Luke

I had to mourn Yoda for a while and wanted to wait until summer vacations were over before I thought about getting a new cat. Last week, I realized we ought to start looking into getting one soon so we could enjoy it before school starts. First place I checked was right in our ward through the incidentals email we have for such requests. It turned out that a newly baptized lady in our ward had adopted a kitten at the end of July. Her other cats didn't like the little guy and weren't being very nice to him:(. She said we could have him!! She had named him Arnold, but the kids wanted to rename him, of course. In tradition with the Star Wars theme, we named him Luke. Sometimes the kids say it's Luke Skywalker and sometimes they call him Lukey. It doesn't matter what they call him, though, they love him and so do Jason and I!

He's 11 weeks now and litter trained. He's very playful, so the kids feel like they've got a dog the way he chases after balls and plays with his toys with them. We're still working on table training and I'm sure we'll have some scratching training at some point, but so far he doesn't scratch his claws on the carpet or furniture. What he does do is climb up us as if we were trees, particularly me when I'm preparing food. He likes to climb up my leg and back and then perch himself onto my shoulder. It kind of hurts when he's climbing, but he's just so darn cute!! He loves canned food, but does well with dry too. He would desperately like to go outside when we're out there, so we'll have to work on training him to stay in the yard when he gets older. I brought him out yesterday for a few minutes in Yoda's harness, but it was way too big for him. I need to wait til he's a little older before I can bring him outside comfortably.

The best part about him is that the kids are no longer bored with that end-of-summer boredom. They're learning how to take care of him and enjoying playing with him. It's especially good when Erik wakes up while I'm still working out in the morning. He now has someone to play with while the others are still in bed! Also, he loves to cuddle up right next to Jason or I at night and sleeps very well at night. We keep our door shut for now at night with the litter box in our bathroom so he can be confined to a smaller space while we're all asleep. Karissa keeps her door open now, just in case Luke wants to go in when she's still asleep.

Victoria took this photo.

Sunshine!

Shoulder perch.

Karissa took this photo, though I realized she's not in any of these, but she probably holds him more than Austin and Victoria do.

He's not really strangling him here, even though it looks like it. They were having some cuddle time while watching my workout.