Bubble Babies

Caleb and Libby decided to get into some mischief while I was vacuuming the basement this afternoon. I came up to see why the water was turning on and off in the bathroom and this is what I found.

Both kids were covered with soap bubbles and water having the time of their life! Libby was washing her baby doll with sponges and hand soap and had used a little too much soap. Caleb thought the whole thing was a blast. He pasted soap suds in his hair and threw them all over the living room carpet. He even got into licking the soap off the dog food bucket. Here's a link to more pictures.After we dried every one off and wiped down the bathroom, they were tucked into bed and took a nice long nap. Hooray for me!!!

Brownie Boy and Naked Kitties

Caleb helped me make brownies on Tuesday afternoon while Libby took a nap. He supervised the mixing and was especially helpful in taste testing to make sure it was OK for the rest of the family.

Butternut and Static went to work with me at the veterinary hospital yesterday to get their annual "lion cuts". The lion cut is a cat grooming style that shaves the entire body, and leaves fur on the head, some on the feet, and a puff on the end of the tail. The goal is to cut down on shedding in the summer, eliminate any mats in the fur, and aid in cleanliness while they are in the litter box. Static is a little embarrassed by the whole thing, but Butternut seems to be quite the exhibitionist. The other cats are still hissing at them. Here's a before picture of each.

And here's what they look like today! Enjoy your laugh and I will enjoy a somewhat "fur-free" house for the summer! :)

Memorial Weekend 2008

Memorial Day weekend at Mom and Dad Rohrers was a lot of fun this year. Mandie chased her ball all over the yard and the kids had a blast swimming in the pool, which was in the upper 80's! The food was delicious. Dad made some really tasty ribs on the grill at the expense of smoking out the neighborhood. Unfortunately, Zack came down with some sort of stomach flu and spent most of the weekend in his room. Dan, Joy and Sam left on Sunday afternoon to avoid Zack's germs. Since the rest of us just got over a stomach flu bug last week, we decided to brave it and ended up enjoying a great time together.

Caleb LOVED splashing everyone in the pool ("Pooh") and was cracking himself up constantly by splashing all of us. He also loves to stick his entire face underwater and comes up sputtering and gasping. Then he catches his breath and does it again. He had such a great time. Libby also did exceptionally well in the pool. By Monday evening, Libby was confident enough to jump in by herself with her floaty suit on. She would plummet to the bottom of the pool and then pop up laughing and begin paddling to the steps to do it all over again. She is looking forward to swimming at "Gomah" and Papa's house again soon. She and Papa are also looking forward to early morning swims and walks on the beach during our upcoming vacation in just a few weeks. I can hardly believe that June is almost here already! I didn't get any pictures of Caleb swimming, since he was in bed when I had the camera out. Here's one of Libby in the pool and a video of Libby and Caleb playing the piano together.

I finally photographed my flower beds! I hadn't done it yet due to lack of time and too much rain. April showers brought more May showers in this case, I guess. The petunias and pansies are doing well and the irises have been blooming for two weeks now. They are small but gorgeous! I am excited to see how they look when they get established over the next few years. The roses are all budded and ready to bloom in a week or two. My Asian lilies and day lilies are working on their stems and leaves before they consider flowers. The clematis has really taken off this year also. Hooray for Miracle Grow fertilizer!

We also make a little time a few weeks ago to capture the cats in action enjoying their new enclosure on the back porch. I especially tried to take extra photos of Annie and Millie to use on our Kriska Siberian Colorpoints website (coming next spring!) Here are a few pictures of the cats and the kids enjoying some fresh air together on the porch.

In other kitty news, our male red tabby point kitten for our Siberian breeding program has finally been born in Moscow, Russia! He was born on 5/25/2008. In TICA (The International Cat Association) cat shows, his father "Viking" is a Grand International Champion and his mother "Fialka" is a Champion, the daughter of a World Champion. His given name is "Yandex", but we will be thinking of a nickname to call him at home. If you have any suggestions other than "Spandex", please let us know. We are expecting Yandex to arrive in the middle of September around Caleb's birthday. Here is the link to the cattery where Yandex lives now.

