The Cat Book

Cats are amazing animals. Cats come in all sizes and colors, and spots and stripes. Cats are pets and cats can be wild, too. By wild, I mean leopards and cheetahs. And cats can be tame. Tame cats love to play. Some tame cats do not like to play. Some cats are lazy.
The cheetah is the fastest land animal in the world. It is God who made the cheetah. And more are made every year. How many kinds of cats are there in the world? Not two in the world, there are about thirty-two kinds of cats that live in houses.
--by Wendy

Halloween 2009

We had such a fun time tonight at our local Family Festival. The girls looked awful cute (below) as a Rock Star, Genie, Ballerina Pig (being a Plain Pig just wasn't cute enough for her), Jedi Knight and Jewel Thief!

With Sparky the Fire Dog at the Festival.

They love anyone dressed as a giant animal. Weird.

Diego was a bit insulted by the pink leopard cami and pink tutu, but he knows he looks cute.

Little Beau, the Ladybug


OK this is not from Halloween. Padme took this picture of Mema and Poppie with the new camera they bought her for her birthday. :)

Twins!

Introducing our newest additions!  Please welcome...

Abraham Delacey Giuseppe Casey Thomas O'Malley  (Tommy,  on the left) and Jenny-any-dots (Jenny, on the right)

When we moved, we decided Jackie (Juju) should be an outside cat.  She was not too keen on the idea, so we decided to bring her some friends.  A friend was trying desperately to get rid of 8 kittens, so we took 2 off her hands, hoping to fill JuJu's social void.  At first, it did not work very well.....

However she soon warmed to the idea of new little friends.  She has actually become much more affectionate since she's been outside, and since she adopted our sweet little kittens.  The other pets seem to enjoy the kittens, too.  Diego, especially, likes to play with them.

I especially like this picture.  It really shows the family resemblance, doncha think?

Updated Happenings

We had our first week of co-op on Friday! We all had a great time! The kids so enjoyed getting to see all of their friends again. Our newly adopted kiddos did very well, I was a little nervous about how they would respond to all of the classes, but they actually did great! Three of their five classes were taught by me or their grandma, so they felt pretty comfortable. Plus they see me after each class, and we all eat lunch together. We are very excited about this semester, and everyone loved their classes! Yay!

We also moved last week. We only moved 25 minutes away, but we are much closer to our regular activities. The kids are loving the new house, and one of our bedrooms is big enough for all 5 girls to bunk together! I am very excited about this, as I have always wanted a "girls' room" and a "boys' room." With five girls and only one boy, this was not possible in our old house. Already I have seen the girls grow closer, in just a week, by bunking together. Thank you, Lord, for answering even our small prayers. We now have a "playroom" which is nice because they don't have to have all of their toys put away perfectly, all the time. The house isn't "custom" like our old one, nowhere near as "nice," but it is perfect for our needs and we are all loving it. We only had 3 weeks to move, so we feel very blessed that the Lord brought us such a great house so quickly!

During this same time frame, we also attempted to breed our little chihuahua with a friend's dog - we'll know in a few weeks whether it worked.

We kicked our cat out when we moved, she did not take very well to being an outside cat. So, we got 2 kittens from a friend, to keep her company. I have warned the girls that they may not make it to adulthood, what with the coyotes & hawks out here in the country. So far, so good, though. I think all little kids need to take care of a baby animal, so we really got these for the benefit of the new girls, as all the other kids have been through this already. Outside cats are really very easy, and the girls have spent every possible moment outside playing with those kitties! Once I find my camera (haven't seen it since the move) I will post pictures of our new little sweeties.

As you can see, we have been very busy! I will try to update more frequently. We are getting into a routine with all of our activities, so hopefully I will be able to do so.

The Pigzal

There once was a Pigzal,
part pig and part weasal.
He slept all day
and his name was Diesel.

He had a sniff,
he had to blow.
He blew so hard,
he blew up snow.

The snow was pink,
and his hair was, too.
And, if you ask me,
he smelt like goo.

