Who needs a stuffed animal?

Cambria and Isis sleep together most nights.  As far as cats go, we really do have some sweet ones that sure love Cambria.  As long as she’s not dressing them up in doll clothes. 

Happy cats

We aren’t the only ones glad to be home. Our cats have made it undeniably clear that they are loving being back home as well.

Isis and Zelda

I was cleaning up from dinner tonight and saw what I thought was a really cute photo op!   They just looked so sweet sitting there on the windowsill together. 

Wordless Wednesday

Cambria and Isis

I know I’ve got lots of posts about little Bri with her kitties, but it just never fails to touch my heart how much she loves them and they love her!  Today was the cutest!  I was getting started on some chores, and Bri asked to get in the tub.  So I helped her get in, and then I went and made my bed.  When I came back to check on her, I found Isis sitting on the toilet lid right next to Bri.  These cats are always wherever she is, and it’s just so sweet.  As much as she tortures them, they sure love her!  The picture with Bri’s little feet is my absolute FAVORITE.  So precious.

Pretty in headbands

This morning as I was busy doing dishes, Cambria came into the kitchen to show me what she'd done. It was too cute not to take a picture! I wonder if this girl will ever grow out of her love for these cats? I thought the novelty would wear off shortly after we adopted Isis in 2008, but she's just as obsessed now as she was back then! And luckily the cats are extremely good sports (as if they have a choice!). Today it was Isis' turn to be tortured.....uh, I mean loved. ;-)

Cute little bundles.....of trouble!

We've had such a fun time with our kittens. About a week ago, we put up a couple of ads on Craigslist as well as a few signs around our neighborhood. We found homes for 3 kittens almost instantly. We still have to find one more home (we're keeping one, as per the begging of our children). I'm not in a rush, but Derk's getting sick of having 3 cats, so he's giving me a 2 week time frame before he takes the cat to the Humane Society (which I want to avoid at all costs, of course!).

Anyway, like I said, we've been having fun with these cuties, and they've sure been having fun here! We hear the pitter-patter of their little feet running across our floor, chasing each other all the time. While we were reading scriptures last night, one cat was sitting contendedly on the step that goes down to our sunken formal living room, and I saw the other cat creeping up behind. Then, POUNCE!, and they started to wrestle. It was so darn cute.

What's not so cute is when I find them on top of our dining room table wrestling. First off, cat hair all over my table? Ick. Secondly, claws + nice furniture? Recipe for disaster (luckily no scratches yet, though!). Knocking over my plant and/or chewing on said plant's leaves while on the table? Not so into that, either.

Caught in action --
wrestling AND chewing on my plant at the same time! :)

As I mentioned, we decided we'd let the kids keep one of the kittens. Now we're having a lot of trouble deciding which one to keep. They are both so adorable, both females and have great personalities.

Meet Zelda. She was named by Kyrie, and Kyrie is quite proud of her name, thankyouverymuch. I suggested we re-name her if we keep her, and Kyrie was quite appalled at my suggestion. :) Zelda is the kitten Derk, Asher, Bri and I decided we want to keep.

Meet Vader. She was named by Derk, before we knew he was actually a she, but the name has stuck! This is the kitten Kyrie wants to keep. I frequently find Kyrie and Vader curled up together on Kyrie's bed at night, fast asleep. In fact, this picture is of just that.

As we were trying to agree on a kitten, I came up with a fair method. I wrote each kitten's name on a piece of paper 5 times (since there are 5 of us), then placed them in a bowl. We each drew a name -- Zelda got 4 votes and Vader got 1. When I read the results, Kyrie burst into tears. It broke my heart to see her so sad, especially when both Derk and I didn't really care which kitten we kept. So I spoke to Derk, and we've decided to give Vader to Kyrie and to get rid of Zelda instead. She has no idea and still thinks we're going with the original results. I'm not sure when we'll tell her, but I'm forming some cute ideas in my head for the occasion.

