oh penny

In August, not too long after we found our cat, Penny, after she had been missing for 29 days, we noticed that she seemed to be missing again.  I figured she was just hiding in one of her corners in the house, so I didn't think much of it. 

After a full day of nobody seeing Penny, we realized that she was gone...AGAIN!!  It was my fault this time, and I felt terrible.  I had opened the back sliding door to let Penny get some air.  She stays right on the back porch, and then she comes in after a few minutes. 

I got distracted a few minutes later, and I shut and locked the door...for the rest of the night.  The sprinklers went on that night, and I am sure, they scared her away.  I felt so bad.

For the next month, we continued to check where we found her last time, ask neighbors if they had seen her, and we checked the shelter often.  No had had seen her at all.  After 2 months, and the cold weather, we finally accepted that she was probably dead, especially since nobody had seen her anywhere.  We were all pretty sad.

I ended up throwing away her litter box and washing out her food dishes and putting them away.  It was a sad moment.

Three months went by with no sign of Penny.  We had given up all hope completely. 
Then, one night as I was praying, I felt very strongly that I needed to pray for Penny to return, or for somebody to find her.  I truly thought she was dead, but I prayed for her anyway.  I prayed until I believed it.

The next day, I was out cleaning up the sandbox, and Sam came running down the road from his friend's house, yelling for me.  I knew by the sound of his voice that it was one of two things. Either someone was seriously hurt, or something very cool had just happened.

He told me that he and his friends were playing in Trey's sandbox, and Penny ran right through the sandbox with a dead mouse in her mouth!  He said that Trey and Blake were following her, while Sam came to get me.

I dropped what I was doing, and ran to Trey's house, while I told Sam to grab a blanket and meet me there.  If it was Penny, and if I did get her, I was not going to get torn to shreds by a freaked out cat again.

By the time I got over there, the boys had lost sight of Penny.  We were in a big field.  I told everyone to stand still and be very quiet, and I quietly started calling for Penny.  Seconds later, Penny came running to me, out from under a big wood pile.  At least it looked like Penny.

The cat had her same coloring, but the cat was tiny, almost the size of a kitten.  I almost didn't pick up the cat, but Sam's big, blue, hopeful eyes, made me decided to at least bring it home.

I wrapped the cat up in the blanket, and once I took a step, the cat totally freaked out!  Thank heavens for the blanket!  I still got scratched up, but not as badly this time.

I brought the cat home, and set it down.  I just wasn't convinced it was Penny.  It was so incredibly small, but looked clean and healthy.

Ben got home soon after, and I asked him what he thought.  He wasn't sure either, so he pulled up a picture of Penny on his phone, and we compared the markings.  There was no doubt it was in fact Penny!!!  We absolutely could not believe it!

She cuddled with anyone who would hold her the rest of the day.  She ate and ate and ate, and I had to scrounge up a bin and borrow littler from a neighbor to make her a litterbox until we could get her one the next day.

The kids were so excited to have her back!

 Penny is also very, very happy to be home.

The next day I went straight to Petco and bought her a litter box and a collar with her name and our phone number on it.  William put it on her the second I got home.  He really missed her so much.

As with the last time we brought her home, Penny tried to sleep like this the first night...

No joke.

Sorry Penny, I love you, but nope, not happening.  I prefer to not have cat in my mouth all night long.

I am so grateful for the prompting to pray for her.  I am so grateful that Sam and his friends saw her.  I am so grateful that even though I didn't think it was her, that I brought her home.

I am so grateful for tender mercy's...and that Penny is home safe and sound.

penny b kitty cat

About a month ago, after Mary and I got back from Regionals in Vegas, we noticed that Penny was missing.  Her full name is Penny B. Kitty Cat (named by William).

It was weird that she was missing, but we figured she must have gone hunting in the near by fields and she would be home in the next day or so.

Two weeks later, we were getting extremely worried.  The kids were praying every night for her to return, I was checking the animal shelter, and we had notified all of our neighbors and friends.

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

Three weeks into her missing, I started to lose hope.  We had a freak week of below freezing temperatures and even some snow.  It was not like Penny at all to leave the house, much less to be gone for three weeks.  The kids kept on praying and hoping though, and so did I.  Each night that Penny didn't return home, I prayed harder and harder.

It is amazing how much you realize you really care about something and love something when it is gone.  We have always loved Penny, especially William, but she really isn't around much, and we have just been so used to seeing her here and there.  She doesn't command much attention at all.

The next Sunday, about 3.5 weeks of Penny being missing, Tyson, Williams best friend, thought he saw Penny run under their back fence.

