I know, I know, it’s been forever since I last posted….again,
but it’s been a VERY busy year!
January through March, not only was I working full time
Monday-Friday, but I also spent my time after work (5:15-7 p.m.) split between two different local high schools where I was choreographing their
high school musicals (“Damn Yankees” and “Anything Goes”). Then from 7:30 until 10:30-11 each night I
had my own rehearsal for the French Farce “Boeing Boeing” at the Lucille Ball
Little Theatre here in Jamestown. The
link above takes you to the full Facebook photo album for the show, which was
an absolutely BLAST to be apart of! I
hadn’t done a straight play since middle school, with the exception of scene
work in my college Acting classes. This was the first "challenge" that peeked my
interest in auditioning for the show (after the fact that the show is a
RIOT). Next came the fact that I was
cast as Gretchen, the German stewardess.
I spent 6 weeks working tirelessly
to master the best German accent possible.
I still love throwing it around every now and then ;-) And the final “challenge” that I overcame
during the rehearsal and performance process during Boeing was announced to our
friends as follows:
A few thought we were getting another dog, but we did not!
This October, we are expecting our first baby!! I realized I was pregnant about 3 weeks into
rehearsals and was 10 weeks pregnant by the time the show closed. Other than our parents, no one knew until the end of March about the baby’s arrival. I
had to tell my director, and good friend, a few days before Tech Sunday because
my flight attendant dress could not be worn w/o the jacket without my belly
starting to show (more of a carb baby that actual baby pump at that point LOL)! My counterpart in the show also figured it out one night and
was great about keeping my secret until I told the reminder of the cast closing
weekend.
I enjoyed every second of all the theatre work I did this
spring. I was EXHAUSTED 90% of the time
and had to drag my nauseous self to every step of rehearsals that I had on a
particular night, but once I was there I felt just fine 99% of the time. I think if I’d just gone home every night
after work I would have done nothing but sit on the couch like a blob feeling
horribly sorry for myself!
Plus, we found out the end of May that
Our summer has been very busy. In addition to slowly trying to get ourselves
ready for the baby’s arrival, Jonathan and I are both busy running our family business,
Panama Rocks Scenic Park for our 2nd year and the 130th
year since it was founded in 1885. We
have been having a great summer so far and have seen a wonderful increase in the
business over last year. I am, of
course, still working Monday-Friday outside of the Park so that we have a
steady income and health insurance, and have still kept very active with
marketing and choreography at the theatre.
There’s no slowing me down just yet – in fact I’m getting ready to start
rehearsals next week as Choreographer for “The Addams Family”, our annual fall
musical.
In June, Jonathan and I were fortunate enough to be able to
get coverage for the Park’s office, and took a week off and went down to the
beach.
My in-laws currently own a condo on Estero Island, Ft. Myers
Beach, FL and we hadn’t been down since June of 2012. They have decided to sell the condo for multiple
reasons so this was a combination last trip before the condo sells, and Babymoon. It was a wonderful, relaxing
week on the beach filled with lovely memories of our first vacation together,
honeymoon and now babymoon (plus a few other vacations in between). We will certainly still vacation in Ft. Myers
Beach in the future, but it’ll never be quite the same.
There was crocheting from my favorite spot in the world (the condo's lanai), virgin Mojitos at Doc Ford's, amazing sunsets, a growing belly, sunset selfies, LOTS of ice cream, the most incredible rental car in all the land (2015 Mustang Convertible) and a tan & growing baby bump!
Oh August 6th, Jonathan and I celebrated our 4th Wedding Anniversary. Still hard for me to believe that we've been married for 4 years already, and yet only 4 years. Here's a very detailed collage of pictures from us from the past 11 years that I posted to Facebook back on the 6th - you should be able to click on it to see more detail if you're interested in seeing how we've both aged over the past decade ;-)
And here are me, and the "girlfriend", as I've been calling her, at our Anniversary dinner last Saturday night:
As far as crocheting, I didn’t really do any during my first
trimester. I was too busy, too tired and
too nauseous to really have any desire
to do so. My nausea went away around
week 14 and I’ve continued to putter and play with multiple different projects since then.
From July until December I have 7 babies, including my own
coming into our lives (6 girls by the way and only 1 boy – GIRL POWER!!) so I
have some little projects that I’ve been working on since June on that front,
but nothing is actually finished.
