Cat dramaticals....

So...

One day this lovey cat shows up and we start feeding her and named her Stella then another shows up and we didn't pay it no attention, other than naming her Spottenfeffer, cause it was unfriendly as heck but chased off Stella to the backyard and we were really annoyed and my brother in law said it was because we had kittens under our front porch and we were like no way and he was like way and then on memorial day we looked down and found a cute cuddly little kitten under the porch that we immediately named “cute” because he was so cute and then out came his brothers, but they weren't as friendly but we were good and attached to them so we decided to keep them and name them the Feffer family after their mama, Spotenfeffer and Spot got all nice and decided she liked us and Stella went into labor but had a miscarriage and we felt super bad but she got pregnant again right away and so did Spot and the neighbors cat died and they wanted another one super bad right that minute and we wouldn't give them a kitten so we gave them Stella instead and told them she was pregnant and they could have her babies too but they brought her back the next day after Ashlee called them cat jackers, not really, but she did and they did and Stella had another miscarriage and then Spot got really fat and mean then this morning she wasn't fat or mean but there wasn't any babies to be found so we figured she had a miscarriage too until I got digging through the bushes and found this....

and it was breathing and wiggling and whimpering next to it's siblings lifeless bodies and I felt so bad for it so I picked it up into a towel and introduced it to the mama who was less than impressed and kept trying to eat the baby so we kicked her outside and wondered what to do with this poor dying, whimpering baby and then mama begged to be let back in the house where she picked up the baby and hauled it outside underneath the porch never to be heard from again until later when we heard massive little cries on the far side of the porch all the way from the front door so we got a flashlight and moved the grill and crawled on our hands and knees and looked under the porch and holy crap there's two baby kitties under here and we called the cute husband and said come quickly and save our babies but it was too late because the mama didn't want them anymore and they didn't stand a chance and weren't going to make it.

I only cried a little.

*sniff*

Rest in peace my Feffer family part 2.

And the cat came back...

STELLA!  

Stella has been a lovely stray cat to have around.  She devours mice and baby robins, is determined to catch a squirrel.  She meows all day, eats like she hasn't eaten in months, craps in the garden, has to be in the middle of everything you are doing, and loves on everyone and everything that shows her even an ounce of attention.  

We should have named her "Obnoxious". 

So...

The other day, my neighbor Brian posted on Facebook that their cat was missing.  I told him I would watch out for her since our house seems to be the place stray cats migrate to.  About an hour later he posted that they'd found the cat and they were sure going to miss her.  They found her lying dead in the neighbors flower garden.  

A little while later, his wife said they wanted another cat and they wanted it NOW.  A few people responded to her - check with the Arave's, they have cats.  I discussed it with my husband, thinking we could give them one of our kittens and he said "give them Stella".  

So...

I responded to her and said, hey, we have this one year old cat we'll give you, thinking she'd never want it.

She called me on the phone 10 minutes later and asked what breed the cat was.

Um... white?

Can we come see her?

It was 10:15 on a Saturday night.

Sure.

The cat was actually for their 28 year old disabled son who was completely distraught over losing his other cat.  He wanted kittens - two of them to be exact - a boy and a girl so he could breed them and have more kittens.  Despite his willingness to fight us for the death for our kittens, he was willing to accept Stella instead - partly because she was female and there is a really good chance, based on her behavior last week, that she is already knocked up.  We've already done half the work for him.  Stella was a perfect match for him.  She needed someone to give her loads of love and attention - something we weren't doing very well - and he was more than willing.  But it was okay, this was just going to be a trial thing, see how he bonds with the cat, or maybe something better would come along.  Sure. 

They also assured me they'd never come back.

Ashlee cried.  

The next day, we visited with them at church.  The cat was doing wonderfully.  

Ashlee's first question after church was not "How is Stella", it was "Are they bringing her back yet?"

Sure enough, two hours later, they called.

"Can we bring this cat back?"

He loved the cat but felt like he was breaking a little girls heart by taking her cat away.

Not to mention they found a better offer in the form of a 6 week old kitten.

I've never seen Ashlee SO excited in my life!

So...

The cat came back.

She just wouldn't stay away.

We found her on the porch

on the very next day.

I guess she was meant to be ours.

They're... still... here...

Kittens, kittens, everywhere, in the flowers, in the chair....

It's been quite a week for these kittens.  

