Happy Christmas Eve! It's a pretty low-key affair at my house; we have Grandpa over, nice dinner, everyone opens one present (except for Grandpa, who opens all of ours, obviously). No cleaning freak-outs, no preparing a shit-ton of food. It's actually rather pleasant.

We're under a winter storm watch, which, if it had been colder yesterday we'd already be under at least a foot of snow since it rained all day; thankfully, we haven't even gotten to sleet yet, so maybe we'll luck out and miss most of it. I don't mind snow proper, but they were calling for what was variably described depending on what channel I was watching as "wintry mix," "icy mix," and "icy mess." No, thank you!

Aaaaaand here's some random pictures.



Loooook at them being so cute! They didn't really get along those first few weeks, but now they're total bffs and nap together all the time, when they're not trying to rip each other's throats out in aggressive cat playtime.



Of course that's where he's sleeping.



Princess models her new winter coat.



The Christmas village! (Click for full size.) We finished it last year but I didn't get pics; we bought unpainted white plaster houses, like with the Halloween village, and painted them ourselves. It's unfortunate how the huge size and flash point out every single tiny flaw, because most can't be seen with the naked eye. It looks really snazzy IRL.

So it's been an interesting couple of weeks. On Sunday the 8th my parents went to Petsmart to buy a light bulb for my dad's aquarium. My mom moseyed over to the cat adoption room, and when my dad finally found her, they both fell in love with a six month old kitty. He was sweet and affectionate, and very pretty, but he also sounded sick, and we already had two cats at home.

When they came home and told us that they were very close to adopting him, I was heartbroken. All it took was a little bit of encouragement, and they agreed that if I paid the adoption fee, we could get him. So my mom called his foster mom, who wanted to keep him a few more days to get him better. We picked him up on Thursday the 12th. When we met at Petsmart, his foster mom told us that he'd been sick for a while - she actually brought him home from the Humane Society because he'd been sick with an upper respiratory infection and needed to get better. She assured us that he was almost over it, since she'd been giving him antibiotics. Just a cough and a little sneezing, but no mucus anymore.

She lied.

He got sicker and sicker, wasn't eating much, slept all day and night, and had very little energy, and so this past Tuesday my mom and I took him to the vet. She gave us a prescription for an antibiotic and injected him with fluids under the skin. I now believe that his foster mom either wasn't giving him an antibiotic, or was giving him the wrong dose or the wrong kind, because his recovery has been miraculous. The next day, he was running around and playing. Now, just a few days later, he's galloping up and down the hallway and leaping up the walls.

I would like to introduce you to the newest member of the family.



This is C. K. Dexter Haven. He's not scowling at you. That's just his face.