we love Bart

Not BART like Atlanta's mass transit system, but Bart our new cat! He is settling in so nicely. But pretty much everything I said in my last post about him is completely untrue now.For example, (1) he is TOTALLY in love with his raw food now, and can meow for hours in excitement to be fed, and (2) he is shyster - now that he can jump (I think he had been kenneled for too long), he is all about counter surfing. Grrrr.... But we nevertheless love him so much!

And in other news, Rose and Mike have been taking over our living room with their love of Legos! We need a bigger house... :)

When in Rome....

Buying a box of white wine from Target just screams "I'm a middle class, 30-something MOM in Minnesota!" Right?

You betcha.

Introducing....

JASBERT!!

I decided a couple weeks ago that I was ready to open my heart to a new cat. I think I'll always mourn Lucy and Mac, but I was ready for a cat to sit on my lap again. 

I made countless trips to the Humane Society in the past couple weeks, and also to the adoption center in PetSmart. Last Saturday evening all three of us went to PetSmart together and we fell in love with "Jasper." 

We put in an application, and 24 hours later we were approved and able to take him home! So far he is settling in very nicely. Rose loves that he is super playful, Mike appreciates that he keeps an eye on us at all times, and I love that he is also a great lap cat.

He is a bit of a troublemaker (chewing on Legos, trying to bite electrical cords, etc.), but we can work with that.  We are going to make him a nice scratching post, and we have been distracting him with lots of playing. He loves chasing feather wands!  And the bitter apple spray I ordered should come in the mail tomorrow :)

We debated changing vs. keeping his given name (Jasper). Just when I thought we had decided to keep it, Rose decided that Mike and I had been mispronouncing it all along, and that his "correct" name was Jasbert. (This is what happens when a strong-willed 4-year-old starts to learn her letters and the sounds they make.) So, since she spells it Jasbert, we are all calling him Jasbert now. 

Bart, for short.

The weird thing is that he is not motivated by food at all! We've tried giving him dry food, wet food, human food, and even cat treats and he will just take a bite or two and then walk away. So strange! Maybe he's still getting acclimated to our house???  Hopefully he will enjoy raw food once we switch him over to that. And maybe this means we won't have to be super vigilant about food on the counters? And maybe we could even have flowers in the house and he wouldn't eat them??

One lick of a bonita tuna flake, and then he went back to sleep.

We tried letting him sleep in our bedroom last night. The first half of the night was great - he just curled up on my pillow behind my head and purred away. But the second half of the night was terrible - he kept pouncing on us and trying to play! We'll see whether Mike is willing to train him at night, or whether we just go back to keeping the door closed again...

He is very social and friendly, so we look forward to introducing him to you all in person! Welcome home, Jasbert/Bart!!!!
 

Happy 2017!

My friend Marcy kindly pointed out that it has been weeks since my lost post! The holidays were such a busy time, and life has just started to settle back to normal for us. Here are some random photos from my phone from the past few weeks....

We had a relaxing day at home before all the Christmas festivities started up. We treated ourselves to "fancy ice cream" (i.e., the make-it-yourself frozen yogurt bar).

We also made and decorated cookies for Santa.

 We spent Christmas Eve with Jack, Marsha and Trula.

 Christmas morning was a quick present-opening at home, then the drive up to Hayward to see Mike's mom and the Rohde cousins.

 Once we got back home, Mike and Rose worked non-stop for almost two weeks to finish the Disney Lego castle she got for Christmas.

 She got so many Lego sets for Christmas that she has an entire "Lego city" in our living room!

I'll hold off on sharing our other exciting news for my next post. Stay tuned!

more Christmas photos

A couple weeks ago we went to "breakfast with Santa." Here are the official photos from the event!

We also are FINALLY finished not only with shopping for gifts, but also with wrapping them.  The pile looks ridiculous next to our tiny little tree!

I can't wait to bake cookies and relax tomorrow. My mini Christmas break is officially here!!!

winter solstice ceremony

My parents came to town this weekend because my mom, for the last few years, has been wanting to attend this winter solstice ceremony: http://www.drummingthesoulawake.com/14th-annual-winter-solstice-blessing.html  Mike wasn't super excited about it, so he volunteered to stay home with Rose. Cousin Janet joined us as well. It was long performance/ceremony/celebration/thing, so I'll just post a couple photos of us waiting for it all to begin.

crackers and carols

Rose's classroom at "school" had a holiday concert last week. It was so cute!!!

Kai, Maggie, Jad, Eden, Michael, Isabella, Ethan, Elliott, Vivian, Neveah, Lucille, Rose, and Oscar

Rose was so focused on looking cute that she forgot to do a couple of the moves :)

Ms. Sam and Ms. Elyse (not pictured) helped the kids put on a great show!

 

Shaking the "jingle bells" was a huge hit!

I couldn't stop smiling throughout the whole thing. Such a proud parenting moment to attend Rose's first concert! :)