Then, a co-worker of mine returned to work last week so I whipped
this up real quick over the weekend for her baby-girl (another girl!!) to wear this fall:
This caused me to be bitten by bit of a "fall crocheting" bug
that still hasn’t let up this week!
Over the weekend, Jonathan and I were fortunate enough to
get a day off from the Park (first one since June 28th when we returned from the beach) and went to Chautauqua Institution for the
day. We set ourselves up for a picnic in
the shade by the lake and I started crocheting this scarf:
I'm not exactly sure what this stitch is called, but after you chain your width you do a sc ch1 then skip the next stitch. Starting on Row 2 you continue the same sc ch1 pattern with each sc going into the ch1 space of the previous row. I half thought this was called the Moss Stitch, but the quick Google search that I just did proved me wrong. Anyone wanna help me out so I know for future reference??
The past couple of nights I’ve been pulling out half
finished Owl Hats from last fall, and some additional colors to stock pile on
these for gifts & orders, and spent the past two lunch hours this week crocheting the
whites for the eyes on as many hats as I can get made.
Two days progress - if you’re curious it does take me about 5 minutes per eye J
I also have the most AMAZING blanket for myself that I’ve
been working on since early June. I’m obsessed with it but don’t actually have
any photographs of it to share right now – will have to be sure and take a few
soon.
Last, but certainly not least, I did finally pick a pattern
and yarn selection for my baby girl’s baby blanket. I was ridiculously picky in this process but
have an inspiration photo that I love, that Jonathan instantly loved, and all
of the yarn just arrived earlier this week.
It’s a new to me pattern that has been making it’s rounds on some of my
favorite crochet Facebook pages for some time now – hopefully I pick it up
quickly! I also have purchased multiple
photo prop patterns for our newborn photoshoot with the little one in
October. I haven’t started on these yet
either as I’m waiting on some clothing that was also purchased to arrived to
make sure that my yarn matches accordingly.
So, as you can see, we have been VERY busy up here in our
little corner of Western New York! Sorry
it’s taken me so long to post anything. I’ll
try and be better as I finish up some projects and have exciting news to
share! I still read all of your blogs,
almost daily, and Pin and print loads of patterns and recipes to try!
I especially find crocheted owls to be suburb! This little guy is part of my 2014 Mood Blanket (that still hasn't been touched since February 2014). Free pattern can be found HERE.
We don't really watch sports, unless it's the Super Bowl, or the Olympics. I know we are in the minority, but I gotta say, as a non-sports watcher, I'm often SO HAPPY that Jonathan is also not into watching sports on TV all weekend. We are able to get so many other things done!
We do always watch the Super Bowl. Mostly because I say we need to watch it, and that's because I wanna make Super Bowl food and use that time to crochet (and watch out the commercials) <----did anyone have a favorite commercial? I found many companies using millions of dollars in ad time to come up with the "oddest" thing they could as their way of being remembered by the end of the night. I always enjoy what Budweiser does, the Snickers one with The Brady Bunch was funny, and the #withdad Nissan one and #girlpower ones just made me all weepy! I've always enjoyed Katy Perry and found the Halftime Show to be very entertaining. Plus all the special effects and quick costume changes always make this theatre nerd giddy! And as a theatre nerd - hello amazing Idina Menzel singing the National Anthem! Seriously, she can do NO WRONG as far as I'm concerned. End of story. Don't try and tell me otherwise, because you will not convince me, or win!
It was just the two of us (and the dogs) so we didn't make a ton of food. We had these INCREDIBLE Chicken Nachos that I thought were going to end up being a snack, but were definitely enough food for just the 2 of us as dinner (we did have a late lunch too). They looked so amazing as soon as Jonathan brought them in, I didn't even think to photograph them! I was too busy cramming them in my face and keeping the dogs away from said face. Seriously, they're amazing. I just love Ree and her blog!
And for dessert were had these little beauties:
I've always been a big fan of No Bake Cookies, so when I saw this recipe on Maybe Matilda last week, I knew they were a MUST for the Super Bowl!
Next time I make them, yes! these will definitely be made again, I'm going to try just using 1/2 cup of chocolate chips with maybe a little less than 1/2 cup of peanut butter. It was almost too over-powering for the yummy Oat mixture to have such a thick band of chocolate on top. Jonathan agreed, and I feel like that's saying something because I didn't think it was possible for him to have TOO much chocolate! It was probably also a combination of the fact that we used dark chocolate chips vs. semi-sweet and the only pan I had to use was like 11" x 6" instead of 9" x 9"..... SOMEDAY I'll have my own kitchen again (and equipment for cooking and baking!)
