27th Anniversary

Thursday, 3 March 2011 is our 27th Anniversary. It is hard to believe it has been that many years. It doesn't seem that long. Geez, we must be getting old!
I was truly blessed in finding Dave, or in him finding me (maybe just in finding each other). We have had our good times and our not so good times. We have had sparks fly and exciting adventures throughout our time together. It has been a wonderful 27 years and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Actually, I was not only lucky in getting Dave, but also lucky in getting a wonderful In-Law family too. I don't think you could ask for more.
After all of these years, Dave still makes me laugh and I love spending time with him. Hoping to have at least a hundred years left with him, I look forward to the years to come.And Growing Old with him.

Happy Anniversary Honey

I Love You with all my heart

Or should I say....
I Love You
Bunches and Bunches
Buckets and Buckets
Barrels and Barrels

(Inside thing, may explain someday).....

Love to all of our Family.

8 Months old and aptly named

Cricket is 8 months old and has really grown! Though she is bigger now, she is still a bit clumsy. I worry about her falling off of her cat tree, I can only hope she gets a bit more graceful someday soon.

We had been having issues with Cricket and her water dish. She loves water (to play with, haven't tested this with a bath yet) and was constantly soaking the kitchen floor. I decided we needed a different kind of water dish, one that could satisfy her curiosity with water, and yet save my floor from constantly being wet. I found these fountain style water dishes that seemed to satisfy both sides of the water dish equation, but most of them were fairly expensive. I don't mind spending the money, if I thought it would be worth it. I finally found one that was economical and we got it and set it up. She loves it! Watching the water run down the little slide fascinates her and it is deep enough that if she splashes in it, my floor still stays dry. Here are some pics of Cricket and her water dish!

What's that noise!?

What's this?!

Ooooohhh. This is cool!

In a previous blog post I talked about Cricket's habit of tearing open bags. She moved on from her kitty treat bags to going into my pantry and opening my bags of pasta! So of course everything needs to be kitty proofed. Because we live in a very rural area, we don't have the diversity of shopping that most people have in larger cities. So we tend to have a lot of mail, UPS and Fedex packages delivered.
Most companies have moved away from using Styrofoam peanuts and bubble wrap to these puffy air filled plastic pillows. This is fine, less mess to clean up, and once you pop the pillows, they don't take up much space in the trash.
Starting about a month ago, Cricket seems to be on a mission to save us from these evil pillows. When we put the box on the floor she immediately pounces on them, drags them out of the box and then attacks and pops each one. It is hilarious to watch her attack these pillows. Of course we watch to make sure she isn't ingesting anything. But if you look at the pillows, all you see are 4 to 6 punctures from her teeth. Here are some pictures of her 'good deed' in protecting us and the world from these vicious pillows!

Ah Ha! Those evil bubble pillows are back!

I must save my family from these evil things!

Mission: Rid the world of evil pillow packing!

No one is safe from these evil things!

Cricket and I are still having a few issues with her jumping up on things and breaking my nic-nacs; I have plenty of glue around, but it is battle of wills!

I mentioned in the title of this blog that she was aptly named. This is true. She chirps all of the time, and loves to talk to us. Her voice is very high pitched, and when she wants to, she can be very loud. She is so cute, we love her to death. Problem is, she knows she is cute and that we adore her. I will close this post out with some pics I took when she had just woke up from a nap. Will keep taking pics and blog again soon.
Love to all.

Stretch time

Yes?

Nap?

Nap sounds good to me

I am queen.

Cricket Antics

A new year, and a 7 and 1/2 month old kitten that can jump real high now. Have had a number of things broken from Cricket jumping up on cabinets. Good thing I have plenty of glue on hand!

We discovered that Cricket can also chew through aluminum bags that contain her kitty treats, so now they are hidden! Here are some pictures:

Mine all Mine!

Hmmmm....Chicken.

 

Breaking and Entering

I have this problem with Cricket, she makes it very difficult to clean her kitty litter box. Here's what I mean....

My box....

Feels Good!

Just Kicking Back!

The box is clean, but trying to keep her out while I am scooping is a chore! I have never seen a cat that loves to roll around in the litter like she does. Of course because of this habit, I try to keep her box "VERY" Clean!
And of course, because she rolls around in it, I end up with kitty litter in other parts of the house!

The hard part is that she is so cute, it is hard to get mad or irritated with her!
That's it for now; have a great Weekend!

Cricket's 1st Christmas 2010

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse....Well, there was one creature 'stirring'; our Cricket watching for Santa, and guarding the presents.......

Click pictures to enlarge!

Cricket's first Christmas started at 2:30 this morning as we got up to open presents! We sorted the gifts then got Cricket's stocking (we had to keep it hidden as she kept trying to sneak a peak), and had fun watching her 'discover' her presents!

