Happy 5th Birthday Kitties!

Today is our kitties' 5th birthday! It's hard to believe that 5 years ago today I was sitting in a cubicle at work excitedly receiving text messages from Chris letting me know that our kittens were being born . . . And, Chris was sitting in his apartment watching it all take place!

See, what happened was, 5 years and 9 weeks ago, Yuki, our beloved siamese mix cat escaped through an open door when one of Chris' roommates had a party. We found her a day later, under his neighbor' porch, but we quickly realized that she came back to us, "knocked up." We definitely did not intend for that to happen, but prepared ourselves anyway for this completely unfamiliar process . . . In the meantime, Yuki's little body got bigger and bigger . . . 

Pregnant Yuki. She was HUGE.

Then, on June 5, 2006, Yuki gave birth to four precious little kittens - two black, one gray, and one black and white, two males and two females. As you can guess, they were soooo precious, and cute, and fun! It was a blast helping Yuki take care of them, watching them open their eyes for the first time, wobble around on their little legs, and then begin to pounce around and play with one another.

The babies.

Taking a family cat nap.

Playing.

 (Excuse the poor poor quality of the photos in this post. I am no photographer, and I was using whatever crappy camera I had 5 years ago!)

Chris and I decided to keep two of the kittens - the black boy, who we named Teddy, and the gray girl, who we named Luna. (Teddy because he reminded us of a Teddy Bear and for Theodore Roosevelt, one of Chris' favorite presidents, and Luna because, well, she was kinda crazy, spastic, and looney. And for Luna Lovegood for all of you HP fans out there!) Chris' mom and sister kept the black and white one, who is now known as Nike, and the black girl kitty went to a friend's girlfriend at the time.

Chris, Teddy, and Luna. Yup, I'm sure they loved this.

 These last 5 years have been a blast watching them grow-up, learning about their bizarre cat personalities, and loving them. Teddy and Luna are like our kids and I cannot imagine our lives without them!

Unfortunately, we lost Yuki to cancer this winter. She was too young and it was a hard loss for our little family, but we have adjusted and while we will miss her on this big celebration day we know that without her there wouldn't be a day to celebrate! So, as much as this post is about sharing with everyone that we are crazy cat-people and are celebrating our "kids" birthday, it is also a big THANK YOU to our Yuki-baby who gave us our little family and will never be forgotten!

And, if you must know, we will be celebrating Teddy and Luna's birthday by giving them some "fancy" cat food, probably some loads of catnip, and some new toys to add to their collection! Plus, we have yardwork to attend to and need to run errands - it is still a Sunday!