Ermine's Spayed Now, Too!

Greg & Christie have been visiting Madge's kittens every couple of days, and they are doing GREAT!

They are fun, playful, silly, energetic, and adorable, just as kittens should be!  Here's some proof:

They love Greg!

Especially his shoes:

Shoes:

Greg eventually took off his shoes and let the kittens go butt-wild on them:

And here are a few photos:

Allistair always has to eat with at least one foot in the bowl!

Once Judith got the shoe she wanted, she snuggled it and got very sleepy.

Lionel is a cuddly beast.  As soon as anyone picks him up, he starts to purr.  Adorable!

Stephen is getting sweeter and friendlier all the time.  He laid upside down on my lap and let me scritch on his cute soft little belly.  And he's much more curious than he used to be.  Yay for Stephen!

And here are three kittens snuggling Greg:


Here are a few photos of my kittens.  By the way, Ermine was spayed today - she's the last one of my kittens who needs to have surgery!  All the kittens were posted by Christie on http://www.cowcats.com/cats so people in the area can search and maybe choose to adopt us.  Take a peek or direct your friends to this blog or the website to see how cute all the kittens are!  We are a beautiful family!

Ermine upside down relaxing:

Cute little Orca face:

Holding Orca's hand:

Orca & Ermine snuggling:

Have a great day!

-Juvy

Cat-A-Licious!

Before we get to the adorable kitten videos, I would like to take a moment to advertise Christie's awesome baking skills and celebrate an amazing accomplishment!

For those of you who don't know, Christie is gluten-free due to Celiac Disease.  She found out about this problem 14 years ago and has been learning to cook and especially bake gluten-free foods since then.  Now it's much easier to eat in restaurants and buy gluten-free foods and ingredients because there are lots more products available and they're available at more places (like Target!)  But it's still tricky to MAKE gluten-free treats because the textures of gluten-free flours are weird.  But since this whole thing started, Christie has kept trying (and failed lots of times and thrown a lot of failed attempts in the garbage!) and has found some recipes that really work well when she adapts them.  Her ginger snaps, snickerdoodles, and pumpkin bars are famous (they're all made gluten-free through adapting the recipes in the good old "Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook" she got as a wedding present 16+ years ago - that link is to the new version, but I hear the old ones are better, so maybe try digging around in used book stores until you find one!)

This last week, Christie got a hankering for cinnamon/caramel rolls.  A BIG hankering.  Big enough to forget the many times she's unsuccessfully tried to make them over the past 14 years.  The last time was at Christmas two years ago, and they were not excellent, but she and Greg did eat them all, so they weren't horrible, either.  But this time, she found this recipe.  Thanks to the Baking Beauties for posting this delicious recipe!

Now, not only do I and the kittens get to enjoy the aroma of deliciously cinnamony, raisiny, carmely delight, but Christie gets to eat those cinnamon rolls and enjoy every bite!  Hooray!  (You'll notice there's one missing!)

Okay, now that that's out of the way, here are the kittens!

Ermine LOVES her silver sparkly ball!

She carries it all over in her mouth and then puts it down and chases it.

A box arrived from Amazon!

More sparkly ball:

Otter playing with the top from a milk jug:

Orca peeking out from behind the curtains like a wildcat peeking from behind jungle foliage:

Ermine sleeping on the windowsill (well, MOST of her is on the windowsill!)

Ermine's sweet little face!

Otter likes Saturdays because there's tons of laundry (clean and NOT) around!

Ermine sleeping on the kitchen chair:

Happy weekend to everyone!

-Juvy

Neuter for Orca!

All three of my kittens who have still been living with Christie & Greg weigh at least three pounds now!  Orca is at the vet right now having his neuter surgery, Otter's surgery is scheduled for Monday, and Ermine's surgery is scheduled for Wednesday!  Soon we will be all done, and none of us will have more kittens with no homes - yay!

The less awesome news is that we will all live outside in Christie & Greg's backyard after we are all fixed.  They can't live with this many cats in the house now that the kittens are getting bigger.  It's okay, though, because although it gets hot in the summer, it doesn't get that cold in the winter (it only gets down to freezing 2-3 times per winter - last year only once, I think!), and I lived outside before I had the babies - without the care of a family.  I will take good care of them and Christie & Greg will feed us all and snuggle us all and make sure we have lots of water and lots of comfy places to sleep.  The kittens will probably not fight because they will be spayed/neutered and they will have food and water and all those important things.

Do keep us in mind if you know people who are looking to add to their fuzzy families!

Here I am, snuggling my baby Otter.  She likes to sleep with her belly sticking up at the sky!