5 little cuties

Just in the past week, the kittens have become really cute -- venturing out of the closet, playing with each other, wobbling around as they work on their walking skills, developing their personalities. It's funny, but each kitten really does have a very distinct personality, very different from the others. They're so much like children. I had some time to kill this morning, so I took some pictures of the little darlings. I tried to get individual pictures of each one, but I could only get a few -- there were a few kittens that really didn't want to cooperate with me. :)

Gettin' fatter -- Week 7

Here's our pretty kitty, very pregnant -- only about 2 weeks left! All she does now is eat and sleep. And shed. Man, does she shed. I'm not sure if it's because of the pregnancy or because it's getting so hot already. Or a combination of both. But I have to brush her once a day, otherwise her hair is everywhere. The kids are beyond excited for the arrival of the kittens, and Derk's already resigned to the fact that all of us will want to keep one. He knows he's just as much a sucker for cute kittens as the rest of us are. :)

Gettin' fatter -- Week 4

At first I wasn't sure if Isis was pregnant or not. But now, 4 weeks later, it's very obvious she is. It's actually interesting how similar pregnant cats are to pregnant women -- sleeping a lot, eating a lot, shedding, mood swings....Seriously, she's moody! It's pretty funny. She spends literally all day hiding from the kids (Cambria) under our bed. Then she'll come out after we've got them down for the night, jump up on our bed and sleep some more.

Even though she's not as tolerant of Cambria these days, that still doesn't deter Cambria from loving on her just as much! Isis will put up a good fight if Bri picks her up (because Bri picks her up around her stomach usually), so Cambria's now taken to just cuddling with her on the floor. Isis would be rolling her eyes in this picture if she could. :) But Cambria still just loves her kitty and is really excited about the babies coming. It's going to be so fun trying to keep Cambria away from Isis after the babies are born! Yikes.

Isis in heat

Have you ever been around a cat in heat? I can now say that they are the most annoying things on the planet during that time! She didn't sleep at all in about a week, which means we didn't either. She just meowed and meowed and meowed and paced back and forth in front of every window and door. It's the most obnoxious, guttural meow. I can't even describe it.

So of course I couldn't let her outside at all, which made her even more crazy. She was so desperate to get out that she tried pushing her way through Kyrie and Cambria's screen, which is on the second floor! It was just nuts.

I couldn't get the really obnoxious stuff on video, but I did catch a bit of it. This video is much quieter than what she normally did, but you get the idea. She'd just meow like this non-stop.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Did you notice I'm speaking in past-tense? Well, that's because the kids let her out without my knowing! We went out to look at a few houses on Saturday, and she was apparently out the whole time. So now she doesn't meow or pace back and forth any more. I'm eternally grateful to her for that. However, the (huge) possibility that she's now expecting doesn't have me extremely thrilled.

I spy.....

A black mouth, a painted head and a destroyed camera lens!

Thank goodness for baths and warranties!!

Comfy?

When we first got Isis, she had a rough first few days -- she was so lonely for her brother at the Humane Society that she didn't even eat for 2 days. It's nice to know that she's much improved since then and is most comfortable living with our crazy family and sprawling out on our bed for a nice snooze. . .

My first photos!

I shouldn't be posting this right now because I have loads of work to get done, but I just am too excited and have to post. I am beyond thrilled with this camera! The past 2 days, I've gotten the most adorable pictures ever!

Yesterday, Kyrie and I didn't make it to church, so we took advantage of an otherwise empty house and had a little impromptu photo shoot. I took tons of pictures, but I only ended up getting one really good one. It's just darling, though!

This morning, I had to strip Asher's bed, and the kids seized the opportunity to do some jumping. I thought it was the perfect time to try out some action shots with my camera for the first time, so I sat there and snapped away. The difference between shots with this camera and shots with my old point-and-shoot is absolutely amazing. The pictures actually snap as soon as I push the button, and I actually caught the kids mid-air every time I wanted to! I'm in awe and just love, love, love it!!! Oh, and normally we have very strict rules about jumping on the bed, including the most important, which is not to jump off the headboard (they seriously try to do that all the time!), but I was so desperate to try out some action shots that I broke my own rule, just this once. :)

After they were done jumping on the bed, we got out the air mattress to get everything ready for when Grandma arrives tonight. As I was putting the sheets for Grandma into the wash, Asher turned on the air pump and had a blast blowing air at me. It was so insanely cute that I just had to snap some more pictures.





While that was going on, Cambria then provided me with another perfect opportunity to get some more adorable pictures. I think my favorite is the last one -- how adorable will that be when I change it to black and white?!

See, I told you they were the cutest pictures ever!
Can you stand how cute they are? I can't!

A girl and her pet....

