Pet Count on the Rise

Vanessa has now counted 258 bunnies. We haven't told her that she might just be counting the same bunnies over and over.

We discovered a baby turtle in the duck pond.

The catfish are bigger than we thought originally.

They are still the best pets we have EVER had. Keep on counting!

Plenty of Pets

The idea of moving to Texas has been hard on everyone. We left a home sitting on an acre of land in a mountain valley for a subdivision on the outskirts of one of the largest populated areas in the country.The kids all felt that moving was the right thing for our family but we were were worried about how our cats would adjust.They love to hunt and explore so we were naturally nervous about moving them to the suburbs. The  fact that our new house doesn't have a place for a cat door meant they would have to be indoor cats.

Our cats come from a long line of pedigreed mousers. (OK, may not really pedigreed but they should be.) They love to catch mice and play with them until they are finished then they leave the carcass on our step as if it is some type of gift.They are not house cats, that's for sure. My kids have read the Warriors book series and I seriously think these two cats are warriors at heart. They just pretend to be kitty pets in order to eat and sleep in the house.

Colt, our cat formally known as Princess, is rather lazy. He thinks he is human.

Brightheart, named after a warrior cat from the above mentioned book series, actually lives up to her name. She thinks she is better than humans. She finds the oddest places to  sleep. None of which appears very comfortable.

A few weeks ago a friend mentioned that she knew someone who had lots of land, a barn, and a mouse infestation. After a sad and tearful family council we decided it was in our cats' best interest to live at their house rather than make the move with us. So, with heavy hearts we said goodbye to our family pets.

Upon arrival in Texas. Vanessa discovered that our neighborhood had plenty of pet opportunities.

She has counted 48 bunnies that roam free throughout the neighborhood. She has named them Fluffer, Furry, Thumper, Frisco, Linco, Bambi, Whiteness, Fredrico.... the list goes on and on. The problem is that this is as close as she can get to her "pets" before they scamper off.

Vanessa spent the first few days taking anyone and everyone bunny hunting (She calls it bunny hunting but it's really just bunny sightseeing.). She said to Uncle Mark, "Now you have to look really careful like this." as they headed down the sidewalk on  "hunting" expedition.

Bunnies aren't all the pets she has now. In the community pond there are ducks to feed.

Vanessa wants to feed the ducks all the time. She is happy when she convinces others to join her. As soon as the ducks sees people standing on the shore, they come over as fast as their little feet can paddle.

 When the ducks don't eat the bread fast enough than the catfish gobble it up.

We also discovered turtles and herons near the pond. My nephew Ayden tried to get a closer look at the heron. You can see it in the background.

Vanessa even saw a stingray although we don't have a photo of it for some reason.

I'm just grateful that she has all these pets that we don't have to feed, clean up after, or worry about when going on vacation. With these types of pets, I say bring it on!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

For Halloween this year, Vanessa dressed up as a witch to go to school. Here is a photo of her and her faithful pet cat.

Okay, he's not that faithful of a pet.

For dance class, she dressed up as a vampire and applied face paint all by herself. I had a really hard time not laughing out loud when she walked out of the bathroom as a beautiful vampire.

Savanah decided not to dress up this year. She just rolled out of bed and headed to school.

AJ not only dressed as Napolean Dynamite, he did "the dance". I was absolutely forbidden to record it. I can't imagine why.

My sister came to visit . She bought a costume for her faithful pet dog, Charlie (he is extremely faithful). Charlie's costume didn't fit him so AJ decided to wear it.

Laurann dressed up as a In-N-Out worker and after searching multiple stores the night before looking for a big dog costume, we found a nice banana outfit for Charlie. Somebody said he looked like a french fry. That's appropriate.

We all participated in the Spook Sprint, a local fund raiser for adoption. Participants were encouraged to dress up. For the race, AJ decided to wear the dog costume. Savanah literally rolled out of bed to go to the race. Vanessa was a vampire without the face paint but fangs this time.

I dressed up as a nurse. That's appropriate. Does it even count as a costume if I wear it all the time? Scrubs are nice that way. I also rolled out of bed and headed to the race.

Here we are all lined up. As you can see there were a lot of contestants. It was a highly competitive race.

