muskrat love?

apparently not.

my mom doesn't love muskrats. 

fortunately, i think the feeling is mutual.

yesterday morning, my mom was out on the back deck when

she thought she heard a scratching sound,

which was actually this happening...

and once she was brave enough to look,

(i'm scared when it's dark and i'm home alone, too!)

she saw ol' muskrat sam.

she got him to run into a kennel by 'chasing' him with a broom,

but there was some felt material that got caught and she couldn't shut him in...

so she called my husband, and sam went to sleep.

it looked as if it was going to be an easy catch,

but he wriggled his way out,

aaaand like a moron, i forgot to change my settings for the action i didn't know was going to happen:

(notice sam was moving much faster than the broom.

for all of you animal lovers out there, he was very gentle)

you should have heard him chewing on the broom!

gotcha, sucka!

i mean, let's get you home, sweet little thing.

this took a whole 2 minutes, maybe? 

sam underestimated jason's sneakiness.

my husband is my hero, if you didn't already know. 

and thanks to the capture of muskrat sam,

he was my mom's hero for the day, too.

we took a nice little trek to the back of mom's property,

and muskrat sam let us know he was still a fighter.

he wasn't very grateful for his rescue, 

and was biting at jason while he tried to set the yellow toothed captive free.

finally, he mustered up the courage to wander out of the cage and into the water.

he knew exactly where he was going,

(props to my hubband for picking the right pond!)

and soon he disappeared under the water,

where his friends and family were waiting 

to gather around the mud pit and hear of his adventures.

and they all lived happily ever after.

the end.

the lone kitten

on thursday afternoon, we listed our 7 kitties up for adoption.

within 4 hours, 5 of them were gone...

can someone cue the hallelujah chorus, please?

kittens are actually a lot easier than puppies--

as in it really isn't a comparison,

but they were still on the 

"just one more thing to have to worry about"

list, so i was glad.

all that remained were the 2 ugly black kittens.

now, i'm not prejudiced against black kittens,

these ones were just...ugly.

their eyes made them look--

well, you know--

*special*.

so anyway, we lucked out and someone took the little runt (literally, the runt) the next afternoon.

as of today, we still have this little ugly sweetie left...

i should be nice. it really is sweet.

anyway.

at least there are advantages of being the lone kitty:

...like snuggle time with someone who isn't even a cat person, 

just because they feel bad for you being all alone.

...and special attention from a sweet little boy

who loves to snuggle even more than you do!

see what i mean about its (the kitten, not jaxon's) eyes?

won't someone please take pity on this special little kitty?!

kitties

our cat, ember, had her kittens yesterday.

7.

yes.

seven.

no, i'm none too thrilled...

see, she sort of went into heat--outside--when i didn't know it...

(obviously) before i was able to get her spayed...

but, it is what it is,

and all of that aside,

gosh, they're cute:

(excuse the junk-tastic picture quality--closet lighting = blurry, ugly, grainy pics)

3 of them look like this,

3 look like this,

and 1 looks like this...and is a lot cuter in person.

the girls *accidentally* got to watch the 7th one be born.

i was letting them look before nap/rest time, because i thought she was done.

they had been so excited all morning long that they could barely focus on school work,

but i didn't want to upset her while she was in labor.

anyway, all of a sudden she started to yowl again and there it was!

they were kind of confused at first, but i started explaining it

and before we knew it, we had covered the functions of an amniotic sac,

umbilical cord and placenta.

home school, yes?

ali even asked to hold "the slimy one" when she woke up from her nap.

yuck.

thankfully, slimy was slimy no more.

ember's a good mommy.

=)

ps make your reservation for a kitty now!

i'm serious.

baby robin

  the girls came in from playing with their good friend Jadyn, a 12 year old neighbor girl who recently moved out of the neighborhood, to let us know there was a baby bird outside that couldn't fly.
   now this is big news to any kid, so jason went outside with them to investigate. he found a baby robin, and mommy and daddy robin were none too thrilled that their baby had fallen out of the nest. the baby was close to being able to fly, but wasn't quite ready yet...and jason couldn't find the nest.

so we took baby robin inside.

baby robin wasn't interested in us trying to feed him through an improvised syringe (a straw)...so jason went back out and watched mommy and daddy robin until they flew back to the nest. luckily it was in a small tree and not up in the big maple tree...

so we wrapped baby robin up in an old pink jacket and up the tree he went--

he sat the wrapped robin up in little nooks as he climbed higher,

and once he was within reach of the nest, he unwrapped baby robin

and sat him back in his home.

hopefully he stayed there until he was ready to really fly!

monday

here's hoping your monday is as relaxing as hers...

and here's to hoping you don't look like this when you're relaxing.

i'm a bit embarrassed of her.