Ermine sleeping behind the curtain with her paws sticking under it! 

Ermine showing her sweet face and bat ears:

Orca & Ermine snuggling:

Orca & Ermine close-up:

Ermine got up on a basket that was sitting on the desk and settled in for a nap!  She's adorable!

On a separate, but still cat-related note, when Christie went out for a run very early in the morning on Monday, one of the neighborhood cats, Gracie (she doesn't have an official home, but everyone knows her and likes her), met Christie at the front door, meowing.  She led Christie over to the tree in the front yard and started rubbing on a branch that had been broken off in the first monsoon storm (a haboob this time!) of the summer.  

Thanks, Gracie, for pointing out the problem!
Greg & Christie went out later to trim the tree and clean stuff up.  Here are a couple of pictures.

Where the branch broke off (in case you don't live in the desert, this is a mesquite tree):

While Christie was hooking up the hose in order to give the traumatized tree some extra water, she saw this baby praying mantis on the faucet handle!  AMAZING!!!  They are delicate and beautiful.

Otter looking delicate and lady-like with crossed paws!

Christie has a few videos of the kittens being cutesy that she will post soon.

It has been a tad busy around here this week, because it's Christie's first week at her exciting and wonderful new job, so she's still trying to figure out her schedule and all of that.  But she doesn't want to deprive you of your kitten fix!

With love,

-Juvy

Exploring

This is Juvy writing again - I have to say that I am proud to be recovery very well from surgery!  I have excellent pain medication (the kittens tried to lick the cap today, but Christie put a stop to that quickly) and lots of calm rest.  I'm thankful not to be outside today, since the thermometer says 108.6, and that's in the shade!

The kittens have been successful at helping Bjarne not hate them, but he tires of their antics quickly.

When they're done playing with Bjarne and racing everywhere attacking things, there's always exploring to be done!  For example, these machines in the laundry room:

And they are cute all over the place.  Here are a bunch of adorable photos of my babies.

Orca & Otter snuggling on the chest by the window in my office:

Ermine:

Ermine some more (notice how she has dried wet food on her nose?  She's very skinny and we're trying to fatten her up, but all that happens is that her tummy gets really chubby and she burps.  Her extremities remain extremely spindly!):

Ermine looking alert!

Ermine looking sleepy:

Ermine on the windowsill:

Orca: "Paws up!"

Orca with paws down:

Orca, ready for abdominal surgery:

Otter and Ermine on their favorite fuzzy blankie:

Otter watching the camera cord: 

Otter ready for abdominal surgery!

Otter in the sunshine:

They're adorable!  Right now everyone is sleeping because they've been racing around like crazies.  I am headed off to sleep myself because that nummy pain medication says on the bottle, "may cause sedation".  Definitely does!  But hey, I'm a cat!  I'm SUPPOSED to sleep most of the time!

I hope you get a nice nap today, too.

-Juvy

SPAY DAY!

Today is spay day for Juvy, so this is Christie writing her post today.  She is completely healed from the mastitis, and she's in heat again (!), so it's definitely time for her to be done with all that weirdness!  She went to the vet at 7:30 this morning and should be ready to come home around 1 PM.

The day before yesterday, the smaller kittens (Madge's kittens) went to live with our neighbors Chris and Tia for a while so we can focus on getting Juvy's kittens old enough to be spayed and neutered.  Hopefully we will still be able to find them excellent homes.

I have some photos of Madge's kittens being adorable (as always!) before they went to Chris & Tia's!

Allistair lying down on my tummy:

Allistair sleeping:

Judith, the princess:

Look at her little teeny paw!

No, she's not drugged.  These are her sleepy eyes!

And more sleepiness on the rug:

Lionel in a basket (they love this toy basket!)

And Stephen in my shoes!  He likes to find ingenious places to hide and observe the world.

And now on to Juvy's kittens!  Here they are all snuggled up and cozy:

Orca on my lap:

PAWS UP!

Sweet sleepy Ermine:

Snuggle-bug sleeping Orca:

Cuddly sleeping Otter:

Everyone being sleepy all together!

And here are a few videos from the last few days!  I know everyone LOVES to watch the videos of the kittens being kittens!

First, Ermine wanted to eat cherry cobbler!  I didn't give her any, but I did let her lick the plate.  No one else wanted any.

Ermine, silly girl, got up on the paper towels and was doing her best to whip them into shape!

Juvy LOVES catnip!

And so do the kittens!

Three kittens playing wild in my office:

More kittens on the bed:

Enjoy the kitten love, and hope you are having a great week!

-Christie