I started the month by getting us foster kittens. Five foster kittens. I went through the very lax training back in February after Meg passed away and I wasn't exactly sure when we would start fostering but then these kittens popped up a few days after Sookie passed away. Quite frankly, I wasn't doing well, it was pretty upsetting not to have a kitty to cuddle whenever I sat down anywhere in the house because it had been almost 16 years of constant kitty cuddles. I wasn't ready for new cats, I just wanted to give back until we were ready to adopt again.
But I didn't count on kids and kittens
Many points to Patrick who did solo watch on the kittens the first night while everyone else was out of the house and helped them make it into the litter box and cleaned up a few accidents. The kittens were so smart though, they were 100% litter box trained within a day and a half of us getting them and they were 4.5 weeks when we brought them home. So little, so smart.
It turns out children LOVE kittens. So spoiler alert, turns out I was the only one surprised that we will be adopting three of the kittens. And we're just lucky it isn't five.
They were so friendly their first night and also so tired. I was a little worried that none of them were eating.
Turns out I didn't need to worry, they all woke up and attacked wet food and then made a solid dent in the dry kibble. Good eaters all around!
Bradley needed ALL of the kittens when he got home from school
Juliet had never been able to tell our other cats apart and wasn't even 100% sure who the last one we had left was. So I was rather surprised when she was immediately obsessed with all things kitten.
And Eleanor. But that was not as much of a surprise. Lots of photos of her covered in kittens in this post. After much debate we named the kittens after Greek gods: Aphrodite, Medusa, Athena, Persephone, and Hades. Bradley insisted on Hades for the boy cat, I was not a fan. I suggested Zeus but Bradley assured me Zeus did way worse things than Hades so Hades it was. Oh well.
Little kitten purring
The kittens started in our bathroom but quickly outgrew the space and quite frankly it was difficult for me to sneak past them to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. So after a few days we broke out the baby gates and moved them to the library space upstairs.
Nathan was very reluctant to foster but is a sucker for kittens and was onboard about as soon as he got to cuddle a couple of them. We gave all the cats greek names, he has Medusa on the left here and Aphrodite on the right.
Juliet tried out her first climbing class in the midst of this!
She didn't climb that high her first day but discovered she really likes it when someone is belaying her instead of just being on an auto belay and she was shrieking with joy after I took this picture because Coach Josh let her swing around on the rope like it was a cool swing.
And we celebrated with a pazookie - cookie in a skillet with ice cream. The height of delicious and fancy!
Then we joined Nathan to see Bradley's band perform. Eleanor also had her band night at the high school. Patrick was there too, just running around. Quite the ideal Friday night in the midwest, too bad it was like 95 degrees. They had to delay the start of the game because it was 100 earlier.
Band kid!
Juliet with buddies
It was right toasty
Bradley refuses to take a reasonable photo in his band uniform, all we have are pictures of him from a distance
Then Nathan had a guys' night. He's doing these once a month now, it's been really great.
Rock climbing the next day with Eleanor, Juliet, and one of Eleanor's friends! I had some punch passes I needed to use up before they expired at the end of the month and this seemed like a good opportunity to use them.
Juliet climbed so high!
More kitty time
If only there were enough of them
This pic is when we finally got them into their new space in the library. The kitties like Eleanor okay.
The video I show people whenever I want them to adopt a kitty
This is Athena
In a lot of the photos I can't tell which cat it is, eventually we got collars to help tell them apart
Nathan set up a tv in the room and we watched a ton of sports and some tv shows while cuddling kitties
We brought up cozy chairs and it was so much nicer to have neighborhood children and friends come hang out in the library with kittens instead of going into our bathroom.
Lots of reading with kittens!
One of these kittens is unconscious, one is awake and very wild
Kittens were all the kids cared about
Medusa
Athena while Medusa is trying to attack her
Hades
Persephone
Aphrodite
If only they liked Patrick enough
Eleanor took this photo of he kitten pile. They really like our cat tower
Neck cuddles with boy kitty
Because the cats are by Eleanor's room and she likes to stay up late, sometimes we would end up hanging out with Eleanor and cats in the evening after the younger two were asleep. I don't exactly know what this video is. It's Eleanor.