By the 3rd quarter I was ready for a snack:
Living in Western NY Bison Chip Dip and STBC are pretty much a way of life - and both are always so yummy!! Helles (Where the Helles Summer?) is their new Spring Lager. Tastes an awful lot like Bud Light, which I'm okay with. I'm just not sure how frequently I'd pay craft beer prices for something I could get for much cheaper by purchasing Bud Light. We'll see, this was only #2 out of my six-pack so I have 4x left for Helles to convince me it's worth it!
Speaking of Western New York, we got hit with snow last night and this morning. We live about 70 southwest of Buffalo, NY so we missed the CRAZY November storm. We're also 400+ miles west of New York City, so we weren't close to being hit by Juno last week. In all honestly, this winter has not been that terrible "snow-wise" - not compared to what I remember growing up. Jon and I constantly talk about how badly we want a big snow storm or blizzard - the kind that keeps you stuck in doors in your jammies all day! Didn't quite get this, but this morning was a bit closer to what I remember from my childhood!
Here's the view out the kitchen window as of 7:50ish this morning! Probably close to 15" of snow came down starting at 5 p.m. through the overnight. Our driveway is approximately 1/4 mile long and it took Jonathan over an hour to slow-blow the bare minimum width for me to get to work this morning! Only about 6 school districts in the county closed today, so many were digging out and on their way to work & school (as is life in these parts 6 months out of the year). Roads were decently plowed (for the most part) - all came down to what Mom and I often refer to as "winter roads". Always thankful for how WELL my Jeep drives in the winter!
Out the backdoor, you could also see how much snow had accumulated up on the top of the garden gate.
Our metal roof collects a LOT of snow and ice in the winter. This shot is looking out one of the living room windows. I was sitting near this window during the Super Bowl last night, and a lot of snow and ice from the roof right above here came sliding down at one point and crashed to the ground scaring the bejezus out of me and the pups!
And, speaking of the pups - here's what Copper and Osa thought about watching football
such sweet dups :-)
Jonathan and I also both passed out before the game was over. Woke up having missed the Patriots final Touch Down but did get to see what I'm certain will be remembered as one of the worst plays made in a Super Bowl and the "end-zone brawl". As soon as it was all over, we switched back to Netflix for some of our favorite documentaries on castles in England. Like I said, we don't care too much one way or the other!
I did do some crocheting. Not a lot, so there really wasn't much to photograph and share. I didn't even start crocheting until the 2nd half of the game because I was SO COLD!! Couldn't figure out why having a fire wasn't warming up the room, and me in return. By the time we went to bed around 11 p.m. our bedroom was an ice box. Turns out our gas was out and Lord only knows how long we'd been sitting around without heat. I'm guessing mid afternoon cause it had been cold upstairs around 2, but we had a window open knocking down some ice so I didn't think much of it. I didn't do any laundry that required warm or hot water so I didn't notice it then. Even when I was washing my face at 11, I must have been too sleepy to realize that there wasn't really any hot water (probably just the little bit that was left in the hot water tank that was luke warm at best). Jonathan trudged out into the snow to reset....whatever it is that has to be reset when that happens, and we warmed up quickly once the furnace kicked back on! #superhusbandtotherescue!
Happy Whistlepig Day to you all! We will be watching "Groundhog's Day" just as soon as I get home from my Board Meeting tonight. and hopefully it'll be warm enough to crochet! Today is one of Jonathan's favorite holidays, and this is definitely one of his favorite movies :-)
Up tomorrow - successes and pitfalls of January Goals and my February Goals!
Time to breakdown what I'd like to accomplish in January:
1. I know, This almost feels like I'm already giving up on the possibility of crocheting a Christmas gift this month doesn't it? Ok, well maybe not to you, and yes, I will certainly be crocheting more than what's listed under Goal #1 - I just feel like before I can start on any big project for 2015, I've GOT TO finish the not one, not TWO, but THREE baby gifts that were started over the past year and are not finished! One is much smaller than the other two, and very close to being done. And another is close to 3/4 done. The other has a ways to go, but if, for once, I were to focus on these solely, I could actually get them finished by the end of the month no problem! So far now, I'm holding off on starting a Christmas gift so I can get the monkey of these old projects off my back and out the door. Besides, these babies need my crochet goodness to keep this warm this winter!
