Ninja Kitties

Most cats hide under the bed, or under the dresser, as demonstrated by Thor, my Mom's cat:

 Or, in some cases, in a closet on a piece of luggage that has lost it's original purpose.

My cat will hide IN the bed, as in, inside my box spring. The fabric is coming off the bottom of it and she climbs in and sleeps. Sorry, no picture as they turned out like crap.

Or, she hides here:

Yes, that is Nova, hiding in my clothes.

But, Thor also likes to hide here:

Oh, and here too:

Of course, my favorite is when they hide in plain sight, so you have to stare them down:

That's the Callie. Miss you honey. She was a great starer. The ultimate Ninja-Kitty.

Birthday Bug

Happy birthday to my Kayla-bug, who turns 6 today.

She may be my baby, but she isn't a baby no more.

*sigh* Time goes too fast some days.

The End of an Era

Today marks the end of an era.

The last pet from the old homestead has passed.

Callie was a 20, almost 21, year old calico that was adopted from the kennel by our old house back in 1992.

She was originally brought home to be my cat, then my sister claimed her, then she became our dad's cat (who always said he didn't want any cats), and then she became both of our parents cat.

The past couple years she battled CRF. My Mom wrote a few posts about it, but basically it's a kidney disease for felines. Most are expected to live only about 6 months after diagnoses. Cal lived almost 3 years past I believe.

Callie was always a fighter. Well, Mom and Chris and I always called her a Bitch, or the Queen Bitch as she always wanted to go fight. Just ask my sister, she'll show you the scar on her forearm.

Cal was never really good with little kids. Even I, being 7 when we got her, never got very close very often. She hissed at me or growled. I backed away swiftly every time.

Even our children knew to back away when they heard that.

Strangely, Corey befriended her right away. She always let him pet her when he wanted to. Never hissed at him.

The first time she met Tipper, my old dog who passed away about 8 years ago I believe, Cal peed on the floor. Then they became best buds. Always sleeping on Tipper's big pillow.

Callie always wanted to tease Natasha, Christine's cat, the Queen Kitty. Tash didn't let it bother her too much, unless Callie persisted, at which point Tasha would swipe and Cal would back down.

Once we knew Tasha was dying (she had cancer in her mouth), we saw Callie and Natasha together more often. It was almost like Natasha was training Callie to take over. And that's what happened.

When we found out about Callie's CRF, we suddenly realized how much she was around Thor, Mom's other cat. Again, it was like Callie was training Thor, passing on the title of the house.

That's one thing I can say about Callie, she's always been a fighter. She's always been a stubborn bitch kitty who we all loved, no matter what.

I know my Mama's hurting a lot right now, so if you could all pop over and give her some encouraging words, that would be much appreciated. I'm sure some of you know how much it hurts to see a pet (who's almost like a family member) pass away, and today is no exception. Mom's been waiting for a sign from Callie, and it came.

RIP Callie. You will be sorely missed by your family. But now you're pain free, and you get to see your buddy Tipper and pick on Natasha. We love you.
See? Always a fighter. Down to the end.

Icky Bug

Poor Bug.

She started coughing last night.

Woke up with a fever today.

So she and I are spending some downtime here at home today.

Well, she's mainly spending it on the couch with her necessities:

Tissues, puke bucket/bucket to cough stuff up into, cup of ice water, pillow, blankets, monkey, and, of course, Nova the Nurse Kitty.

Her eyes don't really glow like that, it's just the flash from my phone :-)

Here's to hoping it's just a cold, not the nasty flu that's been going around. If so, Corey and/or I will be spending some time here at home with the sickies.

Betty Visited

My house was assailed by Betty Crocker this weekend.

Or, maybe it was just me being in a baking mood.

Either way, there was a lot of mixing and baking and washing of dishes going on.

The first weekend in a LOOOOOOONG time that I didn't leave the house from Friday afternoon until 5:30 pm Sunday. Wow.

I made a number of things. First on the list was baking the cake for Kayla's cake pops for her Thursday Birthday Treat.

While it was cooling, I made White Chocolate Pudding Cookies.

Yum!

I took a break and decided I needed to feed the man and childrens of the house, and do a few other odds and ends.

Once the cake for the cake pops was cooled all the way through, I went to crumbling it and adding the frosting. This was met with a miserable failure as I used too much frosting and the cake balls ended up being a mushy mess. Into the garbage they went. No picture, I was too mad.

This upset me, as I don't like to screw anything up, so I gave up on baking for the day and sat down with the kids and watched Tangled. With a glass of wine. Or two. :-)

Sunday morning met me with a fresh resolve, so first thing out of bed I made another cake for the "cake pop attempt number 2" and popped it in the oven before Paige helped me make pancakes.

While it was cooling, I made my Banana-Cranberry-Oatmeal Breakfast Muffins.