Cricket had so much fun!

As we opened our gifts we watched Cricket have fun with her toys and the wrapping paper. Her first Christmas done, next year should be fun!

I can be a present too!

From our home to yours. We wish you a Merry and Blessed Christmas and a Very Happy New Year!

Cricket and the Santa Hat

You know all those cute pictures of cats with Santa hats or Christmas collars? Well, either they have Very Patient Cats or they use Photoshop! This is the story of Cricket and the Santa Hat.

I was wandering through ALCO one day, and saw this cute Santa hat with Paws on it. I thought it would be cute to take a picture of Cricket with the hat on and have it printed as Christmas Cards. Well, if you got a card from us, you know that didn't happen!

Several attempts were made to get her to sit for 30 seconds with the hat on, the following pictures tell their own story.

One Cat; Cricket

One Santa hat with Paws on it

Attempt 1

Attempt2

Attempt3

Attempt 4; Does this cat look happy?

So Cricket won; the hat will be stored until she is older, maybe she will have 30 seconds of patience then.
I hope this brought you a laugh or two; at least a smile.
One last picture. I bought a Nutcracker, and Cricket decided she liked the box (we still have it). So here is a picture of The Nutcracker Cricket!

I hope all of you have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Blessed New Year!
Love from Dave, Me and Cricket.

Story of Cricket, Part 6

Yesterday was Cricket's 2nd visit to the vet for her booster shots. We put her new carrier on the floor and she walked in and laid down! Cricket doesn't seem to mind riding in the car, and we are going to start taking her with us for rides so that she doesn't always associate the car with the vet. There were 2 meowy cats at the vet and quite a few dogs. Cricket seemed to take it all in stride. When we were called we went into the examining room, but Cricket didn't really want to leave the carrier. The Assistant took her temperature, and I can never see that without thinking about the scene in the 'new' Dr. Doolittle (Eddy Murphy), where the dog is sitting there, talking about how his butt just swallowed the thermometer! Cricket is now 5.4 lbs, and in good health.

Our vet Dr. Tyler is a bit concerned about Crickets gums though, he thinks she may have what is termed
Stomatitis syndrome, which is an inflamation of the gums. He said that there is a lot of research being done on this problem, because they don't know much about it or why it occurs. Our first step is to daily use an enzymatic tooth cleaner to see if that helps. We hope so. The tooth 'paste' comes in poultry, beef and malt, and is used for both dogs and cats. We got the poultry flavor to try first.


Cricket kind of surprised us by hissing really loud at Dr. Tyler when he was checking her eyes, heart and teeth. But he said he understood, because he probably smelled like a Great Dane. Cricket obviously isn't impressed by 'doggy' smells.


Cricket was great at the vets and getting her shot. We made an appointment in 2 weeks for her to get spayed and to be micro-chipped. 

Dr. Tyler had very carefully explained to us how to get the enzymatic tooth cleaner onto Cricket's teeth, we weren't perfectly successful this first time. Tried to tell her it was a 'nummy' treat, but I don't think she bought into it.

As with the last shot, Cricket has been a bit under the weather and wants to sleep a lot. We decided to forgo the tooth cleaner adventure for today and try tomorrow. 


Cricket is such a little doll, we adore her.


Well I will close for now. More later.

HI! I am almost 6 months old already!

Halloween

Not my favorite holiday, but part of the Fall and lots of fun. We always have some kind of potluck and costume day at work in celebrating Halloween. Some of the costumes are amazing. This year we had to split the potluck and costume day due to scheduling issues with some of the main players. Thursday we had a ghoulish treat potluck and people brought in all sorts of interesting things. One that I liked was the 'Veggie' Candy corn. Strips of yellow bell peppers formed the top, followed by small carrots and the point was cauliflower! This was paired with hot pepper humus which was excellent. There was also a jello heart and brain that looked really disgusting, especially when you jiggled the plate. My contribution was an orange flavored graveyard cake. Everything was edible; I made the tree's, ghosts, bats, eyes, spider's and skeleton's out of candy melts. The head stones were sugar cookies. The pumpkins were purchased......See picture's below.

Monday we are having our 'Halloween Costume' day, I am still in the process of making mine...Will add picture's later.

This is Cricket's first Halloween and she is very interested in the pumpkin that Dave is going to carve either today or tomorrow (will add pic's later). Was thinking about trying to get Cricket to wear a little witches hat, but somehow, I don't think she will!

What's this?

We love Halloween here, the kids (no matter what age) are always escorted by their parents. The tiny one's are so cute! And they all say Thank You! Hoping you have a safe and fun Halloween So will leave you now with a 'Happy Halloween' Wish and another pic of Cricket and 'her' pumpkin!

Mine!