Monday, May 21, 2012

A new furbaby in our family

It has been so long since we have had a kitten. Since I showed and bred Silver Persians for years it has been weird that for about 10 years or so we have not had a kitten. Our 2 cats are very old. They one of them has much of a desire to do anything but sleep and eat. The thought of a playful little kitten delights me. Especially at the age that the kids are now. We are a family of animal lovers and a kitten/young cat will bring a lot of joy to our family. For years I haven't gotten another cat as to not upset the 2 old ones..but at this point I really don't think they care.:) I think they will totally ignore the little one.

I think this is what love at first sight looks like!


After thinking about getting a "real cat" (which is what my husband calls any cat that doesn't have a flat face) and talking about it with my husband, I got on Facebook. It seemed like fate. My Ex-husbands wife, Karen,  posted they had just had a surprise litter of kittens. Their daughter's cat had gotten pregnant before they had had a chance to spay her. I contacted Karen and she said she would be happy to give us one of the kittens. A few days later we went to see them.


They were so sweet! I loved the black and white ones (they would match my Daisy:)) but the kids agreed (which is unusual) they wanted the orange little female.


Wyatt said she looks like a hamster at this point! They were 10 days old when we visited and her eyes were just barely looking ready to open.


Janae brought Billie over so her sisters could see him. The Mama cat did not want Billie anywhere near her kittens! A sign of a good Mother:) We think Billie is so tiny..but he looked like a big boy next to the kitten!



The kids are counting the days on a chalkboard until she is 6 weeks old. Who knows if she will be ready that young or not. We will let Mama kitty decide. The Mama kitty is a outdoor cat so the kittens are outside. Which worries me a little. I hope all goes well. We will have her as an inside/outside cat. I don't want her wandering the neighborhood so I am hoping she will stay inside our fenced yard. I want to get her as young as possible to litter box train her.


The kids have had so much fun thinking about her coming to live with us. They look at toys and collars and all sorts of kitty stuff every time we are at a store. This will be one spoiled kitty. They have named her Phoebe (we as a family are huge fans of "Friends") and her theme song will be "smelly cat". Every cat has a theme song, right?! Well, we hope she isn't too smelly but that song just makes us smile.



We got this little stuffed kitty at a thrift store for 27 cents. We figure it can be her little friend when she moves in.

A few days after we saw them Phoebe opened her eyes. Karen was nice enough to send us pictures.



I texted with Karen tonight and they are a little over 2 weeks old and she said still healthy little babies. Getting cuter by the day. We can't wait to bring Phoebe home. I was thinking today, if she lives to be as old as Sassy is now, Chantel will be 30, and Wyatt and Gage will be 29. Wow. I don't even want to think about how old I will be when she is Sassy's age!


Welcome to our family Phoebe!


Saturday, May 19, 2012

Outdoor Spaces

This time of year is so enjoyable. When you live in a small house it feels like you double your house size when you spend so much time in your outdoor spaces. I so love looking at all the blogs and their outdoor decorating.  I am the most inspired by Lynn at Shabby Story. If you want to get really inspired by outdoor decor you should check her out!

Today I thought I would post some of my lovely outdoor spaces.
















What a beautiful time of year this is!


My wish is that this finds everyone enjoying beautiful weather and flowers.

Thanks so much for taking time out to visit my blog!

Edited to say: Thanks so much to Janae for making my new blog header--I love it!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Basket Re-make

A few weeks ago I found this cute picnic basket at Goodwill. I knew I could make it adorable and it would be a fun project. My goal to balance my life is to have one really fun project a week. I would like to have one every day but cooking, cleaning, gardening and Mothering gets in the way of that. So if I do a project a week I feel like my creative energy is being satisfied. I don't know how some of you are able to do so much! So here is this weeks project.
 
 

Though I believe it is meant to be a picnic basket I think it makes a great crafting basket--to take things with me if I want to work at a project somewhere else. I used to go to crops and stuff all the time, and this would have been perfect. I think it is so cute.  Photos below show what it looked like when I bought it.



The first thing I did was take it in the back yard and paint it white. Then I use my finger tip distressing method found in this post.  After that I applied a water slide decal from The Polka dot closet found here.  The water slide decals are so fun! I have to admit I screwed a couple up--but after e-mailing with Carol and having a few "duh" moments I think I have the knack of it now. I think I will really enjoy doing these on lots of projects.


Then I started working on the inside. I took out the previous lining and sort of used it as a pattern for the new lining. I used my new favorite fabrics. :) 




I used the hot glue gun to hold the fabric down and then I trimmed around the edges. I made a little pocket in the back. After that I glued a ruffle around the edge which covered the raw edges.


I am so happy with this little basket!




Now to get back to housecleaning:)

I will end this post with a picture of the gorgeous petunia basket Eileen gave me on Mothers day. What a great friend she is! I look at this basket hundreds of times a day as it is hanging outside my dining room sliding glass door.


Enjoy the season:) Thanks for visiting!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Guest Poster Chantel Brown

My 13 year old daughter, Chantel wanted to do a post so I told her she could. I didn't even have to do anything to help her. She already knew how to do it. Kids are amazing. So here it is...


This is all about how we got Billie! Janae's new Persian kitten!
                                                                            Billie!!!!
It was a really long ride! Sadly it was only my second time out of Oregon! So I took lots of pictures!!
                                                                Car ride...
Mount hood!
In the car!

This picture is amazing! ;)
I saw lots of these in Washington! They are cool!

                                       
Janae decided to take off her shoes :P It was so hot! Janae's air conditioning wasn't working!


BRIDGE!!!!!! Janae hates bridges :P
                                              

Me:)


We used the GPS on Janae'e phone.... It lead us the right way most of the time

When we finally got there Janae was soooooooooooooooooo happy to see Billie!

This is one of Billie's sisters. Isn't she adorable?!


Billie's dad. I love his face! (he has the grumpy old man look)
    

Billie with his Daddy.
                                   

Billie's sister playing with Janae's keys

Billie was tired the car ride home:)

 I saw this neon unicorn in a window of a store. We HAD to stop! It was late and the store was closed. The store was called the Unicorn Hair Design. They were closed :(

          It was really dark out! We couldn't get a very good picture of me with the unicorn!

I had a lot of fun going to Yakima! I think that is a really cool name for a city! Haha.. I took most of these pictures myself!  Billie is super crazy and meows A LOT. Which we did not expect because mom told us that Persians don't meow. I guess it is only silver Persians who do that:)

This was my day day getting Billie and  it was loads of fun. Bye-Bye!