I wish she liked the kitties enough
Kittens really were the main activity of the month. I thought the kids would medium care. They were obsessed.
I guess it's not too hard to see why
They play and they sleep. They were so good, I think there was one potty accident but it was because it was close to old kitty litter spot our original cats had. Once we opened that up to them there were no more accidents.
Apparently we get an A+ in socializing these cats. They are not at all shy, they love all people.
I had the bridging ceremony for Juliet's Girl Scout troop! We invited the incoming kindergarteners to join us, it went really well despite it being on a hot and windy day.
Cute kids! We're at 16 girls in the troop now. It finally feels manageable.
Eleanor trying to walk out of her room in the morning while kitties rush in.
She took over their wet food and kitty litter and they are even bigger Eleanor fans now.
They have been very helpful with Patrick doing his homework but then he was so slow doing the homework that Nathan and I had to ban Patrick from doing it in the cat area.
Such a happy Bradley
All five kitties are in this photo
Only three here. Poor Eleanor. I always enjoyed it when the kids were with the kittens and some child complained that they only had one kitten. I wanted to foster a bunch of kittens for a reason, the kids would have fought a LOT if we had only fostered a couple.
A hoodie kitty in the kitchen!
Medusa was sleepy and thought this made sense for a sleeping position on top of a tiny sleepy kitty
How Hades cuddles sometimes
Hades got really big really fast because he loves food so much. We know he loves food because he purrs whenever he eats. He also plants himself in the food bowl, it's quite the sight.
Each morning Juliet insisted I braid her hair with kittens in the library and I gotta say, it was pretty tricky at times.
Juliet's fun run!
I was supposed to play tennis but my match was canceled and I was pretty happy I could make it to this. I'm on five teams right now and it is perhaps too much.
With cozy kitties when I got back to the house
Eleanor has been enjoying having her room connected to the library. She has tried to sleep with the kitties upon occasion but it seems they like chewing on her hair in the middle of the night and attack her toes. So they often start in her room and get booted out around 3am.
So many kitties cuddling/rough housing in a lap
A Persephone!
I think this is Aphrodite. It got so much better once we got collars
My fancy braid Eleanor did for me at church
I should have known we were in trouble when Eleanor kept cuddling all the kitties on her bed.
Juliet and Medusa
Nathan discovered that he really liked Aphrodite
Getting homework help from Medusa
Happy Bradley with Medusa and Aphrodite
Oh Juliet. Some final cat cuddles before our trip
I took Patrick and Juliet with me to Washington for my grandma's 95th birthday
We got up very early for the flight so I was glad when Juliet took a nap on me during our ride from the airport to Stanwood
My mom picked us up and we stopped by the Cookie Mill on our way through town!
Much joy and fun and Grandma and Grandpa's new house
Skyjo was the game of the trip
Juliet was the big winner of the first game! Poor Grandma was the loser
We stopped by my Auntie Bren's and Uncle Steve's house to say hi to great-grandma and to borrow her car. Steve suggested we check out a fairy trail at a nearby beach and so I took the kids there. However, as soon as they saw water and driftwood they could not have cared less about a fairy trail and the midwest kids wanted ocean time!
Much joy over the fort they found
It was freezing and my phone was almost out of battery and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to find my way back to my parents' new house without google maps. So I took a few photos and put my phone on low battery mode and put it away.
Patrick and Juliet were in heaven
Running along on driftwood! They were so happy
And there was some slight excitement over the fancy ice cream cake that Grandma made for our trip
The next day was quite rainy but we had a nice outing anyway, taking the ferry from Anacortes to Friday Harbor
Uncle Thomas was there too! A nice bonus on this trip.
A little Yamslam on the ferry ride
It's so pretty here. It's so nice to get to visit
I like tongue twisters and wanted the kids to talk about sea anemones
About to walk off the ferry
We did some research on walkable Friday Harbor activities and I found a nearby aquarium that stated it had 400 gallon tanks
This was the entire thing. Oops.
So we went by a nice bookshop for a while and then went to a nice fish and chips shop for early lunch.
Patrick was perhaps a bit of a disaster about sharing his french fries with Juliet so she got to walk across the street with Grandpa to a grocery store and she ended up getting a donut. This filled him with a righteous anger so I had to send him outside while she enjoyed eating it. Oh Patrick. He calmed down eventually.