More yum!

Once the cake was cooled, I tried again to assemble the cake balls. This was met with success! No, no picture here either, I was too happy I forgot.

I made all the balls and popped them in the fridge to set for several hours.

After lunch it was time for the Butterscotch Pudding Cookies.

Delicious! Especially when butterscotch extract is added in addition to the vanilla. Mmmmm...

Once the cake balls were set I got to spear them and dip them in melted chocolate. Mmmm... There were a few failed ones, so those got to be eaten by Corey and I. Hehehe... That's okay, Kayla only needs 18 or so, and she gets about 30. Once or two were okay to be sacrificed. ;-)

Oh, the best part of the weekend? I got to use my mixer that my Mom and Dad gave me for Christmas! Isn't she a beaut?

Really stands out with my yellow and orange kitchen, but that's totally cool, I'll never lose it in the background :-)

Tubes and Adenoids

Kayla and Alexis have always been prone to ear infections.

As babies, they had them frequently and gave no sign until their doctor's checkups when the doctor would look in their ears and pronounce: "And they show no sign? No crying or tugging on their ears? They're pretty red and infected!" They were promptly put on medicine and checked 10 days later, saying they were fine.

As they got older, they became less frequent, and Alexis eventually outgrew them. She gets them every now and again, no more than one a year. Kayla on the other hand, well, she's still getting them.

She had a tympanogram a couples years ago as part of a early-childhood screening before the year before she went into 4K and it came back abnormal on one side. They said it was most likely caused by fluid behind the ears from an oncoming cold, so the recommended that she have another screening when she was better.

She saw her regular doctor a couple months later at her 4-year checkup and the tympanogram came back abnormal on one side again. We were referred to an ENT in Eau Claire a couple months later. The tympanogram and hearing test came back fine, but with her history of ear infections, the ENT recommended tubes, but wasn't sure if they would make that much of a difference at her age. He said it was up to Andy and I to make the decision. Andy wanted to wait as he didn't want to put Kayla through surgery unless it was necessary. Since he didn't want them and I did, we couldn't agree, therefore it was decided to wait and see.

For the first 6-9 months afterwards, things were great. No ear infections or major illnesses, so we thought we were in the clear. Then it picked up again. She ended up getting one every other month or so, then finally there was a pattern. She kept talking about how her right ear hurt or itched, so I took her in and the right ear was slightly red while the left ear was pretty infected, but she didn't feel that ear hurting. She got treated with antibiotics for the 10 days and all should've been done.

A couple weeks after her treatment, she complained of the itching and hurting in the right ear again. I took her back in and sure enough, same thing as before: The right ear was a little red and the left ear was infected. Her right ear was also clogged with wax and draining. She was treated with another antibiotic and told to come back and have it rechecked after 10 days.

Corey took her back for the recheck and it was STILL infected, so she was put on yet ANOTHER antibiotic and was told we'd probably be referred to an ENT. He took her back again after the 10 days and was told that the infections were finally clearing up, and that the ENT appointment was made.

The ENT appointment was this past Friday, the 4th. The diagnosis: ear-tubes and an adenoidectomy. It seems that Kayla has enlarged adenoids (which runs in my family, my sister and nephew both had theirs out as they were enlarged) which are preventing her Eustachian Tubes from draining fluid, causing infections. It's also causing dark circles under her eyes as she snores (and her tonsils look fine) and she's not getting enough good sleep.

Kayla is not excited about this, even though she knows she'll feel a ton better once it's done and she can hear properly, as it seems there is almost constantly fluid behind her right ear drum, so she's not hearing everything she is suppose to, which is why the tympanogram was coming back abnormal so often.

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to calm a 5-almost-6-year-old's fears about surgery? I know she knows she'll be okay and that she won't even know it's happening, but I also know it's a scary thing for kids to go through. I have a little time to prepare for it, and to prepare her for it, but I'm not sure how to go about it...

Any ideas?

Christmas Project

I may or may not have mentioned early last year that I had a project I wanted to do for all of the kids for Christmas.

As most of you know, I like to make blankets. I made one in high school and I loved it. I made one for my parents' 20th wedding anniversary, and I've made the kids all small lap-blankets.

At the beginning of last year, I decided it was time for me to make all of the kids a bed-sized blanket. I knew it would take some time, so I figured Christmas would be a good time to give them to them. That gave me a whole year to make them. No problem, right?

Pssshhhshshshsh! Yeah right! I got Kayla's done fairly early, as hers was easy to figure out the colors and such. Then I started trying to figure out how to do Alexis' and Paige's, as their colors and likes had changed a little bit. Then work got REALLY busy, working overtime more then normal, being exhausted all the time, etc... Next think I know it's summer, then football season, then school time.