Their fence leads to a bunch of horse pastures.  Tyson is at our house a lot, and he has seen Penny a bunch of times, so we believed him, and we hopped in the car and zoomed over there. 

We searched all over Tyson's yard, and all over the acres and acres of pasture behind their fence with no luck.  We were late for church, and we were pretty discouraged, but we kept up hope.

After church, our whole family drove over to the houses behind Tyson's house, and we asked the people that own all of that land if they had seen Penny.

To our surprise, they had!!  The guy that lives there said he thought Penny was a stray pregnant cat (Penny is VERY fat), so he was leaving steak, bologna, and chicken out for her at night, and he was also checking his sheds for kittens each night.  Unfortunately, they hadn't seen Penny around for a few days at that point.

This was such a relief to us to know that Penny was at least alive.  We were just so confused with why she wasn't coming home.  The steak and bologna could have had something to do with it. :)

We gave that family our phone numbers and asked them to call us if they saw Penny again.

I was sure they would call that evening or the next day.

Nothing.

Three days later, I was getting William and Sam on the bus.  Luke had decided to walk to the bus stop with me, in his pajamas and his shoes.  He hardly ever wears shoes, or comes to the bus stop with me, but on this particular morning, he insisted on both.

Mary was also home that morning, so she stayed at the house with Molly.

Once Sam and William were on the bus, as I began walking home, I had a very distinct feeling that Penny was around, and that I needed to start looking.

At the same time, Mary and Molly came walking over to the bus stop.  Molly wanted to see me, so Mary brought her over.  Neither of them had shoes on, and Molly was in pee soaked pajamas. 

Lovely.

I knew that I needed to start looking for Penny though, so I told the kids we were just going to go look through Tyson's back yard.  Somehow, I just knew that we were going to find Penny, and I figured she would be there.

We looked and looked and looked.  No Penny.

So, I decided that we should jump the fence and look in the pasture behind it.  Easier said than done, especially with kids with no shoes on, and one kid soaked in pee.  We looked ridiculous. 

We ended up climbing three fences, two were electric, one was barb wire.  We walked through a stream, walked past horses, chickens, dogs and cats.  We walked through weeds, bushes, shrubs, crops and everything in between.  We just kept going, and calling for Penny as we went.

At one point, we ended up at the house that we had gone to on Sunday, with the people that had seen Penny.  I knocked on their door to see if we could start looking through all of their sheds, but the did not answer.  These people have loads of land, and tons of sheds.  They fix up cars, and they had car parts everywhere!  We would have to look for days and days in order to even come close to combing through their property.

It seemed completely impossible, but somehow, I just knew we were going to find Penny.  We weren't about to start going through these people's property without their permissions, so we just walked down a little road that leads to their sheds and started calling for Penny again.

I turned my head over to a shed, and for 1/2 a second I saw a cat poke her head out and back inside the shed door.

I knew it was Penny, and I couldn't believe it!!!!

I told the kids to stop calling for her, and to stand completely still.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, Penny poked her head out again.  It was definitely her.

I could tell she wanted to come to us, but she was terrified to come out of hiding.

I took a LONG time of slowly making my way toward her, and Penny coming out and then running back in.

Finally, I got close enough to scoop her up and...

She went ape psycho crazy!  She started screaming, scratching, biting, and completely freaking out.  It was all I could to do hang on to her and not get my eyeballs clawed out!

There was a latino man that had driven up a few minutes earlier to do some work, and I happened to glance his way.  He was frozen in place, jaw down, just starting at us.

I sure he though we were some homeless family stealing these people's cat so we could eat it. 

We were quite the sight!

Penny continued to go completely nuts, and I knew there was no way we would be able to walk back home the way we came.

I had no car...our car was broken, so I called Karli.

Thank heavens she was home.

She picked us up, and we got in the car, with Penny still going psycho.

We were all so shocked and excited and freaked out.

Once we got home, and in the house, Penny immediately stopped fighting.  She wandered around for a few minutes, and then jumped in my lap, hid her head in the crook of my arm, and that is where she stayed the rest of the day.

She was extremely mal nourished, and had lost a lot of weight.  She was filthy, and had burs and oil all over her.  She was terribly dehydrated, to the point where she was panting, and croaky.

It totally broke my heart.

She must have been in hiding most of the time, completely terrified of something, to the point of not getting much food or water, and not being able to get home.

She was gone for a total of 29 days!

It is a complete miracle that we found her. 

