I am so sorry I have not posted for a while....... I have been so busy! Here are a few fun shots for you of the kittens so you can see how fast they are growing! We have moved them downstairs and they are now eating soft cat food. They are soooo much fun!

new talents!

Darby's talents rely on his ability to be cute and show off his adorable striped belly while simultaneously attacking the other kitties and chewing on their ears!!

Mabel's talents include her strong voice and love of lying on her back and having you rub her belly.
Roosevelt has been our leader in starting new things like for instance, he was the first to use the litter box and the first to play with toys. He is our most photogenic kitty.... or at least, he is the one that will hold still the longest to get his picture taken.
Gizmo and Gadget have been hard to photograph. I am going to work hard this week on that. Gadget is much bigger than Gizmo and we are not having problems telling them part anymore.
We are very fond of Gizmo because he has become a real snuggler this week. You can often find him resting on my shoe while I am helping another kitty, patiently waiting his turn. Gadget was the first to lap formula from the lid rather than a bottle. He is the biggest but very gentle.
Any advice on getting kitties off the bottle and into soft food would be appreciated. We are mixing soft can food with formula and they will eat it if you put it to their mouths but no one
(except Gadget) will eat off the lid yet. This process has led to many baths. I will put those fun photos up next!

Who's your favorite?

We have had lots of visitors over to meet our kitties. Everyone seems to be picking their favorite kitty or kitties!

It's love!

Jeremy
Jill
Anna Jo

The naming of the kittens...

We had over 160 letters from students who wanted to help name the kittens. I congratulated the winners over announcements this morning. It was really hard to decide, but as you can see below, we had a lot of help!


Here are the names we chose from the letters!
Names from left to right: Gizmo and Gadget the twins ( Gizmo has a big circle spot on tummy to help identify) Gray tiger striped kitty is now Darby, the little Calico is Mabel, and last, the orange kitty is officially Roosevelt.

An adventure outside

Kirsten came over and we took the kittens outside for a little adventure. It was so adorable to watch them tumble and wrestle and walk all over each other. Each one would walk to the edge of the blanket and touch the grass with their little paws and turn right around. I was happy to see they weren't ready to go too far yet.


Dottie helped herd them back onto the blanket when they would start to wander. She was much more interested in them than Violet, my beagle, who is far off in the background. She is a bit frightened by their little "meows".

Worn out at last, the kitties snuggle up in our laps....

Weighing In

All the kitties have been weighed and bot are they gainign weight quickly!! On March 30th, they were averaging about 9oz. and last night they were up to 12oz. They are growing so fast!

Rescued Animals

I took our kitties to school today for many of the children to see. We had a great day, but boy were those kittens tuckered out after all that attention! Everyone was was glad to see they were doing so well after being rescued from the cold playground.
It got me thinking of these dogs that were rescued from a farm outside of Solon, IA which is near my home. There were 58 neglected dogs on a farm that were taken into our Iowa City shelter which is an amazing shelter if you have never been on their page, you should check it out.
Anyways, the dogs that were able to be adopted seemed to being doing great. One of the new owners created this web page to share updates and chat with others who adopted these needy pups. The stories are beautiful and heart-wrenching as well.

Oh by the way- we received over 150 letters from students to help name the kitties. I will post a bunch this weekend but for now I will leave you with one quote from a third grader named Max.... "name one 'Civil' to be thankful we won the war."

Naming the babies

Letters are pouring in from kids today! I hung some photos of the kitties on a bulletin board to help them out! Here are a few from one letter.....
Dear Ms. Miller I have two cats at home. Here are some names for you. One is Hope, Lovebug, snowflake, Angel (spelled Angle) and Lucy. Those are all the names I got so far.
From Lucas 3 grade