The Youngest Three

Right now we are in the busiest part of the the year. Jasmine's last day of school is tomorrow. She graduates May 29. The twins graduate middle school two days later. Here are some pictures from recent events.

The twins got new hair cuts, and Jasmine got her hair straightened. So new looks for all three.

The twins turned 14 on May 15.

For the first time--at least since toddlerhood--this is the first time Kaleb has been taller. In previous years Kayla has been between 3" and 6" taller. Now she is 5'4", and he is 5'5". Her hair makes her look taller, but look at the should height. We had to line them up on the wall and mark the heights to be sure.

This is the remaining kitty. Tyler is keeping him.

The senior classes here all go to elementary schools and do a walk through. This was Jasmine's walk through.

She also had awards day.

The cord is a military cord and the medal is for perfect attendance.

The church also had a recognition day for all the seniors.

Next time she wears the cap and gown will be at her graduation.

As I mentioned earlier, this is the one kitty we are keeping. Both mama kitties have been spayed. So now we have 12 week old Sorin, two mama kitties, an old kitty and four dogs.

Jayden, around 13-16 years old

 Travis, 6

 Sasha, 5

Sadie, approx 7-8

 Caspian, 8

Rosie, approx 2-3

Abbi, litter mate to Rosie

The next weeks are going to be crazy busy. Memorial Day at our new house the 27th, graduation the 29th, the twins middle school graduation the 31st, Tyler, Jasmine and me flying to NYC the 31st, the twins' 5 day camp June 10, high school cross country starting the 10th (the twins will start late), Kayla's court date undetermined, Jasmine leaving for her summer mission June 15. We also have to make sure Jasmine's college classes are set up for next fall before she leaves for camp. 

I will be updating my blog as these events take place.

More Updates

Abbi has two surviving kittens, and they both have their eyes open now! They were two weeks old yesterday.

Rosie's four are all doing well and will be one week old tomorrow.

Mommies and babies. We have a "large" and a small solid black kitty, a "large" and a small black and white kitty, and small calico and a small white and tiger.

The girls came over for a day, and we went to the park. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so I just have photos at home before we went.

Tyler, Jasmine and I were on our way to NOLA for the St Patrick's Day parade but got in a pile up on I 10 west, so we are at a hotel in Moss Point, MS instead. :(

Quick Updates

 We have new fur babies. Abbi delivered her first kitten around 6 a.m. Saturday. Then there was a delay as she delivered a stillborn, and she removed it from the area. Then she delivered another kitten. I had to leave right after the first one, but Rick kept me informed. He told me all three kittens were black, and two were live births.

So when I got home, I reached into the kennel to lift one out and see it, and I pulled out an orange and white one!! No one had realized she'd had a third live birth!

This is right after the first one was born.

Mama with her three kitties.

I also painted  my office.

Keeping up with the kitty situation and getting moved into the new house has kept me really busy.
Abbi's sister Rosie should be delivering her kittens in the next couple of weeks. I had made spay appointments, but the cats were pregnant before appointment day came.

I am also working on the manuscript for The Christian Girl's Guide to Middle School which will release April 2020. I think it will be a fun and useful book for girls in grades 5-7.

Oh, and I also got my motorcycle endorsement yesterday. I had to retest. I tend to freeze up on tests and do stupid things even though I can do the skills. I also bought a 250cc Honda Rebel.
I'll post pictures of that later.

And Kitty Makes Three

I don't remember how much I said a few weeks ago about Rosie bringing us a kitten. It was very young and unfortunately ended up dying. Well, it turns out there were more kittens.

We don't know why she brought it to us and did not try to nurse it or care for it. Perhaps she knew something was wrong?

This is the first kitty.

Anyway, that was around November 25. Then almost a full month later, she showed up at the door with another kitten in her mouth! Meowed at the door, we opened it and there she was. 

 This is that kitten. He now has a home with our daughter Jessica.

A little later we heard one of the dogs going crazy outside. Rosie had gone out a window and brought back another kitten. But she didn't bring it to the door. She meowed to get in, and we were surprised because we didn't realize a window was open and she'd gone out. It was later that we realized the dog was going crazy because she'd left a kitten at the bottom of the steps. It was a tortoise shell.

Then the next morning, Rick found another tortoise shell at the bottom of the steps! We were waiting to see if there were more, but this was it. One that died, and three healthy ones. Probably 6-8 weeks old. 

She was very attached to these. Since we were planning to go to Adam's for Christmas and didn't want our young pet sitter to have to care for all these kitties, a friend of Jessica's watched them. One of her friends wanted the two tortoise shells. So we found homes for all the kitties. They are all happily settled in now. 

But now we have drama between Rosie, the mama, and her litter mate (we think) Abbi. Abbi used to come in and stay, but now she only shows up occasionally to eat, and she hisses at Rosie. We don't know what's going on. Abbi is the one I took to the vet for her paw and spent $101 on it.  So we planned to keep her. But she doesn't seem to want to stay.

The yellow kitty started attacking Jayden, the older cat  that's been with us for years, so he had to be removed. Easier said than done, because he is wild, not a pet. Tyler is scratched to pieces.