=P

since i've been gone...

i hope you read that title to the tune of kelly clarkson's "since you've been gone"...oh, you didn't?...you're as tired of it as i am? ok, moving on...

i know, it's been awhile. if you follow my 365 blog, you know why. if not, let's get caught up...

jason was on the computer when a water droplet got onto the screen. he gently wiped it off, and this happened:

we've seriously pressed really hard on the rest of the screen just to see and it doesn't happen. so, we called toshiba...their lovely warranty doesn't cover it...so in the mean time, i stayed caught up with everyone via iTouch, the best ipod ever, given as a surprise to me by jason, the best husband ever...and not just because he did that for me!

meanwhile, we enjoyed some mostly technology free time, unless you count the sewing machine. i appliqued some shirts and made some felt food as a gift. it was a lot of fun, but i forgot to take pictures! 

the girls got a power wheels car for christmas from papa. the weather warmed up enough that they were finally able to try it out. first, sydney learned how to drive it:

and then we let ali get on,

but that didn't go over so well...

although she did decide she liked it after i went inside...

then on monday, the girls went on a lunch date with their daddy...

they ate at panera, and then i didn't hear from them for a long time.

they came home with bags from Petsmart.

i began to pray..."dear God, make me a bird so i can fly far, far away..."

actually, i just prayed it wasn't a fish or hamster...

all i think of when i see creatures like that is the "r" word--

responsibility.

but it wasn't a fish or a hamster,

it was gibby and lippy:

for the record, we don't have nearly the amount of creatures here that we used to.

it was sad the way it happened, but things have really settled down...

so i don't mind gibby and lippy...and they're kinda cute...but i like frogs anyway 

(these are fire bellied toads, close enough)

the girls love them and named them all by themselves. gibby is ali's and lippy is sydney's. sydney's learning responsibility and i do think it's cute that they have a pet of their own.

i spent the rest of the week painting the living room (finally, after debating for a YEAR) and then catching up on housework and blogging...

well, i think we're caught up, thanks to mike arnold, who is letting us use a monitor that plugs into the laptop. =)

if you're just dying to know about all of the exciting days in between, check the 365 blog...i'm there everyday! ;)

day 18: cat nap

they wuv eachofers.

day 1: ash

Our newest addition:

ember

 i've mentioned before that i'm not a dog person. i try, and i've even tried to be attached to the ones we have, but i just can't. on december 17th, it will be a year since my cat bentley died. i loved him so much, and it was hard to lose him. just over 2 weeks ago, i decided that i really missed having a cat around. my sweet husband agreed that i could get one and he began searching for a calico kitten, just like i wanted.

when i went to get ember, i knew that she was about 9 weeks old, had been born in a field by cessna and a woman had brought her and 4 other kittens home with her. they were a bit wild...hissing, but not biting or scratching. i decided to take her home anyway. i was a little nervous, but i just treated her like a baby. i held her all evening long, and wrapped her up in a blanket to take her out for a ride with us. she warmed up to us more and more each day, and now two weeks later, you would never have known she was wild when i got her. she's so very sweet. it's nice to have a kitty around again.

Flushed

I never think that we have a dull moment around here, but today that would have been an understatement. I was inside with Ali, who had been sent in for "flushing" things down a pipe in the backyard. My brother text me and was looking for Jason. I went outside to let Jason know and Ali followed me out. She went to look at the puppies who were playing on the porch/patio with Sydney.
I was gone literally 15-20 seconds at the most when I came back around to see Ali leaning over the 8 inch pipe with a puppy in each arm. She told me that a puppy was down the pipe. Sure enough, I could hear her crying. I'm pretty sure she was getting ready to put the other two down there as well. We got the kids inside and Jason put a long piece of quarter round down the hole to see if we could guesstimate how far down she was. When he kept going and the top of the pipe was level with his shoulder, I got nauseous. 

We ended up calling the Fire Department, and the first truck arrived soon after the call was made.

Soon after, the Fire Chief came to check it out, and then another truck arrived.

The pup settled down and went to sleep, but her breathing began to slow so they gave her oxygen.

It wasn't waking her up enough, so they turned it up higher to get her jittery.

The second crew that arrived brought a 12 ft pipe bore and ran a hose down the middle.

Two guys held and balanced it while a third guided it down. Once she was "high" enough, she jumped right into the loop they made and they were able to pull her up on their first try.

No broken bones, just a little shaky from her oxygen high

The firefighters put a whole lot of duct tape over the hole, and we'll be filling it soon.

Our best guess is that this was access to an old well.

We've never known for sure.

Reunited and it feels so good!

Puppies

Our puppies are almost 5 weeks old! That means they'll need new homes soon.

Just look at them--

 Sweet,

Playful,

Kid-Friendly,

Man-Friendly,

And snuggly...

Really, really snuggly.

You know you want one.