2. and 3. These go hand in hand because there was a "great shuffle" of boxes and things over Thanksgiving weekend to give us a temporary living room in the 2nd bedroom we originally had demo/electrical/insulation work done to back in early 2013 (see the first set of before and afters HERE)
Here is what the 2nd bedroom/"storage central" looked like when we started in on Black Friday:
yikes, right?
I know, it almost makes me twitchy. I spent close to 18 months completely ignoring this rooms presence when I walked through the upstairs hallway.
Well after moving and shuffling and repacking and moving and labeling and shuffling and moving to the attic and the amazing super power that was having my parents helping us (seriously, I do NOT know what we'd do or where we'd be with out them), here's where we were by Sunday early evening:
As we rolled up an old mouse eaten rug from the room to replace with a remnant we purchased that weekend, we found this hole in the floor! Crazy thing is, can't say any of us were all that surprised by this (other than the fact that I just thought it was a soft spot under the carpet when I would step there - not an actual, uncovered HOLE). We've found this time and time again in the house where holes were cut in the floor for whatever reason access under floorboards was needed, and usually the fix was to just nail down whatever they had over it to cover the hole. This would include tin can tops, parts to tin can tops and a 12" x 12" section of wainscoting (all were found on the original floors of our Master Bedroom) The house originally operated as a Bed and Breakfast starting in 1885, though sections of the house are older than that (2 smaller houses were brought up on the hill by ox cart from the village and much work was done to build everything together into one large hotel. When they demoed our Master Bedroom, in January 2013, there was newspaper being used as insulation from 1813 found in the walls - pretty cool huh?) We believe many of these types of holes were created in the early 1900's when they would have been running electrical wiring in the house for the first time, and access was needed to hang chandeliers down in the 3 first floor parlors.
A few nights before we left for Disney, we had our couch, TV unit and coffee table from Maryland set up in our "new" temporary living room. I snapped this very grainy picture with my cell phone on this night to post to Facebook:
It was my first time sitting back down on our couch since we had left Maryland 18 months prior and I was feeling all sorts of feels: sentimental for our old apartment, missing our friends and excitement for some progress on our side of the house.
I have cleaned blankets to use on the couch now, and my favorite couch pillows are out. We even got a small fridge for drinks and a Keurig for morning coffee up there. I just need to clean up a bit this weekend before I can take some more after photos to share.
Moving all of my crafty things out of "storage" and quickly just into my craft room, meant my beautiful, almost finished craft room went from this:
(all that's missing is some moldings and my tile flooring - we decided to let me move everything in now and use the room as I can while work is being done on the bathroom, etc and that we'll get the tiles laid one of these days when we have professionals in working on the bathroom or something and Jonathan and my dad are in need of something to keep them busy! LOL)
to this!
Scary, huh...
It's better than this now thanks to all my yarn being 90% put away (as I mentioned yesterday), but there is still tons to get put away so I can easily find things and use this room - including getting my sewing machine out of that box on the counter and start using it again!
4. While I don't really knit anymore, I thoroughly enough reading Stephanie's blog. Not only does she make me wish that I was a better knitter, but she's hilarious to boot! One of my favorite times of year with her blog is during the month of December when she writes to non-knitters daily about what they can buy the knitter in their life. Always amazing things that she researches and shares, many of which nicely convert over to use for a crazy crocheter like myself!
I'm always so insanely unorganized during the Christmas season (or, at least, it felt that way this year), and Stephanie's spreadsheets really spoke to me in my haze of just not knowing what I was doing for Christmas gifts. Before Christmas was officially upon us, I had built out my own version of her spreadsheet to make sure that I had all the gifts I needed, and that I wasn't forgetting something stuck in a bag, hiding on the counter of my craft room behind a large tower of bins filled with yarn.....it was very interesting getting in there on Christmas Eve to find the Santa gifts which still needed wrapping!
