It's....A Girl?

This weekend I met my cousin's new baby, whose name is Grayson.  He is, indeed, a boy.  A very cute boy, I might add.  The title of the post refers to the Chinese Calender for predicting a baby's gender.  According to Grayson's mom, it was accurate when it said that Grayson would be a boy, and she has known others who have accurate results from it as well.  I looked at a message board on Babycenter.com and many women on there said it was accurate for them too!  I tried it and it said I would have a girl! 

Here is a link...

 http://www.immihelp.com/nri/chinese-lunar-calendar-gender-prediction.html

I tried to figure out the information to see if it had predicted my gender and my siblings' genders.  The month of conception aspect is a bit tricky without asking the person but it seemed like it might be correct!  Haha!  What do you all think?  Time will tell if it is accurate for us...

Here is a photo of me and the bebe.  I think the angle of this photo makes me look like a giant! 

What a nice family photo of my grandparents with their first great grandchild (and five of their grandchildren!) 

The gathering was on Sunday and before that I got to spend the weekend with Allan.  Since we started portioning his food he has lost a bit of weight.  As a result, he has been very frisky and naughty.  I feel kind of bad that he must not have been feeling his best with those extra pounds!  Fat cats are cute, but I wouldn't want him to be unhealthy! 

Yes, he is feeling like a kitten again!  That toy he is knawing on is his current favorite...a neon orange mouse with a long tail. 

Garden Update

Oh, look upon the bounty that Justin was able to seal with the Food Saver! 

Haha just kidding!  Those beans are from a garden.  Just not OUR garden.  Justin got them from  co-worker.  They are still delicious though.  And our garden is coming along.  There have been several cucumbers, one large zucchini, and plenty of peas.  The beans are flowering so that is good, even though they are a bit behind the beans in other gardens it seems! 

Right in the middle of this photo you can see a mini zucchini starting to grow...it is so cute!  It was hard not to pick it!  There should be more because there are alot of flowers. 

Also, two lily plants I planted last year are in full bloom, also quite a bit later than they should be.  I have no idea why this is...we had two new lily plants from the greenhouse this year and they bloomed weeks ago.  I love these flowers so maybe they knew I wanted to see them in their glory and waited until I would be around to see and smell them!  They smell so good...the whole front yard is fragrant!

Speaking of the front yard, our sidewalk and the end of our driveway are getting repoured this week.  They are starting tomorrow!  The sidewalk in front of the house is very cracked and the end of the driveway is narrow and has these weird ledge things along the sides so this will be nice.   

Now a few odd notes that don't really fit in anywhere else...

Two weekends ago a storm came through and we ended up losing electricity for three hours.  We heard the transformer pop as it happened.  It was really annoying because it was only our side of the street that was in the dark.  We could see the neigbors on the other side enjoying their lights and TVs.  We have one flashlight so I lit a candle.  Candles have been mostly off limits since Allan joined the house because he fixates on the flame and when he was little he singed his eyebrow whiskers off.  I had to moniter him so it didn't happen again!

Awww...look...that is back in December of 2009 when he was still a baby...I love to burn pine tree scented candles around Christmas time.  Allan liked them a but TOO much!

Finally, my cousins just returned from visiting their parents in Illinois.  My aunt has been excited to give me my birthday present since my birthday in April but they often fly when they come to visit so she hasn't been able to give it to me until now.  I had no idea what it could be!  It was this wacky plate with a three dimensional burger on it!  Hahaha very nice!  It is categorized as an appetizer plate, and the box shows the hole in the burger being used to hold toothpicks.  Maybe I will fill it with ranch dressing!  Wait...that would never be enough ranch for me!  I think I need to learn to make sliders!



Allan's 2 Year Portrait

No...I don't have professional photographers take pictures of my cat or of any other pet for that matter.  If it weren't for a forced law school graduation headshot and my wedding I wouldn't have any professionally done photographs of myself! 

Last summer I captured this dignified photo of Allan with my phone...I thought it was so cute!  Haha big surprise!  Although, his eyes do look kind of wacky...

I didn't intend to try to recreate the picture one year later but it kind of happened randomly when i found him sleeping on the dresser in our bedroom  one day.