They started spending a little more time on the front porch instead of under the porch, so we started feeding them up there.  It's kind of cute how we put the food down and they slowly climb up over the edge one at a time to partake, or even greet us at the front door in the mornings, not so patiently waiting for their chow.  

Yesterday was a pretty exciting day.  Socks (the black one) was missing all day and mama cat was acting really weird.  We assumed it was because one of her babies had disappeared.  We discovered later that the mama cat was in heat, doing her best moves to attract all the local boys and letting them have their way with her.  Just what I need... more cats.  

But, Ashlee was determined this was NOT going to happen.  First off, mama cat already has a family and chances are, based on the size and color of the two Tom cats having their way with mama, those are her brothers.  I'm not sure if cats are in to that sort of thing, but one never knows.  So she spent most of the evening chasing off the Tom cats and was determined to shield the babies eyes (and bodies, since surely a Tom cat is what hauled off Socks) from such vile things.  

So she brought them all in the house until I got too worried about them defiling my carpet like they do my flower pots and hauled them back outside.  

  

Well, the day had a happy ending.  We took a board off the front porch to see what was going on under there and didn't find anything but a couple of scared kittens, a mama cat and an injured Tom cat.  We worried Socks was under there injured.  We scared off the Tom cat, but mama and her babies weren't budging, not for all the tuna in the world.  

Ashlee had left her blanket outside and she went out to get it about 10:30 last night.  She could hear some serious meowing going on and the kids went to investigate and found baby Socks in a Russian Olive tree at grandma's house.  But with that Tom cat under the porch, mama wasn't coming out, nor would Socks go in, so we put him in Arilee's bedroom with her for the night.  

The next morning, we reunited mama and baby.  It took a bit of sniffing, but it wasn't long before mama was licking her baby and Socks was rolling around with a smile on his face in absolute joy.  Even his siblings had to do a bit of sniffing to make sure it was really him, then it was back to biting each others jugular, as if he'd never left.  

I don't know why we're keeping these kittens, but it looks like we are.  Ashlee has concluded that the boys (we're still not sure what is what, they all look the same to us, so they are either all boys or all girls) will get big and wander off to terrorize the neighborhood eventually anyway, so why bother sending them to a new home.  

We still haven't decided for sure if Stella is pregnant.  She is getting big, but it could be because she eats constantly, which also means she could be pregnant, but she doesn't "feel" pregnant - as if I am a vet.  I will give her a couple more weeks just in case.  We need to get the mama cats fixed - preferably before one of those Tom's dirty deeds takes root - but I'm cringing at the $70 (each) it will cost to do so for cats that aren't even mine.   But we are warning Ashlee now - these are the ONLY kittens that we will ever keep.  Any more absolutely MUST find a new home.   This is not a cat farm.  If only they were worth money.... 

Kitten Smitten {the Feffer family}

Recently, a couple of stray cats showed up at our house.  We named them Stella and Spottenfeffer and cordially invited them to stay as long as they stayed out of the house and caught all the mice.  So far, they have complied pretty well, although Stella sneaks in the house if you leave the door open.

Stella is pretty friendly, but only on her terms.  She comes to you, rarely the other way around, and she appreciates a good pet before she wanders off.  Spottenfeffer was a little more timid and took awhile to warm up to us.  As soon as she did, we noticed right away she was nursing babies.  Nice.  My brother in law kept insisting they were under the front porch, but we could never hear or see them.  It does explain why Spot has kicked Stella off the porch and into the garage, though.

Saturday, Arilee was outside and happened to lean over the porch railing, when she looked down and saw... baby kitties.  I'm sure you can imagine her excitement!

Of course, being good pet owners that would never do anything to get attached to baby kitties that we surely are not going to keep, we gave them some names.

This is "Tuna Feffer".  He was the first to dive into the can of tuna we gave them and boxed the ears of all the other kitties for getting in his way - including his mama.  He also loves dry cat foot and wrestling with his siblings.

This is "Cute Feffer" because he/she is the cutest thing ever!  She also likes to wrestle and eat cat food.  Reminds me of Yoda, it does.

This is "Sock Feffer" for his/her beautiful four white socks.  He/she is very timid and doesn't come out as often as the others, prefers life under the porch, and hasn't shown much interest in cat food or playing.