Soon after we got her home, the kids and I knelt down in prayer and thanked Heavenly Father for guiding us to Penny and for helping to bring her home.

I know for sure that the spirit was guiding me that day, and helping me to know to keep looking and to keep going, so I could be there at the right moment when Penny would poke her head out.

She has been home almost a week now.  She is eating a tiny bit, and drinking a lot.  She is still skinny, but much more clean, and she is getting more and more comfortable each day. The first few nights and days, she would not leave my sight.  She would cry if I went into a different room, and she slept, literally, on my face.

She will now venture around a the house a little more, but she still checks in on me about every 10 minutes.

I am so glad she is home, and that my kids were able to have a positive experience with the power of prayer.

Welcome home Penny. B. Kitty Cat!

just a few minutes after finding her.  I had to hold her like that to keep her from clawing my eyeballs out.

best friends re-united

christmas...part two the "special gift"

As the kids were sitting together smiling at Ben who was "taking a picture" of them, I went into our bedroom and let the "special gift" out.

Their reaction was priceless.

Mary saw the puppy first, but she was so shocked that all she could do was point and stutter.  The boys had no idea what was going on.

 

Finally, Mary grabbed the puppy, and all of the kids erupted into smiles, laughs, questions and joy.

 

And then, Molly grabbed the puppy.

 And she was squeezing it by the neck.

 So we took the puppy away, and she BAWLED!!!

 

It was way to funny to be sad.  The kids the rest of the day taking turns snuggling the dog and asking over and over again if she was really ours.

We spent a long time picking a name, but we decided on Maggie.  

Maggie Trixie Maynard to be exact.

 Maggie is a miniature Shih Tzu.  She is 9 weeks old, and is the cutest puppy in the whole wide world.  She loves to be snuggled, and is working on crate training and potty training.  We love her so much already!

Welcome to chaos Maggie!

penny takes a trip

Last week was "bring an animal to school day" for William's preschool.

William came home waving the flier in his hand and excitedly told me that he couldn't wait to bring Penny (penny-b-kittycat as William calls her), to school.  I wish I could say I shared in his excitement. 

All I could think about was how I was going bring our skittish cat, Luke (who I would have to carry, because he is into running all over the place lately), and Molly in her cars eat, to the school, and somehow not lose, or drop, any of them.

I found someone who had an animal carrier, and that was a big help.  Although, I had no idea how heavy Penny is!

When the big day came, I loaded everyone in the car, and hoped for success.  When we arrived at the school, we had to get some ninja moves out of our systems.

I walked into the school with Molly on one arm in her car seat, a heavy cat carrier with a spazing, thrashing,  meowing cat in the other, and a grinning William holding a squirming Luke's hand.  We were quite the spectacle.

William kept asking if Penny was going to die, because she was freaking out so badly and meowing like crazy.  Poor kid.

We finally made it to the preschool room, and William decided to go outside and play with his friends until the bell rang.  Basically, he wanted me to see what he does, by pretending I wasn't there, and acting like normal.  Too bad he had a little shy face with his mouth open and tongue sticking out the whole time.  hahaha!

When the bell rang, the class walked in and took their seats.  William walked in sheepishly with his head turned away from me, and a huge grin on his face.  This kid cracks me up.

He sat at his table and began writing his name.  I guess he couldn't ignore me too long, because I was taking pictures.  He sure tried though.

Luke, on the other hand, blasted straight to the storage closet in hopes of finding a vacuum.  He didn't have any luck, so he then found the next closest thing.  A toy vacuum. 

The kids were supposed to be quiet while they were writing their names and reading, but the entire time Luke was running all over the room making vacuum noises as loud as he could.  I tried to keep him quiet, but Molly also blew out during that time, so I was trying to figure out how to clean her up and spare these poor preschool kids the bad stench.  A few of them politely plugged their noses, but no one said anything....in English anyway.  William is in Spanish dual immersion, and there were a few Spanish murmurs here and there, with some giggles.

Not to mention the cat, that was going psycho in the carrier.  She was louder than anyone, and truly sounded like she was dying.  I finally took her out to calm her down, and she about scratched my eyeballs out.

Finally, they all sat around William, and his big moment arrived.  He got to hold a very wiggly Penny, as he answered questions about her.  When someone asked what her name was, and William responded, "Penny-b-kittycat (he says it really fast), everyone looked stumped and said, "What?"  I about died laughing.  He told about how Penny sleeps with him, and how Penny loves him, which is very true.  It was his moment, and it was great.

We repeated the entire scenario in his Spanish class as well.  Even down to Luke finding another vacuum in there.  Amazing.

