pink to meet another bichon in PetSmart a few weeks ago.

The family

David's brother returned home from his mission to FL last week, and their sister flew in for the weekend, so we took the opportunity to have me take some family photos.

The girls

Family Bike Ride

We finally have TWO working bikes and a bike trailer, so we went on a family bike ride today. There wasn't room for Daisy in the trailer with the kids, and I don't yet have a basket for her to ride in, so I had to improvise.

Sad news

The kittens died last night. We think that Minnie might have smothered them, as that is fairly common among cats that have been sick. It's fairly hardwired into animal brains to weigh the pros and cons of raising a litter when their own health is compromised, and with all the stuff Minnie's gone through in the last couple of weeks, it's no surprise the cons won out. It is still very sad, though, and we are really going to miss watching those two little kittens grow up. You just wish you could make the animal understand that they don't have to do all this alone, because you are here to help them and to make sure they get everything they need. Perhaps they know something we don't.

Back in the saddle again...

I'm hoping to get going with my photography again this spring. In theory, I'd like to get good enough to be able to have a small business on the side, but to do that I need to get busy taking more pictures.

Here are a couple from December that I finally got around to working with.

Kittens, 1 week old

The kittens turned one week old on Tuesday. They've both lost their little umbilical stumps and are nice & chubby.
The black & white one (top photo) is a girl, I believe. She's very adventurous, especially considering her eyes aren't open yet. She has started crawling out of the kennel and into the rest of the room. The little black/gray one is a boy, and quite content to stay in the kennel with his momma.

Minnie came down with some sort of upper respiratory infection at the end of last week, so I picked up some antibiotics from the humane society, which we started her on on Sunday. Today she finally seems like she is improving, which is quite a relief. She's a really fine mother to her two kittens. It has been neat to watch her with them.