The goo was green
and so was the cat.
And, I'm sorry to say,
she was stuck to his back.

----by Padme

A Sleepy Day

for the pets at least...



Diego



and Mary (in the Groovy Girls house).

Ode to Cocoa

We're on our way up a narrow path,
Only taking our living things with us.

One of our belongings has raced ahead of us
And reached the gate before we did
And started a new life up in heaven.

Though we miss her very much
We know she will no longer suffer
On the graveled road that leads there!

(This poem is based on my dog Cocoa who died on Sept 17, 2007 and was born on Dec 7, 1997, almost ten when she died.)

~~Posted by Padme

Pets

A thread running through a yahoo group I'm on is asking us to talk about our pets. I thought you guys might also want to know what other craziness exists in our home, besides the adorable Littluns.

We are, in fact, downsizing in the pet department. My rule is that all kids get to stay, but pets have to tow the line if they want to stay. I run a pretty tight ship - in the pet department anyway. Sometimes I don't even give three strikes before they're out.

First, you will all be glad to know that we got rid of Ashley Bonnie, the dog who tried to eat my daughter's face last winter.





We loved that dog but you have to draw the line somewhere. (That is a story for another post. I learned a lot of valuable information about dog bites. After the fact, of course. And she didn't really try to eat her face, she actually bit her on the lip, but it's all the same to me!) Too bad. Other than that incident, she was the best dog we ever had.

OK, so we replaced that dog with another, but the new dog weighs about 60 pounds less so, the way I see it, we're still ahead. More on that later...

Our cocker spaniel, Cocoa Evangeline, turned out not to be lake material. She kept getting burrs the size of quarters in her long fur, and she loved to find dead fish and roll in them. Why are dogs so weird?




When the burrs were so bad that her ear was folded in half and stuck together, I started looking for other options. My mother-in-law adopted Cocoa earlier this summer, and she loves being part of their family. Plus, we still get to visit. She also was a weird dog - she had an obsession with our fish tank, and would sit for hours and watch the fish swim. Apparently she now obsesses over their guinea pig, so she's happy.

We gave away our adorable lop-eared bunny a couple of years ago to a sweet friend, before he got really huge. (The bunny, not the friend. The friend is a girl. And not huge).

Of course, we immediately replaced the Little Bunny Boo-Boo with 2 kittens (who turned into cats, it's true, but honeslty you hardly ever see them so, if you count by Hours They Are In The Way, they barely count at all).

Finally, our lion fish has some barbaric tendencies and keeps killing the other fish with his poisonous barbs. I think he's killed about 12. As of yesterday he is now King of the Hill. We really thought we were safe as long as we got fish who were too big for his mouth. Turns out he kills just for fun. Sicko. He even killed the shrimp & tried to eat it. He couldn't get the shrimp to fit so its claws are hanging out of his mouth. He eventually spit it out because, duh, it has an exoskeleton! Fish are so dumb.

So...that leaves us with 2 dogs (Beau Antonio, a 140 pound lab and Diego Alejandro Frisco Pasado Laredo, a 4 pound chihuahua, guess who's in charge?), 2 cats (Mary Kate and Jackie, but you'll probably never see them if you come over) and 1, read it again, 1 fish (Aslan, who the kids have decided is actually a Devil fish and needs a new name. Aslan seemed to fit because he's a lion fish but that was before we knew him).

Imho, you can't really count all the critters that my kids are forever coming home with, or the snake I killed in the garage last week (btw an axe works way better than a shovel - why do they always tell you to get a shovel?) because they aren't pets. They're more like experiments.

I keep trying to get dh to let me buy one of my dear friend's shih tzu pups, but he says we have to charge admission if we get anymore pets. Ooh, but now that the fish are depleted maybe he'd reconsider...

I really need help.

Update: We just received word that Cocoa died today. Apparently she started getting sick and just died. She was nearly 10, not terribly old for a small dog. We will miss this sweet little dog! For all her quirks (she had plenty) she really was a sweet girl...