Since wrapping up Christmas 2014, I have begun building my own gift-giving spreadsheet for all of 2015! Whether birthdays, anniversaries, for Jonathan, my parents, sister-in-law, the puppies, or Bingo gifts for Christmas Eve; everyone has a row and every holiday a column. It's still evolving (just yesterday I added in Mother's and Father's Day, and I blacked out any holidays where gifts aren't needed for particular people. I don't tend to buy my puppies Anniversary or Father's Day gifts, but I do spoil them with special treats on their birthdays, home-a-veries and on Christmas! Nor do we buy my dad and father-in-law Mother's Day gifts - you get the idea)
I'd like to have, at least, a first draft of my 2015 spreadsheet well under way by the end of this month. Mostly the crochet/sewing column - it's really the only way I'm going to effectively know what I need to make each month and stay on track, right?!?
5. For those of you who don't know me personally, I skiied my entire childhood. My parents were both on local ski patrol (my dad was actually on ski patrol at 2 different resorts) so I started skiing when I was 2 - which is actually 5 years before I even started taking dance lessons! The last time I went skiing was my senior year of high school. We used to come home from DC for the holidays thinking we'd get to ski but we'd run out of time, or the weather would just be too warm. Now we're on our 2nd winter in WNY and we still haven't gone skiing. That's changing this Sunday! I'm excited and nervous all at once to pick something back up that I used to love, but haven't done for the past 12 years.
My boots still fit, my skis and bindings are being checked my a local ski shop. Last night after work I stopped at Mom and Dads to go through what ski gear I still had that was usable. Everything still fits or was in good enough condition (some mearly good-enough to get me through what's left of this winter) except for ski pants. Turns out my hips are not as thin as they were when I was 18. duh....I totally knew that
There you have it - my January Goals. Will try to remember to photograph my progress and completion throughout for a month-end recap!
One of my promised, catch-up posts was to be about our family additions - 2 kitties and 2 puppies. My iPhone is filled with photos that I've taken of all 4 of them, in addition to those sent to me by Jonathan and my Mother-in-law either when I'm at work, or we're out of down and my in-laws "babysit".
Bare with me on this [large excessive] photo story:
OSA
This spring as we planned and packed for our move back to WNY, we knew we would be quickly gaining a family member. My sister-in-law and her boyfriend own 2 beautiful dogs that they had breed and we would be getting one of the puppies this summer when they came down from Vermont to visit!
Here is my sister-in-law Jessica holding a very tiny baby Osa...this was taken long before we had picked the name Osa, but we knew that we wanted one of the two female pups.
Here she is again, growing quickly, but we'd yet to meet her at this point.
Jessica and her boyfriend, Jake, drove down to WNY from Brattleboro, VT the end of July with our baby Osa, Shanti (the little boy pup they kept) and Kali (who didn't make it to his home in California until October)
The two pictures above are from her first weekend with us
Osa summer consisted of playing, napping, long walks, biscuits and waiting patiently for belly rubs
On August 15th we took Osa to the vet for her 3rd distemper and rabies shots. We had a 8:30 a.m. appointment so once we she done, we dropped her off at home and headed into town to meet my Dad at Home Depot to buy more things (who remembers what exactly anymore) for the remodel. When we got back from Home Depot, Jonathan and my Dad worked to unload his truck, and I started hanging some laundry outdoors. While I saw all the other "kids" playing in our fenced in back yard, it took a few minutes for me to find Osa. She was laying under the deck in the mud (not unusual) and had no interest in coming out to see me. Well, when the kitties had gone for distemper shots, they would be a little out of it and sleep for the next few days so I didn't think to much of it, and went back upstairs. Before my Dad left he went out back to see the "kids" and got some bones out for the puppies. At this point Osa did get up but he noticed she wasn't using one of her hind legs. I came outside, and he mentioned it to me so I picked up the bone, and brought it down to her so she would stop trying to walk up the stairs onto the deck where my Dad was sitting. I thought maybe she had a pricker in her paw so I went to touch her leg to see and she FLIPPED.OUT. I sat down in the grass with her trying to calm her down, but she was crying and howling and not giving in to any comfort I could provide. There was no visible evidence of what was causing her pain, but we called the vet we had just seen that morning and thankfully caught them before they left for the day (this was around 1:15 and they close at 1 on Thursdays). We raced back to the vet with Osa in Jon's lap while I drove. Upon examination, they determined she had broken her left hind leg. The vet we go to doesn't have x-ray equipment, but they suggested who we should call to get an x-ray. Sadly, they couldn't get us in until 4 p.m. that day so we left and headed home, unsure of what to do with her except to try and keep her still and as comfortable as possible until we could go get her x-ray. When we were about 2 minutes from the house, we decided to call another vet hospital in the area, explained our situation to them and they told us to come right in so we drove straight past the house and continued on our way to get her looked at.