We all participated in the mile run. Half way through the race Vanessa informed me that she was mad that I forced her to do the race and she never wants to do it again. To this day, she refers to it as "The Marathon". I think deep down inside she would do it again. (Those of you who live locally, let me know if you hear of a children's race. It's fun and I think it's good exercise for the kids.)

At the end of the race, the organizers had a costume contest. None of my kids won but we didn't care, we were freezing and looking forward to going home to drink hot chocolate.

Who drinks hot chocolate after running a marathon?

Bathtime

Ethan wanted to know if this meant he didn't have to shower. He claims that Colt, named after Colt McCoy the Texas Longhorn quarterback, left his hair soft and shiny. It left me a bit queasy and I have to wonder what kind of hairball it left for Colt.

Which Came First, The Chicken or The Egg?

First, the egg. The girls found lots of them over Easter. The boys were content hiding the eggs and eating the candy. We don't really do the Easter bunny thing. Really, a big pink fluffy bunny hopping around leaving gifts? Bah Humbug! We do hunt Easter eggs. We had an Easter egg hunt with Aaron's family the weekend before and then again at our house with just our kids. Don't you love Vanessa's Easter basket? It is from my sister and Vanessa insisted on using it. Oh well, it's festive enough.Then, the chicken. Twelve baby chicks joined our family yesterday. I grew up on a farm with chickens so, I can't say I'm overly excited about this prospect but, Aaron and the kids are happy so, I am happy. I have to admit they are cute for the time being!

Princess????

We took our two female kittens to the vet to be spayed today. The vet called to let us know that Princess is not a princess she/he is more of a prince. I told the kids we need to think of a boy name for him. Vanessa suggested Poodle but I think the poor little kitten has enough of an identity crisis.

Aaron and I are just happy we took them to the vet when we did because baby kittens would've been an even bigger suprise!

The Saddest Story Ever With a Happy Ending

A few years ago, a cat was left at my in-law's house. They suspect she was abandoned. She was a beautiful long haired white cat. She lived outside their house and they kept her fed. The girls named her Snowhite. Well, Snowhite was a house cat. She didn't seem to have any fears when it came to cars and shortly after she showed up at my their house she was hit by a car. They took her to the vet who told them her one leg would never work again. She wasn't in pain she just would have a major limp for the rest of her life.

They live out in the country near a mountain with coyotes on it. They knew she would not survive long with her disability. So, the day we moved into this house, Snowhite moved in too. She lived out in our barn and seemed to adapt well to our yard. After a few months, she started sneaking into the house. The kids were always delighted to find her nestled in their closets. Aaron and I eventually gave in and she started living indoors with us. Snowhite was the perfect cat. She was very social and loved to be around our family. In fact, she would join us every night for scripture study and prayer. Other than leaving white hair all over the house, we all enjoyed having her as part of the family. When spring came, she would spend time outside during the day then she would come in at night.

Last summer when we went on vacation, we asked the neighbor boy to check in on her and feed her. While we were gone another neighbor noticed her outside wandering around. They knew we had a white cat but hadn't noticed the limp until then. They thought she had just barely been hit by a car. They were quite worried about her. Since we were out of town, they took her to another neighbor that works in animal control. There was some type of misunderstanding and he understood that she was a stray cat. He took her to a vet who said she would never have use of the leg again and so they euthanized her.

We returned the next day and called up our neighbor to let him know we would be picking up our cat when we found out she wouldn't be coming home. It was devastating to our family. She was a cherished pet by all of us. I feel terrible that with all the pictures I take, I didn't take a single picture of our Snowhite. We all still think of her often and miss her terribly.

Now, for the happy ending. We recently brought home two kittens. Ethan and Savanah insisted all they wanted for Christmas was kittens. My sister-in-law's cat had kittens a few weeks before. Savanah named her kitten Princess.Ethan named his kitten Brightheart after a character in the children's book series Warriors. They are books written about cats that fight in the forest with tooth and claw.The kittens seem to be adjusting to thier new home. Although, at times they probably get more attention than they want.

It's been an early Christmas and a happy ending.

Egg-citing News!

Ethan's duck, originally named Christopher after his friend in Texas, who we later realized was a female (the duck, not the friend) and renamed her Chrissy, laid an egg this week.This caused quite a bit of egg-citement in our house.

