New projects

Friday is the furballs' 1st birthday and Cha-ching will celebrate his 1st on Monday the 25th, but this Tuesday is Hallie's (the niece) seventh birthday. So yesterday they had her bowling party. Daddy's shoulder is bothering him so he didn't bowl but Mommy had fun with her pitiful bowling.

While Mommy was helping get ready for Hallie's party, Rayna (the other niece) brought Mommy a picture of Rayna with Santa from this past Christmas. Mom was so excited that she came right home after the party and used her new Cricut cartridge, Christmas Cheer, to create a scrapbook page.

She also finally found the picture she was looking for for the Mickey page she created using her Mommy's cartridges, Mickey and Friends and Mickey Fonts.Mom has been spending a lot of time lately playing with her new machine. We don't mind too much because that means that we can lay on our quilt and watch her. She occassionally sprays the quilt with our catnip hydrosol. DaisyMae Maus' mom sent McKenzie and Zoey the hydrosol in their Christmas gifts a year ago and we love it! Mom just recently had to order new bottles from Prairieland Herbs. Here's Gandalf cuddling with the bottle:

Good thing it's very reasonably priced because then she doesn't have to save it for "special" occasions.

The name game

I'm taking over the bloggie to announce that I finally have a suitable name. No more girlie name, or worse yet, no name. I am now Gandalf the Grey from Lord of the Rings. My beans talked to lots of people about what to change my name to since Jean Gray isn't suitable for a boy. They eventually settled on this when they decided to keep me because Gandalf is wise and protective; just like me! Daddy liked that it still had gray in it since they have always called me gray. Mommy liked it because it represented another special memory. She and Daddy met for the first time at a Star Wars movie but the first movie they went to on a date (although Daddy didn't know that it was date because Auntie Val was setting him up) was a Lord of the Rings movie.

Now we all have permanent names. Smoke is really "Where there's Smoke, there's fire," Smoke for short. It suits him because he's always getting in trouble, darting into rooms (or the refrigerator) the minute the door is opened. Chewbacca is "Chewbacca the Wookitty." Personally I think it should be "Chewbacca the chewkitty" because she's always chewing on stuff. Of course, I'm Gandalf the Grey and the kitty formerly known as Jack that my Auntie Michele adopted is now "Perla" for one of the girl mice in Cinderella.