Oh crap, I need to work on these blankets! I got Alexis' and Paige's figured out, but without them knowing what I was doing, it was really hard to work on them. I ended up finishing theirs at the beginning of December. I know, cutting it down the the wire huh? I still had to figure out Brady's and Walker's blankets, and I needed to have them done in 3 weeks. Yikes!

4 hours before all the kids came home on December 23, I had them finished. Phew! That was close. We decided to put them on their beds sneakily while they were watching TV that night before bedtime. When they finally went upstairs, well, I think they liked them, don't you?

 Walker's:

Brady's:

Kayla's:

 Alexis's:

Paige's:

The funny thing is, is that they've all seen me working on them, but rarely did they ask who they were for. They would just ask what I was doing, and I would say sewing. Not much else. Hehehe... now I've just got Kendra's and Brayden's to do in the next month and a half. Kendra's I have almost done, then it's Brayden's to figure out. I can do it!

Finchy

As I was leaving the house the other day, I was able to get a pretty cute picture of our birdies that still frequent our sock-feeder.

 

I so love the fact that there are still finches hanging around!  I also love the clarity of the camera I have, thanks again Mama!

**Oh, and speaking of the Mama, today is my mother's 2nd Blogiversary! So hop on over to her site and wish her well!

She's a pretty great blogist, though I may be biased (hehehe)

Yes, I know I made the entire 2 sentences a link, that was done on purpose to ensure that you didn't miss it! ;-)

 

Tooth Fairy Fail...

Oh boy... it was a doozy...

The past few weeks Kayla's been talking about her loose teeth. As in, more than one. She lost her first one about a month ago, and was so excited when the Tooth Fairy gave her money. Sweet!

Fast forward to last night:

 During dinner, she kept saying that she couldn't chew very well because her tooth was REALLY loose. I said to just be careful, but then I actually looked at her mouth. Holy moly! Her top right front tooth (catch that?) was hanging on by a thread.

I went to tug gently on it and she got mad. She said she didn't want me to pull it out. I said okay, but to not swallow it. She kept trying to eat but that tooth was not letting her, and she was very adamant on not letting me pull it out.

In the end, I did end up pulling it out. Just a small tug and that sucker was in my hand. She cried. It hadn't hurt, and she could finally eat, but she cried anyways. She's my little crier.

We put the tooth in a Ziploc snack bag and put it under her pillow at bedtime. We were all ready for the Tooth Fairy.

Fast forward again to this morning:

Got up and dressed and stuff. Had my coffee. Heard the girls stirring upstairs so I went up to turn off the space heater (we got it for Christmas from Corey's parents and it helps the upstairs a lot for the kids. Gets really cold up there in the winter as the duct-work isn't the best). Kayla called me from her bedroom so I went in.

There she was, all sleep-rumpled and pouting. She had pulled up her little pillow that the tooth was under, and it was still there in the bag like she was hoping, but there was no money. Cue internally cussing at myself. She thought the tooth had fallen off the bed and maybe that's why the Tooth Fairy didn't come. I said maybe, or maybe she had a really busy night. I suggested to just leave it there and maybe she'd come tonight. Kayla agreed.

I left the room so the girls could get dressed, and all down the stairs I was saying quietly "SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!" I got to the bottom of the stairs and said again "SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!" Corey was curious about why I was cussing, then he caught on. Cue feel-like-shit-panicky-Mama Mode. I can't believe I had forgotten!

In a flash of inspiration, I took a dollar bill  and rolled it up. I went into the bathroom and pulled open the bottom drawer and stuck the rolled-up dollar bill in between Kayla's hair-brush bristles. Knowing that the first thing the girls do is come down and go to the bathroom then brush their hair, I felt victorious! Of course, the girls tried to dash that feeling when they came down and said "Mama, our hair looks great, we don't need to brush it this morning." I looked at them, then LOOKED at them, and they said "Okay..." and walked into the bathroom.

Next thing I hear is "Mama! Mama! The Tooth Fairy DID come! She left the money in my hairbrush!" I started giggling to myself and said "YAY!" Alexis did chime in kinda cutely "The Tooth Fairy must have been playing the hide and seek game on you Kayla." Yep, she sure did.

Still... *HEADDESK* Tooth Fairy Fail...

Happy New Year!

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to work more on this here blog. I'm not sure how long it will last, but I'm gonna give it a good effort!

Hope you all had a wonderful and safe New Year's Eve. Corey and I spent a few hours in Elmwood at Jeremy and Amie's house with friends and good food. I'm sure pictures will circle Facebook at some point today from Bailey and Lynn. Haha, 'twas a good time.

I'm now off to get a few things done before I get the girls this afternoon. There may or may not be another post today, there will be one tomorrow. What it will be about, I'm not sure, but there will be one.

What are your New Year's Resolutions?