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

Hi from the Mount Vernon Kitties!

Help!!!!!!

The escape!
All snug as a bug in a rug....
ahhhhh, the sweet formula coma is setting in....
Good night everybody ( PS- Wendy told me she's keeping me... wink, wink)

A surprise on the playground

Five baby kittens were found on our school playground on Wednesday afternoon. Mama kitty left them in a little outdoor kitchenette. Our custodian handed them over to animal control before anyone new what was happening! I couldn't let this happen so I brought them home with me. We have been having tons of funs but not getting tons of sleep. These kittens require food every 4 to 5 hours and lots of help going potty! Tired It is well worth it!
Meet the babies:

Kitten # 1
Calico
Kitten #2 gray tiger-striped
Kitten #3 orange striped
#4 black and white -could be calicoKitten #5 looks very similar to #4 (this is often a problem)

I asked my students at school to help me name them by submitting a letter in our school mail. I will post any good letters I receive.
More pictures to come............. xoxoxo Wendy

TIme for FUN!!

I also had a lot of fun over Spring Break! Jeremy and I took his sister to see Horton Hears a Who and to the Pet store (always a favorite of ours). I went with my sister and two nieces to the mall and children's museum and Marissa, who is in first grade, got her ears pieced!! She did great- no tears! ( Just a little green in the face!) We also saw the movie the Kite Runner which was excellent and really kept to the book( by Khaled Hosseini.)It is a must see! (certainly more more than Horton Hears a Who)
We saw the Voom exhibit at the University of Iowa Art Museum. I admit I was not seriously excited to go see this exhibit, it had been highly advertised as a bunch of videos of famous movie stars and seemed a bit silly. I found I really enjoyed how long you were drawn to each screen. It really made me think of how quick we are to shoot pictures with cameras to capture the moment and how the little gestures and moments are so beautiful, taking the idea of still-life a little further. It was really amazing to see the animals on these high definition screeens. The whole center room in the museum that long ago housed the BIG Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell now was filled with screens of an owl with polka-dot backgrounds. It was really amazing to see. I also got to see Brad Pitt in his white boxers getting rained on..... Willem Dafoe has a portrait and it is the creepiest one ever!!!!

I also went to see a friend of mine who opened up a great new fabric store/knitting shop in Iowa City. Home Ec workshop is the greatest little place in Iowa City! Classes are offered in sewing and knitting along with kids classes or birthday parties which we witnessed yesterday! How great would it be to be able to bring 8 friends out to sew your own purses! Codi offers cookies and tea and quiche on Saturdays! If you live near by you must check it out! I bought this adorable fabric there yesterday and created this cute little bag last night. I do not sew much and it was a fun first piece for me- thanks to Kirsten for the great advice!!!!

Spring break... where did it go?

I have used every spare moment of my spring break to accomplish as much as possible from my giant TO DO list and still have fun. Now I am finally sitting down to relax a bit before going to my folks for Easter. Jeremy and I completed a list of great home repairs including some biggies like a new kitchen ceiling, cleaning the carpets, and fixing the peep hole into the bathroom ( for those of you have have been to our house- you will be glad to know it is closed up!!!)
Here are a few photos of our hard work in progress....

Meet Otis!

I went with my mom few weeks ago to help her pick out a new kitten! She fell in love with this cuddly sweetheart... she named Otis. But my mom thought he was lonely and so I brought her a second black kitty from a farm nearby. We are not sure if this new arrangement is working out as planned- Oliver the newest kitty may be having trouble adjusting, so please keep him in your thoughts, he is awfully cute as well! I will post a picture of him later on!

New Jewelry!

During all the snow days we recently had, I found lots of time to make some new jewelry. I am really into this new pendent style with the loop instead of the bunched beaded look I usually make. What do you think? Check out WeMiKiWi.etsy.com and see lots of other new jewelry!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Here is a little Valentine I made for My sister-in-law (she's 3)! Anna loves blue giraffes??

Snow Days!!!

Meet the newest Artist on the block. Any thoughts on a name for him?

Jeremy says Snow-MAN RAY!!!!
He then says he does not want credit for that bad pun.

Check out our picnic table- one more layer and it could be a cake!

Happy Snow days!!!!

The results...

I finished my scarf and hat over the many snow days we had this week.
It is soo super soft and maybe a bit bigger than I planned on!

Here are Marissa and Sophie's felt animals they requested. I loved making them but I am going to take a break before I become obsessed!

New things for the New year...

I received this great book on how to create cute felt crafts from my sister for Christmas. I finally had a chance to open it up and try one. Here is my sweet little alien. I am hooked!!!

My nieces loved it so much that I took them to Micheal's and let them each pick out some felt so I could make them each one as well. Sophie ( who is 3) has decided she would like a purple and pink polka dotted cat. Marissa ( who is 7) would like a pink and blue peacock or pink and white panda (whichever I think is easier.... I now have my work cut out for me.

I stumbled onto a great frame sale this weekend and got several great new frames to hold my favorite pictures of Mexico!

To go with my new houndstooth coat, Kirsten and I went shopping for a purse. I was able to find a great kelly green bag in little old Mount Vernon. We have this great little gift shop called the Silver Spider. I searched all weekend for some yarn to match my bag. I am dying to knit a hat and scarf for my new coat. My search did not pan out, so I will continue on through the week!