So that is our pet drama for now.

Christmas pictures to come.

Photos to go with my ramblings in the last post

Here are a few photos to back up the things from the last post.

Pets:

These are our four dogs.

And our original Cat:

She has been rather put out at things since the hurricane. Nothing is the same. And we've had all the extra kittens/cats.

The dogs haven't been able to go out like they used to because both our wooden fence and chain link fences were demolished by falling trees.

Here are the extras:

This is Abbi. She had been limping for several days, so I finally took her to the vet. Vet said she'd probably been bitten on the leg by another animal and was infected. She got a shot for inflamation/pain and an antibiotic shot. I had them give her a rabies shot also. She is about a year old. Six pounds. And I am $101 poorer!!

This is Rosie. We think she must be a litter mate to Abbi. She's sitting on a pile of books that were at my flea market shop. She gets into any kind of food. She will chew through cat food and dog food bags, get on the counter and swipe people food right off the stove etc. Quite a handful, but very friendly and sweet.

Shy kitty. He doesn't want held or to come in. But he's come to trust us for food. We call him Spencer.

This is what our house looks like with the contents of our shop dumped in it!!  Fun, huh?

We are still waiting to see what they are going to do about the house. This room does not have a black mold ceiling like two of our rooms.

Hope to be posting fun family pictures soon. We are dealing with issues right now though. It boils down to the school giving my child another chrome book and him watching super heroes videos all day during class and then them being upset he has Fs. Hmmm. Let's take away his chrome book. That was my solution. And I did take it, but he told them it was ruined in the hurricane and simply got another one!

Friday is the last day of school before vacation!! And it's late enough that it's already Friday here!

Moving Forward One Day at a Time

I haven't posted since November 20. That's because we are pretty much in the same place as we were. 

Wonder Works had a hurricane special so Tyler, Jasmine, the twins and I went, and we met Jessica and the girls there. Actually, we were supposed to, but she rescued us because I had the first of three flat tires since they hurricane.

As stated in the last post, Jessica offered to host Thanksgiving. I didn't get many photos. I didn't feel very festive, but Jessica did a good job. We didn't spend much time together, though, because the adult kids all had things they wanted to get at Walmart at the Black Friday sale. So it was eat and run. We also didn't get a family photo because it was dark out and really the good cheer was missing this year.

We are still in our old house, although we do have a potential new house. It's not my favorite, but 
it's in a nice location and will work. It puts Rick quite a ways from his job, but the twins who are currently in an out of zone school requiring me to drive them every day will be in the correct zone for that school if the contract goes through.

Jasmine will still be out of zone, and her high school is sharing a middle school building, so high school is 7-12, and middle school is 1-6. Basically we are moving to the "rich" section of town from the "slum" section of town. I haven't quite figured it all out because we all just call everything Panama City, but really there's Callaway, Millville, Cedar Grove, Springfield and Lynn Haven. More on that once we have answers.

The mold has spread through our ceilings in a disgusting way. Rick is meeting with a private contractor to get a lawyer to figure out how to get it declared trashed and collect insurance. The downside of both new and old houses is that they are in both hurricane and flood zones. However, the new house is on higher land and they are going to remeasure to see if the cost can be lowered.

Not sure if I've mentioned that our neighbors abandoned their mom cat and her first litter who are maybe a year old. She was pregnant again. They said cats are wild and do not need fed, so the cats would be fine. I will keep my thoughts about them to myself, but this family also thinks it's fun to let their dogs loose when my kids walk ours. We have small rescue dogs. They have "bully" breeds. 

We started feeding whole lots of cats down by their house and moved them slowly down to ours. But the mama cat and one of the first liter disappeared.

 Last week one of the two young cats who moved in with us showed up with a small ball of fur in her mouth. Kaleb yelled to me that she'd brought us a dead kitten. Well, it wasn't all the way dead, so I wrapped it in an electric blanket and went to get kitty formula. 

The cat who brought it to us had been pregnant and no longer was, so we figured she had had her kittens and something had happened, but then she brought this one. Yet she did not show much interest in it.

Kitty started doing well, but she also started smelling not so good. She was not "eliminating" even though we were doing the stimulate with warm rag thing. Then one evening she went for the first time, she took her first steps and she purred for the first time. She had a VERY loud purr. But she still smelled really bad, so the next day I started packing her up for the vet. I went to get my stuff, came back and she was dead!!! I couldn't believe it, so I left her wrapped in soft cloth while I went to pick Jasmine up from school. (Okay, so I might be crying my eyes out writing this at the library and getting a few looks)

Tyler came home, confirmed she was indeed dead and buried her.

We still have the two young cats, plus our own cat and our four dogs. And we still don't know what happened to Rosie's litter that she must have had around November 7-10.

So right now, all the kids are back at school although Jasmine is not at her school.
We need to get our house declared trashed.
We need to get the contract finalized on a new house.
I have to get the entire contents of my flea market shop out of my house!

And we need to decide whether or not we are keeping the extra cats. The people come and go, but they have nothing to do with the cats in reality. They don't fed them, let them in the house, neuter them or take them to the vet for shots or care.

I think they might just disappear when we move. What do you think?