the story of how a one cat family became a two cat family

saturday morning hubby and i took the kids to the local farmers' market. we love going to it and it was the last one of the season, so we headed out and spent a few hours walking around.

when we got home i had to race inside to use the facilities while hubby got the kids out of the car. as i came through the door, i tripped over something that moved. it was a cat. i assumed it was our cat (seeing as it was inside our house) and said something to the effect of, "get out of my way, cat!" and kept on running. well, the cat (that wasn't our cat) followed me into the bathroom. imagine my surprise as i looked down and saw this grey little kitten, about four months old, looking right back up at me.well by this time hubby and the kids made it through the door and they were just as surprised as i was by our little invader. the kids immediately wanted to pet the kitty. princess was giggling, buddy was in heaven, and hubby kept looking at me saying, "no. no. no. no!" eventually the kitten was put back outside, as it must have belonged to someone in our complex. it stayed, though. hubby gave it food and water to kind of see if it was really hungry, as an indicator of ownership. it wasn't, so we assumed someone was taking care of it. inside we went, cat stayed outside.

a few minutes later hubby walked past the door and the kitten was sitting out on our mat mewing to get back in. after some pouty faces on my end and a large sigh and a "fine" from hubby's end the kitten was let back into the house. the kids proceeded to poke, prod, pull tails and ears, and just all around abuse the poor kitten as only kids can do (in spite of the constant "be nice!" warnings from us). the kitten just sat there and took it. no retaliation, nothing. we were pretty surprised by it.

the next day i put up signs at the mailboxes in our complex saying we'd found a cat and if it belongs to anyone, please call. that night i received a phone call--a man who claimed the kitten, but if we wanted it we were more than happy to have it...his mom dumped it on him and he didn't really want it. it's even been neutered already, bonus for us.

so we took it. the kids are attached. i am attached. hubby is even attached (as he says, "i don't want to like this cat!" to me). the only one in our house not attached? our other cat--baby. we've had baby since we were dating, she's about seven or eight years old. mew (the kitten, named after a cat who has recently passed that belonged to hubby's parents) keeps trying to play with baby...and baby responds by hissing and running away. it's only been a few days, though, so i'm sure she'll get used to him soon.

as hubby said..."they say you don't pick your pet, your pet picks you" and how true it is. some random kitten that ran into the house after me one day has become the newest member of the family.

and that is the story of how we got a new kitten.

bwa hahahahaha. merry christmas!

decorating for christmas

we get to put up our tree today! i'm really looking forward to it. i got the rest of the decorations put up yesterday. last summer hubby and i went to this "swap meet" of free stuff he read about on craigs list. yeah, it was full of crap. clothes and shoes even savers wouldn't take, food and energy drinks that were two years out of date, and random pieces of christmas trees. and random garlands. so after looking at the land fill that was supposedly the swap meet, i spied the garlands. and snagged a bunch. i really wish now i had spent more time and gotten more, because i love garlands, but they are pretty pricey. but we have garlands on our house outside, and over our french doors, and over the big window in the kitchen, and over the mirrored closet doors in the front entry. i would love to put some on our railing and over the rest of the windows! i also used leftover red ribbon from our wedding to put through the garlands and it is just so. cute. i love christmas decorations. the twinkly lights make me happy!

growing up, decorating for christmas was an all day event. my mom is an interior designer and is really into holiday decorating--and it always looks awesome. like we paid a designer to do it. we had two trees, the family tree and the one in our front room that matched the decor. we had garlands on the stairs, a cute santa shower curtain in the bathroom, stockings and lights on the bathroom mirrors, a christmas village that has grown over the years, a nativity (that we painted as a family) in the front yard. i loved christmas in my house. our home was transformed, it was so magical, so fun. when we were a little older my parents got us each a mini-tree for our rooms, and let us put up lights in there as well.

every year since i was born, i have been given an ornament. a few, actually. one from my parents, one from my grandmother, and one from my aunt. the same with my four siblings. so as you can imagine, the older we got, the more full our tree became. the last few years i was living at home there was no way we could fit all of the ornaments on the tree. we had to pick about half of our ornaments to put up every year so the tree wasn't drowned in ornaments! as a kid i adored cats, kittens, kitties, everything having to do with them. so a lot of my ornaments are cats. i loved putting up my kitty ornament collection every year. i'm excited to put it up again this year.

i think we are going to have a really fun time with our tree and little buddy. we will be getting a lot of exercise keeping him away from it! i know he's not quite old enough to "get" the whole concept of christmas yet, but i'm so excited to start showing him everything. he is already enthralled by the lights in our garlands.