A new addition to our family

Do I have your attention? No, it's not THAT kind of addition - we have a new kitten! The kids have been begging for a pet for a while, so here we go! I found this sweet little 4 month old kitten for free on Craigslist.com. She is up to date on all of her shots (which she might need at our place), she was free, and she was in the town next to ours. We thought we'd give it a try. Edward picked her up from the Smokey Smokerton family on Friday night and surprised the kids with her. He said the guy met him at the door without a shirt with tattoos all over and was missing a few fingers (I really hope that's not why they're getting rid of the cat).

She's still a baby at four months old, but she's not too tiny that I would fear for her survival around here. As some of you may know, we are 0-2 in the cat department here. Our two previous kitty's didn't make it. We thought we'd take a break from cats for a while. Three years later we're ready to give it another shot.

The kids knew we were possibly getting her (we told them we'd pick her up the next day) so we spent the day coming up with names. The final four names were Lucy, Lola, Maxine, and Ruby. I e-mailed Edward at work and asked him to be the tie-breaking vote. He e-mailed back and said he wanted to name her Kate since he didn't get to pick Mallory's name. Oh, our naming tastes vary so drastically. Anyway, the kids pretty much started calling her Shadow the minute they saw her (excuse me, that wasn't on the list!), so it has stuck. This is little Shadow:
I think she is such a pretty black kitty! Except for a tiny bit of white on her tummy, she is completely black.

The kids were SO excited! We surprised them a day early.

Drew is hilarious with her. He's never really been around animals so he's a bit skittish. Here Edward picked her up when Drew said he'd like to try to hold her. As soon as Edward turned around to put her on his lap, he was out of there. He's still pretty jumpy if she comes his way, but he has a smile on his face the whole time.

Here he finally got up enough nerve to let Shadow sit on his lap. It only lasted for a second.

Mallory is so cute with Shadow. She giggles every time she sees her and really wants to get her hands on her. She pets her as gently as a 10 month old can. She is very curious about her toys, too.

Still snowed in!

Ugh! Out of the last fourteen days, the kids have only been to school for TWO of those days. Yes, TWO! We keep getting sleet/snow/freezing rain, and the temperature has been so cold nothing is really melting. The kids, of course, are loving life. I, of course, enjoy the snow days until about 9:30 a.m. After that time I start going STIR CRAZY until Edward comes home in the evenings. It's not like I really can (or even want to) take all four kiddos out and find something to do for several reasons. 1. The roads have been TERRIBLE. Here in Missouri, we kind of shut down when we get these kind of storms. We're just not equipped to deal with them. 2. A lot of places of business have also been closed because employees can't make it in to work. The kids' practices and games have all been cancelled. That really leaves us twiddling our thumbs because that fills SO much of our time.

Church was even cancelled today. We got up and started getting ready but then got a phone call to inform us of the cancellation. My first thought was, "NO! Another day of being cooped up!" It was a pretty good day though because at least Edward was here all day. We all bundled up and headed outside this morning for a little family snowman building/snowball war.

I just checked and so far we're still on for school tomorrow. Oh please, don't snow/ice any more tonight! I don't think I can make it another day! I also don't want the kids to still be in school until the 4th of July. On second thought....