Who loves cats?

Way back when (as in probably 4 years ago), Camden had a kitten named Ruby. I can't really remember how we acquired Ruby, but Camden loved that kitten. Ruby met an unfortunate demise as a result of living in the country with big dogs around. And by "around" I don't mean close by, but just roaming dogs because we do live in the country and they've never heard of leashes around here. He's spent the last 4 years begging for another pet, and we've put him off mostly because we still live in the same place and there are still roaming dogs, not to mention the busy road. However, we surprised the kiddos at lunch yesterday and told them we were going to pick up not one, but two kittens. Brian made the intelligent (snort) choice of asking for two females because "they'll make better pets." They also make lots of babies.

These kids are in pet heaven. It is seriously the cutest thing you've ever seen. We are quickly discovering, however, that Rory's not the best pet owner. She follows hers around barking orders for it to "smile at the camera" and "No, maam! No, maam! Come back here! I said come back here!"

Introducing Cuddles (Camden's kitten) and Frenchie (Rory's kitten named after Fancy Nancy's dog - totally cracks me up).

This boy loves this cat already. He told us, "I'm real good with pets because I have experience, you know."

Yep, this is about as fun for poor Frenchie as it seems.

She's named Cuddles for a reason!

Frenchie has a little spot of white at her throat.

Frenchie again because Cuddles wouldn't leave Camden's lap.

And this is mostly what we see of Frenchie as she tries to escape the very loud 4 year old human.

I can't even tell you how happy these next set of pictures make me. Mostly because they're so darn happy in them.

And a little artistic blur. :)

And the kiddos spent Wednesday morning torturing playing with the kittens, feeding them milk, putting them on the swing and watching the poor frightened kittens jump off. This would be after Brian got up and checked on them first thing only to find them missing. Yes, missing. After a few panicked moments, he found them curled up in the wheel of my car. Rory had a complete meltdown, sobfest because Frenchie went behind the stairs and refused to come out. I am quite sure she was simply escaping all the "play time."

But all that crying and rubbing of eyes led to this. I don't think she's allergic; I think it's just a result of 20 minutes of crying with sweat running down her face and dirty hands in her eyes. Let's hope that's all it is anyway because she was pretty pitiful, and 8 hours later her eyes are still a bit puffy.