Prodigal Kitty

Anyone who was reading our blog about a year ago knows the pains we've gone through with our firstborn, Amminadab. We adopted him and his (now) sister Scooter just after we got married. When we moved into our current house almost two years ago, he didn't handle the change well. He tore up our couch like crazy (this started in the old house, but here he did it with an added vigor!). So about 15 months ago, we had him declawed. Right afterwards, we noticed that he had been spraying in a few places (yes, he is neutered). So after some efforts to get him to stop, we had no choice but to make this recently-declawed kitty an outside cat.

For the most part, he seems to really enjoy being outside. But he's gotten more and more brave, and he'll venture over to other yards every day. Well, a few weeks ago, he went missing for a few days. We had almost written him off when one night he appeared on the back porch!

Then.....last Sunday when we went to Bryan, we came home and didn't see him outside. All week, no sign of him. This time, I was pretty much convinced that we would never see him again. But.....this morning (after an entire week), Dean and Grant went downstairs, and here comes Amminadab, walking up to the back door! He ate a whole cup of food in about five minutes, and then meowed for more!

I'm glad to have him home.....even with all the angst he's caused, it was still so wonderful to see him again. I'm trying to be extra nice to him, to hopefully encourage him not to wander off so far again! Mainly, I just want to know where the heck he went! It would be so interesting to have some kind of tracking device on him, to see where his travels have taken him!

Recipe Link

We've had a fun past few days....Drew had pictures taken at JC Penney on Thursday, then I took the boys up to town for a few hours on Friday. And today Grant and I got much-needed haircuts. We had Grant's hair cut pretty short.....we figured he'd be more comfortable in the summer without shaggy hair. It looks so cute....he looks like a big boy now!

Dean and I are trying to tear down wallpaper in our bathroom right now, so I can't make this long. I mentioned a pepperoni ring that we made for dinner a few nights ago. I get these emails from Pillsbury, and this one I happened to print out because Dean loves things like this. We made it on Thursday.....it was so tasty! It's as close to Double Dave's pepperoni rolls as you're going to get. I don't even love pepperoni, and I usually don't like making recipes requiring two cans of biscuits (I don't even want to know how bad they are for you). But Dean and I ate half of the entire thing on the first night (yes, this means we ate one whole can of biscuits that night. And Grant only ate a couple of bites!). Anyway, it's so yummy so I wanted to share the link. A couple of things we changed: we used a bag of shredded mozzarella, instead of whole mozzarella, and I didn't pour the leftover butter on top at the end. It's a butter thing.....I just don't like it much, and they still came out great!

http://www.pillsbury.com/Recipes/ShowRecipe.aspx?rid=14499

A good reminder

This was sent to me in an email a couple of days ago. I read it when Grant was a baby, but it didn't mean quite as much to me back then. It's a good reminder for those of us with little kids to make the most of these years, and to remember the most important things.....

To My Grown-Up Son

by Alice E. Chase

My hands were busy through the day,
I didn't have much time to play
The little games you asked me to,
I didn't have much time for you.

I'd wash your clothes; I'd sew and cook,
But when you'd bring your picture book
And ask me, please, to share your fun,
I'd say, "A little later, son."

I'd tuck you in all safe at night,
And hear your prayers, turn out the light,
Then tiptoe softly to the door,
I wish I'd stayed a minute more.

For life is short, and years rush past,
A little boy grows up so fast,
No longer is he at your side,
His precious secrets to confide.

The picture books are put away,
There are no children's games to play,
No goodnight kiss, no prayers to hear,
That all belongs to yesteryear.

My hands once busy, now lie still,
The days are long and hard to fill,
I wish I might go back and do,
The little things you asked me to.

Trip to Bryan and a happy story

Like I mentioned a few days ago, we went to Bryan for the day on Sunday to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday. Rob, Leah and Evan came too.....Grant and Evan haven't seen each other since Christmas, and they were best buddies! At Christmas (when Grant was just over two), he and Evan played together a little, but nothing like this. They were following each other around everywhere, asking each other questions and having conversations, and laughing at each other. One of them would come into the room asking, "where's Evan?" or "where's Grant?" when they lost each other. They also had a lot of fun with Grandma.....she took them in the pool (notice how both of their diapers are about to explode!).

Stealing cookies is something Grant has become very good at lately.....at home, he always finds the desserts and figures out a way to make himself a stool (out of his shopping cart, diaper boxes, etc.) to reach them! Stinker! This is the only halfway decent picture of the boys with both of their faces showing....

Here's Drew with our friend Jennifer's little girl Khloe. She's 12 days older than Drew, and she weighs about a pound more than him! She is so adorable.....Drew thinks so too. :)

Then.....after Rob, Leah and Evan left, Grant was playing in the living room as we were getting ready to leave. All of a sudden Grant said, "look!" and pointed out the french doors. There was a baby deer standing right there on my parents' porch! My dad had seen it the day before, but only for a short time (and assumed it had escaped somehow from the backyard). It was just standing there staring at us. When Grant first saw it, he said, "it's a kangaroo!" He kept calling it a kangaroo until we finally convinced him that it was actually a deer. So we went outside and my dad picked it up. It made these cute little bleating sounds.....it was so sweet, but I was really worried about what would happen to it. We took it to the front yard and left it there, hoping its mom would come back to get it.

Well, my mom emailed me the next day saying that they had gone back out to check on it a while after we left. They saw it laying in some taller grass in their yard. So they went inside to get some milk and water for it.....and when they came out, the mommy deer was there! She had found her baby and they were running off together. Yay! I'm so happy to know that it ended up safe and sound with its mommy....I can sleep better at night now!

Daddy saves the day!

I was having one of those mornings today.....it started off okay, but went downhill fast when I put Drew down for a nap at 8:40am. He'll rub his eyes and act exhausted, but then the second I lay him down, he sits up and perks up, ready to play! So it breaks my heart to walk out the door and hear him wailing, even though I know it's what's best for him.

So then I went to shower while I left Grant in our room to watch TV. I came out of the shower to find an old sentimental video of mine laying on the floor. Grant had pulled back the black covering, then yanked as much of the tape out as he could. Meanwhile, Drew was still crying in his room. I exploded at Grant and took him to his room (probably not the best thing to do, but I was so mad and that's the first thing that came to mind!).

Then I came into the study, figuring that I might as well work on our property tax protest for a few minutes. Excel would not open! It kept asking me to enter a Product Key, as if we'd never had it installed on our computer! I still have no idea why this happened. I looked for our Microsoft CDs for a minute, and couldn't find them. Then I just broke down crying. Why is my life like this on so many days!? Nothing ever seems to just work out the way it's supposed to!!

So....I called Dean to ask if he knew where the CDs might be. He didn't. And he could tell that I was really upset. So I hung up after a couple of minutes. To make a long story short, Drew finally went to sleep (and slept for almost an hour, which is good these days!). After he woke up, I was feeding him oatmeal when I saw someone walking up to the door (this was about 11am). It was Dean! By this point (1.5 hours after I'd talked to him), I was doing much better. But it was still a wonderful surprise and we had so much fun with him this afternoon. He helped me do some things around the house, and we cooked a yummy pepperoni roll for dinner (I will add the link at some point.....it was SO good!). Then we took a walk tonight, and we watched a little bit of Wipeout before coming up for baths. Grant loved watching the people fall into the water. I figured he would!

So now I feel a little bit less like I'm about to have a nervous breakdown! :) I'm so thankful for my sweet husband.