Cambria just loves Isis. The first thing she says in the morning is to ask where her kitty is, and she literally holds her all day long. She gets very upset when we leave to run errands and I tell her Isis can't come. She's very possessive, and if anyone dares to pick Isis up or even pet her, Cambria's quick to remind, "My kitty! My kitty!!" She and Asher fight over who's kitty it is, and it always cracks me up because Cambria says, "No, Atcher! My kitty!" Atcher. Love it!

Isis is so good and just lets her do almost anything. I'm always amazed and think to myself that I can't believe Isis lets her do all she does! Today Cambria came strolling into our bedroom pushing Isis in her baby doll stroller. I thought Isis would for sure jump right out, but she stayed in there the whole time, just chillin' away. :)

After pushing her around for a few minutes, sometimes not so gently :) , Cambria decided to cover Isis with her "baby". Isis let her do that, too.

But then Isis was done cooperating. She'd had enough and decided to run off and find a safe place to hide. The picture is a little blurry, sorry. I just love how she's intently watching Cambria's every move to make sure she's still safe under our bed. . . :)

She wasn't safe for long. Cambria quickly found her and picked her up. I found them like this out on our balcony that's off our master bedroom, and I just thought it was so sweet.

She was singing Isis a sweet little song, and luckily she didn't see me behind her with the camera, so I was able to get a little video of it before she stopped. Sorry about the crazy wind! Hopefully you can still hear it. . .

An update

I regret to inform you that I don't have any pictures to share. Don't mistake that as me telling you that my kids haven't been their devilish selves, because they've gotten into plenty of mischief the past few days. The messes have just been too crazy and needed immediate attention. So just telling you about them will have to suffice.

--Cambria got into the box of bread crumbs Derk forgot to put back into the cupboard after making dinner. We don't have bread crumbs any more. And I'm not entirely sure I ever want to buy them again.

--Asher dumped out an entire bottle of conditioner while he was in the tub the other night. Of course it was brand new (as in, I'd just bought it that day). He has the softest hair ever. And I think he still smells like strawberries, 3 days later.

--Cambria decided to help Mommy clean the litter box the other day. She was trying to surprise me, I think, because she didn't ask for permission and didn't tell me what she was going to do either. Instead of using the scooper thing and the trash can, though, she used the cup to pick up the litter and then deposited the (used) litter into my master bathtub.

--Cambria also decided to paint herself and the kids' bathroom with Vick's Baby Rub. Just for your information, you can get that slime off of skin if you wash with Johnson and Johnson's baby soap no less than 100 times. But if they also paint their head like my little darling did, you won't get it out for at least 4 days, not even if you try dish soap.


In other news, our poor little Isis got really hurt over the weekend. Some random dog started chasing her, so she climbed up the stucco on the outside of the condos. She got up about 15-20 feet and then fell. She's not *seriously* hurt. She's walking extremely slowly, but she can move all 4 of her limbs, and it's obvious that she hasn't broken anything important. It seems to be just her back right leg that's hurting her. I sat down and started petting her trying to figure out where she was hurt, and that was the only place she'd get upset when I touched. She's eating and drinking and using the litter box fine, so that's a good sign. But she's just laying around all the time and is doing nothing cat-like. Poor little thing. She's been up and around a lot more today than she was over the weekend, so I think she's on the mend.

As for the weather, it's been just beautiful! We've been in the low 70's for about 2 weeks now and have been able to open the windows and turn off the thermostat! Now I can totally see why people live here. I'm not sure I'll ever miss snow.....

Our cat is strange!

The second Isis hears us start our tub or shower, she runs as fast as she can into our bathroom. Even if she's downstairs. Then she jumps up onto the ledge of the tub and just sits there while we shower or take a bath. She has strategic spots where she sits, depending on what we're doing....

If we're showering, she'll sit here:


And if we're taking a bath, she'll sit here:

Totally goofy, or what?

What's wrong with this picture?

As I sit here typing, we're having another storm like we did yesterday! It's not nearly as crazy, and there's no rain, just strong wind. Strange weather, though.

Anyhow, the inspiration for today's post came when I was downstairs for, oh, all of 2 minutes vacuuming the living room. I do this every day, so it shouldn't be anything new, but apparently Asher seized the day (as a side note: don't ever get Derk started on the phrase Carpe Diem -- you'll be in for a 10 minute conversation at least! :) ) and decided to get a teensy bit creative. With my make up. And the cat. See for yourself.


