instaweek

Bruno Jenkins woke long enough to look incredibly cute. 

Catherine graduated from her Masters program! 

The Mister and the Master heading home from Evergreen. 

Mom and I stopped at the Hess Bakery and got delicious bread. 

Signs at the European deli. The dude looks like he's drunk walking.

And the lady looks like she's posing for a career woman magazine. 

I rubbed this sweet clover all over my wrists. Instant perfume!

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Nought Christmas Happened!

Peanut was the only one left standing...or sitting.

Nought Christmas is over, and it was oh-so-merry. We are going to be blogging about tons of craft tutorials in the next couple of weeks. The gifts have been given, so they're all safe to talk about now. Until those tutorials happen, here are some memories from (Nought) Christmas to feast upon...

Bruno helped celebrate.

PRESENTS!!!!!

Kitten angel!!!!!

Monika gave mom this profile picture of her from Disneyland. Mom cried. Duh.

kitty cousins

Hey, did you notice our new badge? It's courtesy of The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee. We're fans of the IBKC: big time.

Point number one: The headmistress of the IBKC blog, Laurie Cinotto, is a Tacoma resident and a super-talented crafter. To check out her craft blog, Laurie Cinotto: art and craft, mosey on over here.

Catherine's kitty, Genevieve, loves all kittens
(except for the one she lives with...Peanut).

Point number two: KITTENS! Yup, sweet babies: every day in every way. Laurie and her husband, Craig, foster orphaned kittens for the Tacoma/Pierce County Humane Society. The kittens (sometimes in singles, more often in families) stay with Laurie until they're old enough for adoption. So many success stories! It just makes us giddy beyond belief. 

Penelope, aka Peanut, wants to be Genevieve's BFF. 

Point number three: Dedication. Laurie gives bunches and bunches of her time at home (kittens are hard work!), keeps the blog updated, and participates in the Humane Society's annual fundraiser, which is in progress right now (hint, hint!). We really admire her selfless, good-hearted nature...and her kitten wrangling skills. Oh, she has skills like you wouldn't believe. 

Mom's kitty, Bruno, loves kittens, too.

If you'd like to add an Itty Bitty Kitty Committee badge to you blog, follow this link. You'll be pleased to know there are several to choose from. 


If you're intrigued by all this talk of kittens and would like to donate to this year's fundraiser-- over $40,000 has been raised in the past couple weeks through the IBKC alone! So awesome!--you can go here for details. 

Matilda definitely loves kittens (because she was once a kitten mom)!

Also, you should know that a new batch of kittens has just arrived at Laurie and Craig's. Eeeeek! Now would be a great time to check in on them.

Tacoma Time

I had a mini-break in Tacoma this weekend: hung out with Mom, had no luck at estate sales, wandered around several nurseries, ate the spiciest of spicy chicken burgers at Nick and Catherine's place, and received lots of Bruno's attention.

Some little jellybean sedum--a Mother's Day gift from Catherine.

The succulents were planted in the old bird bath.
These little fellows are also in residence.

Interloper!

As Mom and I surveyed plants and the new dogwood tree, Bruno begged to come outside. No dice.

The ducks stopped by for a visit.

Mom and I split a couple cupcakes--Lemon Coconut & Smores--from
Jubilee Cupcakes & Vintage Candy in North Tacoma.



Bruno slept on my bed, his neat little paws crossed.

He woke when I took the paw picture.

This morning he spent some time in this box--rather inconvenient for
me because I was in the middle of a project which involved getting
at the items in the bottom of said box. He bit me when I tried to move him.

Yep. Weekend accomplished.

The Cat of Second Christmas!

Catherine has Bruno in the bag.

I'm feeling a bit better, so I decided that it was high time for the very last of my Second Christmas posts. I believe Monika (and maybe Catherine) still has some post-Second Christmas posting to do, but as for me, this is it. I've decided to go out on the official Cat of Second Christmas (something I just made up right this second), which has to be Bruno Jenkins. Matilda stayed home in Spokane (happily, after the ordeal that was Real Christmas), Beatrix (aka: Bea, baby black bear, little black bowling ball) slept most of the time, and Peanut wasn't invited, so Bruno takes the title. Since Bruno has been mentioned several times in the blog, I should probably give a little background.

Bruno began his life with the Nicolai family in my household in Spokane, but after a visit with Mom (while I was away in New York and then caught in a terrible Spokane January from which I could not escape for several weeks), he became aTacoma resident. Now, I don't need to go over all the details of the story, but let me just say that when I came to retrieve Bruno, it quickly became apparent Mom was going to miss him way more than she was going to miss me, so he stayed. He's settled down quite a bit since living in Spokane--for instance, I'm fairly certain he no longer derives maniacal joy from breaking my things and biting me on the face. Thank goodness. Yup, in these past three years he's actually turned into quite the cuddle-bug...though he does still have his moments.

Here, Bruno fights a fake dog. You may also have noticed a little
something on the floor in the background. That is fake poo.
I had to log into my myspace account to get this picture, which
required that I remember my yahoo account information.
 Worth 20 minutes of password resetting? Totally.

Anyway, Bruno had a terrific time over the course of Second Christmas. Ribbons, paper, boxes, a tree to sleep under, and Monika (one of his favorite people). Sorry about the quality of the pictures; Bruno's a fast one, as you'll very soon see...

Packages and ribbons are no match for him.

And the succulent terrarium from Monika?

Bruno liked that, too.

Sweet little sleeper.

Boys! All we really want is boys!

Boys! To do the dishes. To clean up our room. To do the laundry. And in the bathroom. Boys!

Me

Monika

Catherine

One BOYS earring. Found at a garage sale: 5 cents. Endless opportunities for sisterly fun. Well, actually, there's only the one opportunity for sisterly fun. But oh, what fun it is.

Bonus picture: Bruno!

First Christmas time!

Yeah, yeah, yeah first Christmas is fine and all, but I have high hopes for second Christmas this year. Lots of things happened--Bruno loved all of Nick and beat up on Matilda. Bruno talked to Peanut (who is as bad as ever). I put on the "boys earring." I wrapped a bunch of presents that look really nice. I made fun of Nick whose presents took the shape of the contents (he doesn't like using boxes). Last night I finally took down party decorations from Mother's 60th but not before Penelope had herself a little kitten photo-shoot.
See for yourself!

She's not ready to stop the partying.

Nick's presents.

My presents

Well this one was really Stephanie's house-warming present, but I believe you can use the same wrapping paper for Christmas, house-warmings, and birthdays.

She attacked these moments later.

Hand knit coffee sleeve for Chelsey.

Mother's Christmas tree.

Bruno goes gaga for Nick every single time!

The feeling is mutual.

You can see the big bird ornament in the background...and of course Peanut.

Christmas jam-jam! Me circa 1989. I'm also wearing my favorite dress ever. GOOSE DRESS!

I used to hate this goose and would hide it, but now it's one of my favorites. This is my mother's "governor's goose." She got it from Governor Booth Gardner's wife when she was invited to a luncheon at the Governor's mansion. It's kind of funny looking.

I used to be mad that my stocking wasn't quite red but more of an orange-red (think Ariel from Little Mermaid's hair color), but now I like it better this way.

BOYS!

I don't know what Bruno is saying, maybe, "get off my hamper!"