 Oh...close!

Awww there is a good shot!  What a cute kitten!

Back to Reality

We made it back from Vegas last night and I will post about it later but not today...I still need to see all the pictures from our various cameras and get some sleep!  I was kind of off kilter from the time zone switch last night and hardly slept.  Then I had to stare at a computer screen for 9 hours at work this morning.

I will share a short story about Allan...he has been gaining weight lately!  Since he first came to our house his food has come from an automatic feeder so he has been able to eat whever he feels compelled.  Justin recently bought him a timed food dispenser that only feeds him a few times a day!  Poor kitten!  He had the feeder set to dispense at 6:00 and waited nearby to watch what happened when the food came out.  As soon the sound of the food dispensing was heard he came running like a fiend!  

He is irritated but don't worry about him!  He still gets plenty of food!

Mr. Drumstick Legs

Justin often sends me picture messages of Allan when they are watching TV at night.  They are so cute, although they make me sad about not being home.  There have been some priceless ones lately.

This photo makes his back legs look like big, beefy drumsticks.  He's so fat but I am glad he is always content and relaxed! 

The drumstick legs from another angle...

Aaaaand my favorite...

What a huge whale he is becoming!  I have to acknowledge, however, that the angle and the way he is laying makes the fat situation look more extreme than it really is. 

Mr. Puffy Neck!  Don't worry, those sheets are not on a bed...I tossed them in a pile when I was doing laundry and he snuggled in. 

New Memory Card! (aka pictures of Allan)

I am constantly taking pictures of things with my phone to send to people and for myself to enjoy!  I am amazed by the way that phone camera pictures have improved with each phone I have owned over the years.  They used to be fuzzy and hard to see.  I think these phone pictures are great!  I have always just texted pictures I wanted on the computer to my email account but I finally bought the little mini memory card and adapter that matches my phone.  When I got the phone over a year ago the salesman, of course, pushed the memory card along with all the other accessories and I said "No thanks," so many times...then I saw my mom using her phone memory card and knew I had to have it.  Well, I knew I had to have it after I actually looked at it.  That didn't happen right away because it is tiny, the size of a pinky finger nail, and I immediately dropped it and it bounced off a chair and onto the speckled rug under the kitchen table and I had to crawl around on the floor to find it.  It was almost lost before it could be used!  I have always thought that if I ever had to wear contact lenses it would be a big disaster! 

Here are a few of the first pictures I transfered to my phone!  I am mildly embarassed about how many pictures of Allan I take with my phone.  Also, Justin sends them to me when I am gone and I save most of them.  

He looks like a big fatso in this shot.  We always put his toys on the top of the tent when we clean up and if we are gone for a few days they are always strewn around the house when we get back. 

I love this one!  He is looking out the window in the guest room.  It looks out on the back yard and there are always birds and squirrels back there.  Sometimes he gets excited and makes little meowing sounds!  It's really cute.   He thinks he's a big masculine hunter!  Haha.

Allan's little white spot, which I think looks kind of like a little heart!

He's been home alone for a few days and I have been worrying about him! 

Mr. Puffy Neck

Mr. Puffy Neck is what we now call Allan.  As you can see in these photos he has been getting pretty fat and his fur is really thick and sometimes his neck area looks wider than his head.  It's really cute, I think! 

He's my fat little guy!

I finally got my car back this afternoon.  It looked so clean and pristine and good as new!  Well, it looked pristine on the outside.  On the inside it still looked like a mess, with my burned cds strewn all over the backseat and other crap littering the floor.  It is nice to have it back!  Goodbye, rental Nissan!

Allan wants to thank you...

I got a special offer from Shutterfly (A thank you for ordering our Christmas cards from the site).  The offer was for 10 free cards of my choice!  I checked it out made these "thank you" notes featuring Allan!  He is such a gracious cat...

Modern Gracias Thank You 5x7 folded card

Create personalized greeting cards and invitations by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

How cute are they?  And yes, I know they are kind of feminine to be featuring a male cat but the orange matches his stripes!  If you want one all you have to do is send me a present!  Or give me a job...that would be better! 