2 days later, our baby girl came home looking like this. She was so excited to see us the afternoon we picked her up she peed on the floor in excitement (something she has never done before or after this day!) We now had to keep an 11 month old puppy away from her brother and not allow her to be too active - yes, this is exactly as difficult as you could imagine it to be! We also had to go back every 10 days to have the cast changed because she was growing so.darn.FAST at this stage
If you can focus past the big ears, and hot pink cheeseburger in her mouth, you can see a little bit of cast #2 on her back hind leg.
Thankfully after cast #2, and about 4 weeks with a cast on she had been growing so quickly that she also healed very quickly and was finally cast free! We still had to limit her activity and keep her separated for another 2-3 weeks, but we were making huge strides towards a speedy recovery!
So, "what happened?" you ask? We're not 100% sure. Since we have the fenced in back yard, we don't supervise them 24/7 during the summer months. We do know that the 3 steps from the back deck to the grass were (yes, were) open on the back. We also know that this was (and still IS) the clumsy-ist puppy in, I don't know, all the land, and we had seen her sort of face-plant, slide down these stairs before when she was in too big of a hurry (to get no where). We believe she caught her back leg in the opening of the stairs while having one of these moments getting down the stairs - which also explains why I found her where I did when we first came home from Home Depot. Again, I'd like to stress that the stairs were open backed until this happened. Jonathan has now put backs on the stairs so that no body gets hurts like this again in the future!
Osa continued to grow at an alarming rate (at 6 months she weighed in around 65 lbs!!), though she has slowed a little....we think. Maybe not. We haven't weighed her in awhile, and I swear her ears have grown!! LOL
This picture was taken Sunday morning. Sorry for my nail, but of the 4 shots I took of her with her paws crossed, of course, her face looks the best in this one! We were all laughing because Osa is almost always laying on her back, spread eagle, zero modesty, waiting for belly rubs! For a split second she thought she was a lady!
Maisy & Nyx
I have always loved cats. Always. It wasn't until I was about 4 that I found out that I was allergic to my Grandma's dog (technically my Dad's dog that lived at my Grandma's house because of my Mom's allergies). Right before I started Kindergarten, I convinced my parents to let me take home a free barn kitten. Shortly after that the dog at my Grandma's had to be put down due to old age, and she took in a stray kitten that had been hanging around her house. Very quickly after that, we found out how much worse my cat allergies are compared to the reaction I would have to dogs. I had 2 different cats growing up (Fluffy, the free barn cat when I was 5 lived until I was 19, and Brady who was adopted when I moved home after college and sadly had his life cut short at age 3 as he was far too curious of a kitty). Both had to life outside due to my allergies. They had comfy and warm homes in our garage and never went without food or love from my whole family. They just couldn't life in doors. My love for cats has continued as an adult and Jonathan and I had discussed prior to our move the possibility of getting outdoor kitties some day. When he was in first grade he found a Momma cat and kittens who hung around the house. The one baby, Kitty lived until we have been dating for about 5 years, and only lived in the house with my in-laws at the very end of her life.
Fast forward to us being home about 2 1/2 weeks when we heard that the chipmunks that were everywhere on the trail and around the house (things that happen when you no longer have a cat living on your property!) had also gotten into the house at least twice (that we knew of) in the spring! That Monday morning, Jonathan and I went to a local rescue to see about adopting kitties - we were not interested in having our new electrical work chewed by chipmunks!!!
We went to look, and came home wit these little beauties:
The white one with the grey eye patch and tail we named Maisy and that little black fluff-ball behind her in Nyx (or Nyxie as we call her) They were SO TINY when they came home!!! Maisy was only 7 weeks old, and Nyxie 9 weeks. Half the time Maisy didn't vocalize a mew when she'd open her mouth, and it took almost 2 months before both of them could purr when you'd pet them. Jonathan could carry them inside at night together in one hand. We'd call them the "ittah bittah kittah committah"
We bought them itty bitty harness and leads the day they came home, and they were trained to be used to these from day one. They were so tiny at this point, that we wouldn't let them off the porch and into the grass without someone sitting them with supervising (hawks are pretty common in our area and we didn't want one of them to get scooped up) We even had an old dog training pen that we brought into the family room for them to sleep in at night for fear of a racoon sneaking up on them in the middle of the night and attacking our itty bitty kitties while they slept.
