Goodbye Bri

cat update: Bri is truly gone.  The neighbor's-son's-girlfriend moved out and took the kitty with her *sigh* she was a good pet, and is greatly missed.  The neighbor was very sad to tell us about it; he knows we loved her very much.  Ryvre is interested in Native American culture at the moment.  We borrowed Indian in the Cupboard from Granny, and the kids really loved it.  Dale also introduced them to Dances with Wolves and The Last of the Mohekans.  We checked out a stack of Native stories from the library, and little as it is, they had more than we could even borrow at once!  (First time that's ever happened.)  Yesterday, Ryvre and Daddy made a tipi and a longhouse out of paper and craft sticks.  i'll edit in pics later.

Missing Kitty

Bri (the cat) is missing.  Well, not so much missing as...well, first i need to explain that our "custody" of her has been sort of a grey area.  She technically belongs to our neighbor's daughter-in-law.  When she and his son moved in, they brought along this cat that was her mother's, because the old lady didn't want it left with her.  They didn't feed that cat, when she found us she was skinny and sick-looking (the neighbor also confirmed this, along with the fact that they closed her in their car at night sometimes, with no litter box!).  Bri obviously favored us, she'd come to any of us that called, and begged for a scratch on the tummy, she ate our food, and played with our kids.  The neighbor said she wouldn't go to anyone, and when we told him she did come when we called, and even when we didn't, he said as far as he was conserned, she was ours.  Well, three or four days ago, i was leaving to pick up some groceries, and i saw that the neighbor's wife, son, and his wife were all outside, calling for "kitty" and looking around.  Strange, thought i, since up to this point they ignored her.  Maybe they were taking her to the vet or something?  I don't know, but i haven't seen her since, and i'm afraid the kids are coming very close to suspecting something.  I've been holding off their questions with "well, you know, sometimes she stays in the woods and doesn't come when we call" and "maybe she's napping somewhere."  Argh.  i'd at least like to talk to the neighbor about it, so i know to tell the kids that she went to live with someone else, or if she was sick or whatever.  i don't want to lie about something like this.  Ugh, if they did take her somewhere else, that was really mean, because they KNEW we were taking care of her, and would have kept her in a heartbeat.    i'm just not looking forward to whatever conversation is in the future on this one.

First Letter

	Ryvre wrote his first letter last night, to my husband's friend in Canada; it said: Dear Kimmy, Thank you for the stickers! Love, Ryvre First, i wrote my own version of the letter, and he copied it letter-by-letter.  He kept looking up at the alphabet poster though, and couldn't keep track of which word he was on, so instead i spelled each word out to him, and he wrote them much better.

Crabs

We have hermit crabs now. My FIL brought them back from Florida, and bought us a 10 gallon fishtank to put them in. Seems like overkill to me, but there are 8 of them (crabs, that is), so i guess they do need room to run. The kids LOVE the little critters, they change shells all the time, crawl around, dig, and climb on the rocks and sticks and stuff in there. We're still trying to figure out the temperature and humidity thing, but they seem happy and we have no mold growing *yet* but we're working on getting some kind of heater, because our house is really cold, and it seems inhumane to keep the lights on in the tank 24/7 like we are.

Family Picture

Just because i have some free time, here's our one and only family pic, taken christmas day at one of my grandma's houses. This is the very reason we don't do family pics, lol. We're all looking at different cameras, lol, and well...let's just say there's a reason i'm always the one TAKING the pictures! Bleck. Sad thing is i've actually lost 20 lbs since last Christmas (even having a baby somewhere in-between, lol), and i still look like "that."



Besides, doesn't it look painfully forced? Haha, the kids literally scattered as soon as the flashing stopped.

First Laugh

Ember laughed for the first time last night. i missed it, because she and Dale were in another room, but i'm kind of glad, as it got to be THEIR moment. This is the first "first" of any of my kids that i've missed, and the only one that Dale has been there for alone (its always both of us, or just me around). He got her to do it again for me (he's still the only one that can get her to laugh) and it was hard to describe--kind of a half-whispered, breathless, magickal sound. *sigh* i'll miss having babies!

First Laugh

Ember laughed for the first time last night. i missed it, because she and Dale were in another room, but i'm kind of glad, as it got to be THEIR moment. This is the first "first" of any of my kids that i've missed, and the only one that Dale has been there for alone (its always both of us, or just me around). He got her to do it again for me (he's still the only one that can get her to laugh) and it was hard to describe--kind of a half-whispered, breathless, magickal sound. *sigh* i'll miss having babies!