Allan

There hasn't been enough Allan related content on here lately.  I don't see him enough!  I hope the poor kitten remembers me!  So...here are a few pictures of him.  I realized it had been awhile and decided to show off a few. 

Throughout the fall months I was working on a top secret sewing project with Justin's mom.  It was for Christmas.  I will feature the results in a separate post eventually but I had a few Allan pictures I hadn't been able to reveal because they would have ruined the secret. 

 

The surprise involved quilts (yes, multiple quilts!) which I finished by tying as opposed to real quilting.  One weekend I worked on it at home and Allan was a big pest the whole time.  Here he is burrowing in the quilt with one of his favorite mouse toys.

This photo is probably one of my favorites I have taken of him because he looks very bratty!  The turn of his ears and the look in his eyes betray the bad behavior that was about to come.  Right after the photo was taken he started ripping the thread out of the box (it's my old friendship bracelet kit again!  It was shown on here a few months ago when I was tying a quilt!).  I love how he look so expressive! 

Justin sends me picture messages of Al regularly to cheer me up.  Most of them are taken when he is watching TV in the basement. 

Fluffy neck!

 He's getting kind of fat and I like it! 

I miss my little buddy!

Oooh I Forgot About This...

I was in Bismarck this weekend and it snowed all day and all night on Saturday. Justin went hunting early on Saturday morning. When he got up he looked out the window and said that there was snow on the ground. I haven't seen serious snow this year...wherever it happens I am conveniently somewhere else! I decided I wasn't going to shovel on Saturday because I knew it was going to keep snowing. On Saturday night it really picked. I went out for a few hours and when I left the bar there was considerable accumulation on my car! It was light and fluffy and went up my sleeves when I was brushing it off...brrrr!

On Sunday morning there was no avoiding it...I had to try to remove the snow from the driveway. Oh, how I loath shoveling snow. I have spent most of my life living in a place where my dad takes care of high volumes of snow with large machinery and shovels are rarely needed. I wouldn't mind a stoop or a sidewalk but clearing our whole driveway is a time consuming and tiring ordeal. Our driveway is so long! I got started but after about 20 minutes and not much progress I went inside and called Justin and told him I wasn't going to shovel anymore and he could use the snowblower when he got home.

I was sitting in the living room, with the TV up loud so I could hear over the sound of snowblowers running at my neighbors' houses, when I saw snow swirling nd flying out the window. My neigbor was clearing our driveway with this snowblower! He has a habit of going up and down the block and clearing the sidewalks and he must have seen my poor attempts and shoveling and taken pity.  Very nice!

I put up the Christmas tree...I will do a post about it later but here are a few pictures as a preview...

What's this?

Hmmm....looks fun!

Ooooh, my little Christmas kitten!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween, everyone!  I'm hanging out by the front door tending to trick or treating kids.  It is my first time handing out candy!  During school I was always occupied with other activities on Halloween and there usually aren't alot of trick or treaters in apartments.  Last year, I was in Fargo because my sister had a Halloween party.  The first kids came around 5:30 (they must have an early bed time!) and there has been a slow stream ever since.  There have been fewer kids than I expected.  I think it might be because our street has alot of traffic and maybe people like to stay on quieter streets.  It has been fun.  Lots of polite kids.  One mom saw Allan in the window and said he was a beautiful cat because of his swirly fur pattern.  I held him so all the kids could pet him. 

I love Halloween costumes.  Some of my costumes from childhood include a now innapropriate fringed Indian costume, the ridiculous clown that I featured in my last post, a slice of pizza (oh, yeah, it was awesome), a dalmation dog, a fairy princess (I think most girls are a princess at least once!) a cheerleader, and a poodle skirt wearing 1950's girl.  I wanted to describe some of Justin's costumes from childhood, but he says he doesn't remember any of them.  If he was anything like my brother and my old classmates he was probably a vampire, a ninja turtle, some WWF wrestler, and every sort of athlete you can imagine.  I think my brother was a football player 2 or 3 times.  Last night I went out and dressed like a baseball player, with my Twins jersey, knee socks and eye black.  Not hte most original or mysterious costume, but my friend Mandy and I came up with the idea the night before Halloween and it was better than wearing something I had already worn.  This evening I put on my old hunter outfit that has been worn various times to various parties by various people throughout the years.   