The Importance of Pets

When it comes to our kids, we have four-n-more. When it comes to our pets, we have more-n-more. Our long pet list keeps getting longer. Friday, we added six geese. Geese are very different from ducks. That is why we need ducks and geese (this is how Aaron explains it to me). Alysha, my sister-in-law, reminded me of when we were "pet haters" I guess now, that makes us "reformed pet haters".

The goslings were hatched on Thursday, placed in a box, and overnighted from New Mexico to Utah. We paid extra to have their gender determined (no, I don't know, or want to know how they did that). The girls came with red paint on their nose and the boys had blue paint. This is important for raising geese because they mate for life and therefore, it is not good to have more boys than girls for obvious reasons. When they are hatched, there is little or no human contact until they are purchased in order for the geese to imprint properly with their new owners. Our six geese: Gulliver, Joan of Arc (JOA), Buckbeak (Bucky), Gwendolyn, and Julius Caesar now believe we are their parents since we were the first humans they had contact with.
Saturday afternoon we took them outside to enjoy the grass and the sunshine. It is fun to see them explore their new world.

On a sad note, Gulliver Goose died on Sunday morning. We are not sure of the cause of death. We were all saddened by the news and held a funeral out in our pasture. Aaron gave a short talk and Esteban said a very appropriate prayer. We all cried. Ethan and AJ took it very hard. Later, Savanah asked me when Gulliver was going to wake up. I told her that he wasn't going to. She said, "Well, I prayed that he would." We sat together as I explained about Gulliver's body that we buried and his spirit that is now in heaven. We talked about the Resurrection and how, because of Jesus Christ, we would all be reunited someday.I think having pets teaches kids so many things: responsibility, working hard, caring for another living thing, where babies come from, and yes, losing a loved one. Some lessons are harder to learn than others.

Our Latest Additions

No, I did not give birth to twins.

We added 6 ducks to our growing lists of pets: Ally the dog, Snowhite the cat, Vince the Betta, and all of our many little goldfish. Now we have, Quetzal- Aaron's duck, Vince (always Esteban's choice of names) Christopher for Ethan, Hammy named by AJ. Savanah has a duck named Bob and Vanessa's is Mack. I didn't get a duck. I figure I already have enough people to take care of.

We already have some ducks that have made our yard their home. There is wild mallard duck and his mate that land in our pond every few days.





I told Aaron at this rate, our neighbors are going to start calling him Old McDonald.

Our not very Merry Christmas

The day we moved into our house, we put up our Christmas tree. Esteban helped my dad cut it down in the mountains a couple of weeks before. He had actually picked it out last summer for our family.


Now that we have a huge backyard we bought a puppy for the kids. She is half chocolate Lab and half Collie. Her name is Ally short for Alamo, (we'll never forget our Texas roots).

We brought her home on Christmas Eve. We were exhausted after our trip to Rexburg. When we did get home, we were up late wrapping presents and making the necessary preparations for the next morning.
Ally barked constantly that first night. I know she was missing her mother and was in a strange place, but I kept thinking,"We haven't lived here long enough for the neighbors to hate us already". Finally, at 2:00 a.m. Aaron went outside and found her out of her dog house, freezing her tailend off. So, he brought her into our house. She stayed indoors for the next few days until we could buy her a heated dog pad. She has been much happier since. Her price tag was $20, all of her accessories and equipment has cost us $300.
I'm not sure any of us really slept with Ally yipping all night. We woke up at 5:30 the next morning. My policy is, once one kid is up, I wake up the rest. I get so excited that I can't wait any longer. Savanah told me that she didn't see Santa, but she did hear the jingle bells on his sled.
That afternoon, we were supposed to go to my parent's house, but the Suburban's engine wouldn't start. I guess the security system (that we haven't used for years) malfunctioned, which initiated the kill switch on the engine. We had to call the brother-in-law of our sister-in-law who is a mechanic to come fix it. He was nice enough to come on Christmas and we were on our way.

Shortly after dinner and opening presents with my entire family, Vanessa vomited all over herself and Aaron. After that, she couldn't keep anything down. Needless to say, we left shortly after. (Poor Aaron had to wear my Dad's pajama pants home.) Vanessa was sick for the remainder of the week with fever, vomiting and diarrhea. It is amazing to me how much time a sick child requires. I'm just grateful none of the others became sick. So that was our Christmas: barking dog, broken vehicle, and a sick child. Other than that, it was great.