This video depicts how they spent their waking hours this summer:
I would never NOT get more than one kitten at a time from this point forward. We could have never entertained a kitten the way these 2 entertained each other. It makes me feel bad for my childhood cats who never had this type of companionship throughout their lives.
They spent most of their summer days lounging, and napping...
and waiting impatiently for food or treats!
They too grew fast, and soon were big enough to sleep outside, and have unsupervised time in the yard.
If you can't tell, Maisy in an absolutely CHARACTER. She's a total spaz and truly not the smartest of cats. The 2nd picture here was taken the first day we have them cat nip - Maisy was more interested in laying in the hammock of their cat tower cleaning herself and doing "high kicks" every time I went to take a picture. The picture that I caught couldn't have been planned if I'd spent a month working on it! I've never seen her lay like this since, but her built in "modesty panel" is something she could teach her BIG little sister Osa!
Nyxie looks like an Ewok. I wish I had a good picture of this to share with you! She is the fluffiest and softest of all the kitties I've ever known and looks at you with these HUGE eyes that make you saw "awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwe Nyxie!"
And how do they spend their time these days?
Here's where we found them on Christmas morning. Forever causing trouble and when you call them out on it, they stand there looking at you with eyes that say "what?"
You almost have to play "spot the kitty" when you walk into the family room, but this is a standard location for each of them: Maisy on the desk chair and Nyxie "pooled" on a dog bed. And why not? 90% of the time they're more interested in eating dog food and biscuits than their own!
Copper
Last, but certainly not least, came Copper. I grew up with beagles at my house. Three in total, one of whom my Dad still has. Jonathan has known for as long as we've been officially planning our move back to WNY that I wanted a beagle, basically the day we got home! My Dad looked into getting sibling puppies this spring (with the intention of keeping one for himself as his little girl Emma is almost 11), but none of the local breeders either had beagles or were trusted. Since we already had Osa planned to come home, and got our kitties so quickly, I'd not thought of the possibility of any more animals coming to live with us. In my back of my mind I just thought that maybe I'd look into it a bit this coming spring and see if there were any options.
Along comes July 8th: we've been home just over a month. The kitties have been home with us for 2 weeks, and Osa will be here in 2 more weeks. It's 8:30 at night when Jonathan and I see a picture of a beagle mix named Colby Creek posted to the Facebook page for the shelter where we adopted the kitties. He's almost 5 months old and available immediately for adoption again and A-DOR-A-BLE! With Jon's permission, I quickly send a message to the shelter saying that we had just adopted the kitties, and were very interested in meeting Colby Creek, when could we come?!? I received a response that we could come the following evening around 6 p.m. to meet him. At this point, EVERYONE thinks were NUTS for taking on ANOTHER pet. In addition to 2 kitties and a puppy on it's way, please keep in mind we were both unemployed at this point - even I thought we were nuts! But at the same time, we didn't want to pass up the opportunity to at least meet with someone who, maybe, was meant to be a part of our growing family!
So Tuesday night we go to meet Colby Creek. Jonathan tells me before we walk in that no matter what, we're going to let them know at the end of the visit that we need to think about it. We walk into the foster house, take one look at him and it was LOVE at first sight! I think it was a 2-way street too cause I bent down to pet him and he immediately licked my face....of course I'm smiling and talking to him so he licked my teeth but I didn't even care! We talked with the foster mom for a while about his back story (left in a field near Corning, NY), his behavior (loving, great with their young children, chewed very little), and why he was up for adoption again (the man who was to adopt him had been approached to care for a special needs beagle and could not take them both on at the same time. The shelter where Colby Creek was told him that if he could take care of the special needs beagle, he should and they would have no trouble finding a new home for Colby Creek) They then let us taking Colby Creek for a short walk around their neighborhood. We had no more than got outside and Jonathan expressed to me how "we had to have him" and how much he was in love with him (yeaaaah!! cause I 110% felt the same way!)
This was taking down by the lake during that first walk the day we met him. Is he not the sweetest??!?! I just LOVE him!!