Allan has a costume!  I bought it on clearance last year.  It is a pumpkin, if you can't tell.  It has a little hat and collar that fasten with velcro.  He doesn't like it.  I have been trying on occasion for the entire month of October to get a picture of him in it with very poor results.  Yesterday I managed to get this shot:

 Not too bad...He usually takes his paw and swipes that thing right off his head as soon as it is on. 

Me and my buddy!  He looks so happy, doesn't he?

MMMmmmm...candy...I am actually candied out after this weekend.  At my job on Friday there was a "candy bar" where we could fill little bags with many different kinds of candy and everyone had pumpkin buckets full of candy in their cube areas.  Then I arrived in Bismarck to be greeted with this bowl, overflowing with my favorites!  (I am out of control around Reese's peanut butter cups and Butterfingers).  I am so oversugared that I actually am craving something like celery or cucumbers. 

Enjoy the rest of Halloween everyone!

Allan's Vet Visit

I have tried several times to upload pictures to write about my cousin's birthday party and my weekend but the photo uploading on blogger is not working.  The pictures load very slow if at all.  There is a message on the website about maintenance tomorrow so hopefully they are aware of the problem.  So...I was going to write about something that didn't have accompanying pictures. 

This afternoon Justin took Allan to the vet.  He hasn't been there for a year.  He had to get some shots and get checked out!  I was really sad I wasn't there with him!  I didn't think it would be too bad because I took him last year when he was just a little kitten and he didn't even care.  He didn't make a sound when he was in his pet carrier on the way there and he didn't seem to care about being in the office around strange smells and people. 

Apparently he didn't really like being in the car this time!  Justin texted me that he was meowing really loud.  They had to wait for an hour to get in and he eventually calmed down and burrowed under the towel that was in the carrier.  Poor kitten!

He was fine for the shots and exam and didn't get scared of bite or anything.  I will try to avoid sounding like a parent after their babys' checkups (I think all parents do it, and maybe I will too...who knows?) and fixate on the details and development milestones.  (I have never heard of any baby who wasn't at least in the "90th percentile"!  I always wonder what makes the average if every kids is above average...I think 90th percentile should be the new 50th percentile.)  I have, however, been curious about his weight as recorded in a scientific manner by a doctor and not by my unscientific method of holding him while weighing myself.  He weighs 11 points and 4 ounces so that's good I guess.  He is pretty chubby but they specifically said that he's NOT obese.  YES!  Haha.  I was a bit worried!  Justin made sure to tell her that we play with him alot so he gets exercise.  He even admitted that we give him milk on a regular basis (this is supposedly bad for cats although we gave our farm cats milk and alot more and they were always fine).  She said that many cats are actually lactose intolerant but if he's not getting sick from it it is fine.  Oh, Allan, you are a lucky boy!

Justin called me when they got in the pickup to drive home and I could hear the poor guy meowing!  I felt bad.  He got a dish of milk as soon as they got home!

Happy Anniversary Allan!

On this day last year Allan came home from the Humane Society!  He was kind of a surprise...Justin had planned on bringing him home (it was a Thursday) without me knowing ahead of time but on Wednesday I was talking about going out the Buffalo Wild Wings on Thursday evening so he had to tell me!  I was so excited  when he pulled into the driveway!  Allan was so little compared to now (he was 4 months old)!  For the first few weeks he followed us everywhere we went around the house and he was always plastered to my side when I was on the couch.  Soon, his trust and confidence started to build and one afternoon I was watching TV and I realized I didn't know where he was!  I found him in the basement on a makeshift bed (this was before hte basement was finished.  We had not even been living in here a full month yet so there were a bunch of plastic boxes stacked down there.  I had made a little obstacle course for him to jump around on with a blanket on the top of a stack).  He just chilling out up there and I knew he was a big boy now! 