Lastly, we have just "Feffer."  So aptly named because we haven't been able to get him/her out to see what kind of personality it has.  It has explored further away from the safety of the porch than the other kitties, so perhaps we'll call it "Dora  Feffer".   We have yet to catch and hold it, thus, no picture, but he/she happens to look just like "Cute", only darker.  

Considering their size and ability to chow down on dry cat food, I'm guessing they are a good 4-5 weeks old.  They are quiet as can be, I've only heard them meow once and that was when they were wrestling.  Come to think of it, I've never heard the mama cat meow either - just hiss - which she does plenty of.  I hate to give them away, but we already have four grown cats that hate each other - not to mention I would bet money that Stella is pregnant, too - the last thing we need are four more.  Although Tuna and Cute are doing a pretty job of convincing us they are much too cute to depart with.  

Darn cats... 

So if you want a cute little kittie cat... I might know where to hook you up...  

{November}

It all started when we bought a new dry erase board to replace the one the boy had knocked on the floor one too many times and finally broke.  The girls had to try out the new marker by writing "Justin is a chump" (Ishee's favorite term for her brother), which he promptly changed to "pro".  It went from there until I could no longer find any room to use the board for it's intended reason... my grocery list.

 The girls were bored over Thanksgiving break and decided to dress up like boys.  It was scary how much they looked like their boy cousins!

 Even scarier to see the girl without a gallon of mascara on!

 We put up the Christmas tree after Thanksgiving.  I didn't have the first row of branches on the tree when Toby dove right in and has barely left since.  Part of my daily ritual has become to reattach the branches she's knocked out and count how many ornaments are on the floor at the end of the day.  I think our highest count thus far, is eight.  She's learned if she crawls on the counter first (a big no-no), she can climb higher into the tree.  It's most entertaining when she dives out of the middle of the tree onto the floor with an ornament in her mouth.  It's really going to be entertaining when I have to take the entire tree apart to replace the strands of lights she's ruined.  

Lucky for the cat, Ishee thinks she is cute!    Ishee gets out her silliest voice and says "you're so cute (or rude, depending on what the cat is doing).  You're like an amazing hamster.  You're covered in glitter, have you been eating unicorns again?"   I always laugh at the way those two interact.   The cat has been, by far, the best toy we've ever brought home from Walmart.

Other exciting updates:

The husband and I escaped to Utah for the night, keep reading the next few posts so you can see what I saw.   We made it a short trip because Ishee is singing a song with a couple of other little girls for Relief Society today and I didn't want to miss it.  It was just enough time, though, for me to get my Ikea and Tai Pan Trading fix.  

The kids got their report cards, they all did fantastic, with mostly A's and no grades below a B.  I'm so proud of how hard all three of them worked this first trimester, especially the girls, who both struggle in math and still pulled a B in their classes.   

The boy is taking a dual enrollement English class this semester and is getting his first taste of what college is going to be like.  He's reading "The Crucible" and he's not impressed.   I'm pretty sure he won't be majoring in literature.   Next weekend he is retaking the ACT's (scored a 28 on his first go round) and I'm hoping he remembers to bring home some college and scholarship applications soon. 

 I was thinking out loud on Facebook about whether or not I should invest in a Cricut or Silhouette machine.  My awesome sister said she had an original Cricut machine with seven fun cartridges just taking up space in her sewing room, it was mine if I wanted it.   It's not quite the machine I had hoped it would be, but the girls and I have had so much fun playing with it, and of course, Toby thinks it is the coolest thing ever!   

That was November.

"D" is for Doctor....

Do you have any idea... at all... how much money I would be saving this very day if my husband were a doctor of veterinary medicine?

I stopped at the Vet yesterday and said, "please please please, tell me how to fix the wound on my stray kitty myself so I don't have to bring her in." They told me. I ran straight home and said "guess what honey? You always wanted to be a doctor, now is your chance to perform surgery on the cat."

We tried.

We failed.

He has the scratches to prove it.

I took her in to the vet today - to be spayed... oh, and while you are at it, would you check on that big gaping wound on her back? Thanks. Call it being a responsible pet owner. Bob Barker would be so proud.

Check out ABC Wednesday for more "D" moments...

Toby the Destroyer

The Christmas tree made it almost an hour before Toby destroyed it.

Okay, that's a stretch. It wasn't even all the way put together when she lit into it. I wonder how long it will be before I come home from work to find the tree lying on the floor.

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving.

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