T-Day

This year we spent Thanksgiving at our house with just our family, Oma & Opa and Tucker's girlfriend Tae. It was a small group compared to past years. I always make pumpkin pie and rolls (the same rolls we always had when I was growing up--Parker House). Dennis does the mashed potatoes and Oma brings dressing and Waldorf Salad plus relish items. Usually we cook the turkey on the BBQ but this year we did it in the oven and it was great. Spencer, by choice, is always in charge of table decorations. He makes place cards for everyone each year from the craft paper we have. These are this year's place cards. He always amazes me with his creativity. He got these leaves off the tree out in front of the house, dried them off (it was rainy & yukcky on T-Day) and proceeded to make these awesome place cards!
We weren't actually totally alone that holiday week. We had seven little visitors for the week. My friend Michelle was "fostering" a pregnant cat for a local shelter. The cat ended up having six adorable kittens a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Michelle and her family were planning on going to Florida for the week for the week of Thanksgiving and needed someone to watch all the kitties while they were gone. Spencer volunteered (he was motivated by the $50 Michelle said she would pay). Tucker was all for it because he had come to Michelle's house with me one time and met all the kitties and was totally like a little kid about it. So we had the kitties from the Saturday before Thankgiving until the Monday after--basically 8 days. Long enough for all the boys to get attached (well mostly Tucker & Cooper). They even named all of the kitties. These pictures are of a couple of the kitties in Tucker's vest pockets. The striped one they named Doug.

This one may or may not be Tolouse, Thomas O'Malley or Simba. There were three gray kitties (two that were identical--born in the same sac), and a tiny black & white kitty (Marie). Yes, most were named from Disney's Aristocats movie which Tucker & Tae had recently watched.

My personal favorite was Marie because she was the smallest. They were extremely cute, especially when they were in a feisty mood. We also had the mama kitty which we called Mama Kitty. They stayed mostly in the downstairs bathroom but we boxed in a section of the hallway outside the bathroom when we let them out to play. We didn't want them all over the house, mostly because they were major pooping machines. Cooper made the mistake of feeding them some milk one day--boy did we pay for that one in a major, runny way! So yes, the downstair smelled a little poopy, okay alot poopy, but it was still fun to have the kitties for the 8 days.

And no, we did not end up keeping one despite Cooper's fervent wish that we could. Despite their awesome cuteness, kitties become cats and we just were not into having another one! It was fun while it lasted though. Well not so much for Spencer as he was on kitty litter patrol everyday, plus he was afraid of Mama Kitty for some reason. For the rest of us though it was fun--even Dennis on occasion.