I can't believe we've had him a year.  We still think of the brother he was "rooming" with at the Humane Society and sometimes feel bad about not adopting him too (I watched the website and his brother and sister both found homes soon after he did.  The brother was solid orange and the sister was orange and white and looked alot like Al.  They had a sister who was solid black who was adopted first).  He has almost doubled in weight (he was 6 pounds when he arrived and now he is around 11 according to my unscientific method of holding him while weighing us both and then subtracting my weight.  I recall the vet in Portland using that method to weigh our farm dogs and eventually or retreiver, Penny, got so big he didn't even bother anymore for his own safety.  She was a fata$$). 

Speaking of the Humane Society, the local one here just rescuted almost 100 dogs from a puppy mill.  33 others went to Jamestown's shelter.  The dogs were in filthy cages without food or water dishes and they were breeding with no control.  Apparently, a dog gave birth to puppies when it was being trasported from the facility to the shelter.  Many of the dogs were within days of starving to death.  The shelter close for the week so they could get the situation under control and start helping the dogs recover.  The breeds included German Shepherds, Border Collies, and St. Bernards.  I believe the woman was mix breeding and marketing them as "designer breeds".  This is very dissapointing to me.  Over 100 dogs with no homes (yet).  I can't imagine the overpopulation taking place around the U.S.  These faclilties are all over the place.  I get the local Humane Society's newsletter and know that it is always at capacity (it is a no kill shelter so they don't euthanize unless the animal is dangerous or has prohibitive medical issues). And now, because of some irresponsible and cruel breeder they are taking on even more than they can handle running on only donations.  Let me tell you...if I ever win the Powerball jackpot (any day now!) these Humane Societies can expect a big contribution!

Well, that story was sad so back to the happy topic. Happy Anniversary Allan!  We look forward to many more years!

A few photos: 

I have had this on here before, but I couldn't resist...this is the photo from the website!  I never actually saw him like this.  He was just a baby!

This was the first night he was here.  I had a feeling plants on the floor might not work out anymore!

He got comfortable pretty quick!

I took this last night as he was in his favorite spot.  He is gazing at the sunset!  Haha, so cute. 



Photo Edits

I was experimenting with my camera software tonight becasue the photos often look muted or blurry.  I have read the instructions and tried the settings and I can't seem to get the look I want.  Since most of my photos are of Allan, I edited some of him and now you get to see them!  Lucky you! 

This one is my favorite.  I moved the contrast setting up the the higher end of the scale and it looks much more vivid.  He sits on the back of the couch and stares out the window like this most of the time. 

I caught him with his tongue out!  Haha.

He is laying haphazardly on a bunch of crap I left on the floor in this shot...it looks like an issue of House Beautiful magazine (I always leave magazines on the floor and Justin hates it) and one of his toys.  Lazy cat.   

Big stretch after an exhausting afternoon of staring out the window. 

I didn't take this...Justin sent it to me as a picture message.  He likes to recline himself against the wall in certain areas of the house, expecially one certain spot in the kitchen and this spot in the basement.  He's so cute, if you like this sort of thing!  

Sewing with Allan

During my recent sewing exploits I took several pictures of Allan's behavior while I was trying to accomplish something. He was a huge pest. In order to get anything done I had to just let him do whatever annoying thing he wanted to do for a few minutes until he got bored and went to sleep.

Here he is tangling himself in the back of a quilt as I was trying to press the seam down the middle.

He loves to burrow under blankets and this quilt top was no exception. I was trying to put the front and back together and he kept messing it up.

More of his nonsense.

For these quilts, I tied them instead of quilting with a needle and thread (too much detail for me!) and I happened to have my old "friendship bracelet" kit from elementary school here! My friends, sister, and I used to make friendship bracelets out of embroidery floss. I learned many techniques at the various camps I attended. I found it when I was cleaning my room at the farm this summer and decided I wanted to make some bracelets! I never did but I was glad to have all the embroidery floss for my quilts! Allan immediately started tearing the box apart.

That blue thing is a plastic spinner tool intended for winding floss onto the cards. I recall that it didn't work as well as just using your hands but it looked cool! Allan is knawing on it here for some reason. Brat.

Then he started pulling out the cards of thread and bracelets. Oh well, no damage done to anything! I should enjoy his kitten-like behavior while it lasts!