When it was all said and done, everyone was exhausted, and William was thrilled.

It was worth it.

face off

This is Spencer.

Spencer is Sam's beloved bearded dragon.  He is pretty much the love of Sam's life right now.
Sam loves to take Spencer out of his cage and play with him.

Unfortunately, the other day, as Sam was playing with Spencer, William accidentally stepped on him.

After 5 minutes of Sam bawling his eyes out, he was finally able to tell us what was wrong. He told us that Spencer had been stepped on, and that his back legs were sticking up, and that he heard a crunching sound.  (we can all gag now...bleh!)  He thought Spencer might be dead.

Ben got the good fortune of going upstairs to inspect.  Can you even imagine! I get the shudders just thinking about it.

To everyone's relief, Spencer was alive, however, his legs really didn't look great. We brought his cage downstairs, cleaned it out, gave him fresh food and water, plugged in a new heating lamp, and tried to make him all comfortable.

Fast forward to today.

After keeping a close eye on Spencer these past few days, we decided that Spencer needed to be taken to Petco, so that someone who knows a lot about bearded dragons could tell us what might have been damaged.

Oh, the joys of being the one who is home all day.  I get to be the one to take him in.  Normally, this wouldn't be a big issue, but there is one small problem.

Spencer hates me.  With a passion.

Every time I even look at him, he flares up his nasty beard thing, opens his creepy mouth as wide as he can, sticks out his gooey long tongue full of cricket guts, and hisses at me.  It is pretty much a sight straight out of your worst nightmares.  Naturally, my boys think it is amazing, and are always asking me to walk by Spencer, so he can freak out at me.  Oh, the good points I am racking up in Heaven for this one.

Of course, whenever Sam picks him up, or Luke looks at him, or Ben holds him, he just sits there, perfectly calm.  But no, the second I walk in, it's all hisses and flares. 

I'm really not sure what I ever did to him, besides pay for him, bring him to a great home with a boy who adores him, clean his nasty cage, remind Sam to feed him, buy his nasty crickets, keep said nasty crickets alive in the stinky cricket house I purchased, feed the nasty crickets to keep them alive in order to feed the creepy lizard, and buy him endless heating light bulbs, because we can't seem to keep them intact for more than a week.

Other than that, I'm not sure why he loathes me.  Nevertheless, we pretty much hate each other.

So, imagine my joy in knowing that I had to get him from this...

into this,

in order to get him to Petco, to see how badly he was hurt.

I begged and begged William to do it for me, but he was determined to see "the funny lizard face" that Spencer does when I get near him. 

I spent a good part of the morning staring Spencer down, and willing myself to pick him up.

I would stick my face up to the glass of his cage and speak sweet nothings to him. "Hello there Spencer (gulp)!  How were your crickets this morning?  Are you going to let me pick you up (cringe)? Good Spencer."

He would just do this.

so creepy!

It was a face off.  We just stared at each other.  I completely dried my eyeballs out in the process.  I swear this lizard never blinks!

At one point, I slowly started moving the lid off the cage, and Spencer slowly slugged his way into his hiding place.

Not cool Spencer.

Finally, I mustered up my courage, took a few long sips of ZipFizz to get my adrenaline going, and I stuck my hand in the cage.

Spencer just stared at me.

I slowly grabbed him and picked him up.

Nothing.  No hisses, no flaring, no tongue out.  Nothing.

I figured he must REALLY be hurt.  I slowly lowered him into the little box (with a nice warm towel inside, um yeah, and he hates me?) and sighed a huge sigh of relief.

William, who I hadn't noticed had been watching the whole thing, very loudly moaned "Oh man, I wanted to see him bite off your finger."  He then very dramatically shrugged his shoulders, grabbed the box with Spencer in it, and got in the car.

To make a long story a little less long, Spencer is perfectly fine.  Yup, that's right, perfectly fine. (insert eye roll here)

He was just in shock and moving slowly.

I brought him back home, and put him back in his cage.

He thanked me with a nasty flare and a hiss.

I just stuck my tongue out at him.

And we are back to normal.

meet charlie

This is Charlie.

He is the most beautiful bird! I was surprised with all of the colorful parakeets in the pet store.  Mary definitely was careful with the one that she picked, and he is perfect.

This is a VERY happy Mary.

Charlie has captured all of our hearts already.  He lets us hold him and play with him.  He even lets Luke and William hold him.  He has already made a special bond with Mary...much to Mary's excitement. 

This is his new house, in Mary's room.

Welcome Charlie!