We went back to our favorite beach, Iverson Beach Park, that evening with Grandpa.
The kids wanted to go here every day
So cute running around together
Meanwhile, Nathan bonded with kitties
And went to Bradley's band performance at the football game
Bradley was very happy about the concessions
Eleanor also assisted in tending kitties
I took the kids out to fancy coffee and pastries on Saturday morning. Juliet hated her pastry so she and Patrick got to split some tots. Sigh. Almost like healthy eating on this trip.
We went to the nearby playground afterwards! Patrick is kind of too old for playgrounds now but this one is so much fun and he gets to go to playgrounds so rarely now so they had a blast.
He was a champ helping Juliet out
Cuties together!
I met up with my friend Amelia for lunch and a walk and we accidentally joined a No Kings protest. I thought it was hilarious and Amelia was a good sport about taking a photo with me.
Then I took the kids back to their beach for the afternoon
Patrick built his own fort and a very nice older woman insisted that we pose for a picture in it all together
He worked hard on this thing. Patrick loves forts so much, I feel bad that Kansas is so buggy and poison ivy is such a concern for him. He could do this all day.
He declared his fort finished and wanted lots more pictures of it.
He took about fifty photos on my phone of every angle of his fort, it was so cute
Then we made it back to my parents' house in time for the birthday party! Thomas was feeling very festive indeed
Happy birthday great-grandma! The kids were very impressed by age 95
Some pictures with my cousin Matthew's son, Zane. He was a cutie, Juliet and Patrick loved playing with him.
Cousins together!
Auntie Bren and my mom with Great-Grandma
Comparing heights. I'm so glad we did this trip
Teaching Uncle Thomas Skyjo. Patrick was better at drawing small numbers than Uncle Thomas
Winner loser pic
Getting ready to leave the next morning. Juliet had a lot of complaints about how short the trip was. We were lucky to fit it in at all!
All cuddles, all smiles
This is when Juliet really realized that we were about to leave and started crying over Grandma. Oh sweet girl.
We got dropped off at the Lynwood light rail station so we could ride it down to the International District to meet up with my friend Serena.
We got lunch there. Patrick made an amazing choice and got a waffle fish stuffed with bacon and eggs
Then he whined his way into us walking four blocks to a Pokemon store. I told Serena's husband Josh that he was a terrible influence and he was very proud of himself
Saying bye to Serena as we hopped back onto the light rail to go the rest of the way to the airport
The flight was easy, so nice when it's direct, and we were home with kitties soon enough
Athena on Juliet's bum, Aphrodite curled up under her hands
They all like trying to attack her braids and I'm encouraging her not to allow it as it is perhaps not a great habit for them to get into.
Nathan developed favorite kittens while I was gone, of course. They're all incredibly sweet though.
Then about a day later I went with Juliet on her field trip to the Mahaffie Stage Coach Museum.
Riding on the stagecoach was the favorite activity of the day
Persephone!
Athena, Aphrodite, and Medusa (I think)
Hades on my shoulder. He's so handsome.
Eleanor finally takes pictures of herself now that there are kittens around
Medusa is such a pretty kitty as well
Patrick very much wanted to have a kitten pull a loose tooth
We took a couple cats over to a friend's house to introduce them to her pets because I had started to get desperate because it was clear we were going to end up adopting a few of these cats and I needed it to not be all five. I don't think it's working out with this particular friend but we had fun playing with kittens at her house
We took Athena and Hades and Athena was very tired afterwards
Eleanor took this photo of all five at the top of the cat tower. Look at their pretty collars! Hades is in red, Medusa in purple, Aphrodite in teal, and Athena is in pink. Persephone is the only one without a collar because she's so tiny. Athena is the next tiniest and we had trouble with her arm going through her collar at times at first because it was loose on her even at its most tightened.
And finally we have a real picture of Bradley in his band uniform because I paid for the professional photo!
Here he is with his middle school band teacher, Mr Adair, on a band trip to Nebraska. We can't say enough good things about the band program here, they run a really incredible program. Bradley thinks it's a lot of time and work, and it is, but he's doing really well and the kids and the teachers are some of the best people I know. I'm so glad he's doing it.