She's supposed to be all white. But no, now she's a lovely shade of white mixed with tan foundation powder. I guess the silver lining is that this cat should certainly learn to love baths by the time she's a few months old! She's already had 2 in the short 3 weeks we've had her (thanks, kids!). :)

Never a dull moment. . .

I guess I should be grateful that my kids are always making things interesting for me and are always keeping me on my toes. I have often thought about making them agree to giving me at least 30 days advanced notice before they decide to do something new. I always get thrown for a loop when they don't, so I think it would be easier for everyone if they did.

Cambria's recent triumph was learning how to climb out of her crib. Now, I'm extremely impressed that it took her as long as it did, because Asher was climbing out at 10 months, but I still wasn't ready for it. I decided to put her in the playpen instead, hoping that would deter her from climbing out. Yeah, it worked - but only for a day before she figured out how to climb up the mesh sides of the playpen just as easily as the crib slats. Great.

So then we had to resort to standing in her doorway until she was asleep. We quickly learned that she'd pop her little head up to see if we were watching, and if we weren't, she'd go ahead and climb out. Standing in the doorway prevented the climbing, but it got old. Fast. Then we knew it was time to get her a big girl bed, which is what we're in the process of doing this week.

Until then, however, I had to come up with something. As she kept climbing out of her bed over and over last night, it finally dawned on me! Why didn't I think of this before?! The sheer genius of it is, well, genius! You must be forewarned, this photo only proves how utterly desperate I was to have this child asleep before 11pm.
I realized I could tie a twin sheet to all 4 corners of her playpen, thus preventing her from climbing out. Man was she mad at me for that! I felt so mean, but we all finally got a good night's sleep out of the deal. And I'm hoping to use this method as a tool to help train her not to climb out by telling her I'll take the sheet off if she stays in bed. If crib tents weren't so darn expensive, I'd have bought one of those instead.

Now, so as not to be outdone by Cambria, little Isis decided to play a trick on me as well. I was busy downstairs, cleaning, playing with the kids, the usual, and then I realized I hadn't seen her in a while and decided to check on her. I figured she'd be upstairs asleep on our bed, like usual. She wasn't. I searched everywhere for this cat and could not find her. I started freaking out, thinking perhaps Cambria had finally finished the job she seems so intent on finishing when I finally heard a little meow coming from my closet. . .

This has quickly become her new favorite spot. It is where you will always find her, should our closet door be left open. It's quite hilarious actually, and I have no clue how she manages to get up there! But anyway, I shouldn't have been so quick to assume Cambria had hurt little Isis. She really does love her.

Our new addition!

We are all very excited to announce our new addition! Derk and I decided to surprise the kids with a trip to the pet store. Being my natural self, I couldn't just tell them what we were doing - I had to disguise it. So I told them we were doing the dreaded "e word" (errands). The mere mention of the "e word" brings with it Meltdown City - which was all part of the plan. So I told the kids we were going to run errands, and Kyrie instantly tried to refuse to go.


Yes, she actually went and hid under her bed in protest. I'm having a grand old time by this point because of her picture perfect reaction and nonchalantly tell her that not all errands are boring. Just my little hint that she wasn't in the mood to pick up on. :) So we finally convince her to come out from under her bed and to get in the car. We started driving, and Kyrie asked why we were going the wrong way. When we pulled up to the building, she was thoroughly confused. Then we got the kids out and walked in, and they saw all the kittens. They all went crazy and were beyond excited. Again, being me, I turned to Kyrie and said, "See! I told you not ALL errands are boring!" She just got that fake wounded look on her face. It was priceless! :)

After we did all the paperwork, we took the kids and our new baby to Wal*Mart to get all her supplies. On the way to Wal*Mart, we discussed names for this little cutie. Kyrie was adament about naming her Bellika. Luckily for the kitty, Derk and I exercised our veto power. :) After much deliberation, we decided to name her Isis.

The kids had a blast picking out her feeding bowl, food, brush and all the other things we needed for her. Let me tell you that it was highly entertaining (and not in the best way) to be shopping with a 6 year old who thought the kitten was hers, a 3 year old who thought the kitten was his and an almost 2 year old who thought the kitten was hers, all fighting to hold said kitten the entire time we were shopping. Needless to say, we left there exhausted, and I'm pretty sure Wal*Mart was glad to see us leaving the store. :)

The kids are all extremely excited about her, and I'm just excited for their excitement to wear off a bit. :) It's been tricky so far but still really fun.