The shelter was made aware that night before we left that we were most definitely interested in adopting him. On Thursday he was neutered and on Sunday, July 14th he came HOME for good (on his 5 month birthday - that's right, his birthday is Valentine's Day!)!! Between Tuesday and Sunday I thought long and hard about his name as well. He had been named Colby Creek cause that was the name of the creek near where he had been found. I didn't mind Colby, I just wasn't sure I wanted to call that name for approximately the next decade. While looking online, using the same pet naming websites I'd used 2 weeks earlier with the kitties, I came across Copper and added it to a short list. I first liked the name due to the coloring on his head. It took me about a day to make the connection with Disney's "Fox and the Hound". At that point I knew it was the perfect name for him!
He loved his new home from day one (pictured above that first afternoon in our back yard)
One week later Osa arrived, and our "zoo" was complete! This video was pretty much their first interaction other than the initial meet & sniff out front. As you can see, Osa was still smaller than Copper at this point.
Copper had what I can only imagine was an amazing summer:
being ADORABLE
and getting in trouble (this is one of those pictures Jonathan sent to me while I was not home!)
Both dogs also quickly learned when we were mad/they were in trouble. This sand box is under a fort in the backyard that Jonathan used as a child. We tried to teach them to only dig here vs. the entire yard (not completely successful). And while they did still dig here till the sand was flying EVERYWHERE; for some reason unknown to us, they would go sit here after they knew they were in trouble! It became the "trouble box"!
It's taken some time to control the kisses that this little boy likes to dole out too. The shot above was from Dec 26th and my face looks like that because he's tongue had probably just been in my ear. Over the summer I was impatiently waiting for him to be interested in sitting in my lap with me if I was reading outdoors. He was still far to hyper of a pup and was always squirmy and giving out ALL THE KISSES.
Within the last month, we have mastered giving a kiss on the tip of my nose if I bend down and put my nose to his (seriously, it's the cutest thing ever! He won't always do it for Jonathan either, which makes me feel like it's our special thing)
I also try and have him sit in my lap with me for a little bit each night and he continues to relax there more and more
Only once though has he laid himself down and fallen asleep <3
The downside to me encouraging this behavior? From the moment I get home from work at night, he's all but ready to crawl up my butt:
And when I don't let him?
He pouts.
A couple of weeks ago I was concerned that he was sick due to his behavior of just laying there in the evenings. Jonathan informed me that all day long he's running around and playing, and as soon as I get home he sits on his favorite little rug and LOOKS at me until I pick him up. Biggest.Baby.EVER
He also chews like no other dog! He can't have soft beds (which is why the kitties now use them) and all soft toys get destroyed. He (or someone else - OSA) makes a small hole and Copper thinks it's a game to get all the fluff out and "make it rain". He chews rawhide bones designed for dogs 4x his size for hours on end and never tires of it. I'm constantly amazed that his gums don't bleed. But he does not have stinky puppy breath (unlike his sister who gets bored with chewing bones after 5 minutes)
If you take the bone away from him, which is necessary or he doesn't eat his meals, he naps
in very adorable, snuggly positions
and some of the oddest positions - honestly, he slept like this for about 10 minutes a few weeks ago!
He is just the BEST and I'm so happy he lives with us. He's the sweetest dog I've ever been around.
All four of our babies get along so well. As I mentioned with never getting a single kitty at a time again, same goes for all of them! Because they came home around the same time, and are all around the same age (born Feb (Copper) April (kitties) and May (Osa)) no one is a threat to the other, no one tries to eat someone (Osa) and no one tries to claw out eyes or the noses of curious puppies (kitties...)
Osa shows no signs that she's aware that she's bigger than Copper, and
Copper is definitely an Alpha dog who thinks he rules the roost! With zero awareness or care that he's now smaller than her I might add. Seriously, Osa thinks play time is putting Copper's entire muzzle in her mouth! Thankfully neither bite hard with each other and just play. It only gets "aggressive" when someone takes the bone the other one wanted. And they always onlywant the bone (or toy) that the other one has!
There is lots of playing, hanging out and snuggling happening at our house!
Jonathan wanted in on the snuggles one night - does anyone else find Osa's head/ear position while being "squished" as funny as I do?
*disclaimer* no puppies were hurt in the taking of these photographs! Jonathan's weight in on the floor between them
We even dressed up the puppies for Christmas dinner!
Copper did NOT like it - but those hound dog eyes are the best!
Thank you to those of you who stuck with this crazy long photo tour, and story!
And for those of you who didn't read this far, don't worry. There will be plenty of photos shared in the future!