The next few weeks will be busy ones for us. We are so looking forward to that beach vacation! I'll try to be a little better about posting more often to make shorter posts :)

Libby's First Drawings!

So Libby surprised me today by drawing her very first picture of a person! This is Momma, according to Libby:

And this is Daddy in a snowstorm:

Yikes! Apparently we need to work on making her people look a little less like vampires and little more like real people, but they are not too bad for her very first pictures of people! She's surprising us with something new each day :)

Looking to the Future

As you may know from reading our blog, Nathan and I have been busy for the last year or so researching adoption and foster care. We have felt God leading us in some capacity to help care for orphaned children. The first step in our orphan ministry has been to sponsor a little girl named Sara through Compassion International. She lives with her mom and brothers and sisters in a mud hut in Ethiopia. Her father is dead and her mother is sick often. When her mother is well, she works as a laborer to support her family. Compassion helps to fund Sara's schooling through a local church. Since sponsoring Sara, our hearts have been been opened to the needs of other children as well, most notably the need for a loving family to nurture and care for them.


A few months ago, we sat down with our pastor and his wife to get some counsel about our desire to adopt our next child and about starting an orphans ministry in our church. We all came to the conclusion that there is a great need in our own community for our church to get involved with needy children - unborn children, waiting children in foster care, children of single mothers, etc. We are still not sure where this will lead us, but we are hoping that we will be open to the possibilities the Lord presents to us.


Our next step in our adoption journey is to be licensed as foster parents through our county's children's services. We will begin taking classes in September and we are excited to see what happens next. We are planning to pursue a foster-to-adopt placement of a local baby or toddler after we complete our certification. We ask for your prayers!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Here's the latest happenings from our neck of the city. We are fostering yet another litter of kittens who will be leaving us for their new homes soon. Yay! The momma cat will probably be around for a while, since she needs to be spayed and have most of her teeth pulled due to dental disease - yuck. Here's some of the first pictures we took of them.

Our newest kitty family members, Svetlana and Milenka the Siberians, are growing like weeds with an extra side of fertilizer. We are on the waiting list for a husband for them from a Siberian breeder in Russia. We are hoping for a red tabby/flame point male kitten to add to our breeding program. The goal is to make enough of a profit with the kittens to pay for the food and vet bills of all the other pets in the house. Wish us luck. :)

Our latest home project is to enclose our back deck with special cat-proof netting to keep the cats from diving off and frolicking away through the neighbors' yards. Dad Rohrer came up last week to frame up the deck in preparation for the netting, which is due to arrive on Tuesday. I can't wait to get it all set up! The cats have a little kitty door to go out whenever they choose. We plan to move all of the litter boxes out of the basement and into a special litter box enclosure on the deck with a cat tree to climb for a better view of the local wildlife (raccoons, birds and bugs).

I have spent the last few weekends cleaning out overgrown flower/weed beds and planting new perennials - roses, hydrangeas, day lillies, irises, carnations and dragon flowers. Nathan helped plant all of the 6 dozen annual pansies and petunias and spread new mulch in all of the beds. It looks really nice, now that the azalea bush and the cherry and plum trees are all in bloom. Today the rain was coming down hard all day, but we will be taking pictures of the flowers on the next sunny day.

Libby and Caleb have been specializing in bumps and bruises lately; skinned knees and bruised foreheads have been the daily fare. They love going for walks in the evening with Nathan and Mandie while I get dinner ready. They are both into playing with matchbox cars again and take particular delight in wrestling or "wessling" with each other. Caleb can push Libby down with lightning speed while they are both giggling full throttle.

Caleb is in his big boy room now. We took out the crib and set up his little bed with his new nautical themed bedding. He enjoys playing with his Little People car garage when he's supposed to be napping. Libby has learned to appreciate the ever educational value of Spongebob Square Pants, much to our chagrin. Thankfully, she also enjoys going outside to ride her tricycle, give her dolls rides in their stroller, and drawing with sidewalk chalk. Here are the links for the rest of our photos for the past month. April Antics, Tuesday morning and Showoffs. Enjoy!