Welcome Vincent and Mikey!

Hello - OK, many of you probably know from my posts from a few weeks ago that our beloved Leo, the handsome orange tabby, got very sick and died suddenly, though he was only around 4-6 years old. We are still very sad about the fact that Leo is no longer with us - he was a huge personality, and had the biggest heart! I just received Leo's memorial stone in the mail today - it is from Sandcarved Creations, and it's great. They did an excellent job, and I highly recommend them to anyone looking for personalized pet memorial stones.

We started looking in PetSmart at the Luv-A-Pet Center and thinking about possibly adopting another cat (or 2) 2 weeks ago. Well, we found a couple (actually more than that - however, we have to limit ourselves!) from a wonderful shelter group called Open Door Animal Sanctuary. They never cage their cats and dogs, not even at the Luv-A-Pet Center at PetSmart! They're a really awesome no-kill rescue group that we have gotten to know quite well lately. Anyway, we adopted one white and tabby boy that turned 1 year old on 9/7/06, who had a home, but ended up coming back to the shelter. He is good with other cats and dogs, but the dog in the home he was originally adopted to wasn't so good with him. Needless to say, while he was eating some of the dog's food as a very young kitten, he got hurt - the dog broke his leg! It was such a clean break of the bone that a specialist had to perform surgery on it to put him back together, and subsequently, he has a pin in one of his front two legs (I believe it's the right one, but I don't have the vet records yet). He's perfectly normal, though - he's quite fast, jumps really high/far, and is very healthy and still happy at this point. He just had a chunk of his kittenhood taken from him. He's enjoying himself now! We renamed him (Open Door was calling him "Butters", short for "Butterball," which was his name as a very young kitten) - we're calling him Vincent b/c of his poetic, thoughtful looking face. He's quite the charmer.

We adopted a much younger guy to be his "friend" as he gets used to our house and the 3 wonderful kitties already living here. He is the most mischevious little guy - less than 5 lbs. He (originally named "Trent", but we named him Mikey, in honor of LSU's wondeful mascot, Mike the Tiger - Geaux Tigers!) is very brave and explores our house like he owns the place. While that sometimes gets him into trouble with Leila, the evil queen of our house (we're all afraid of her at times, including Bailey & Claudia), he's not letting it phase him too much. He likes to get into pretty much every type of human food he can, so we have to be especially careful now when we're fixing meals/eating them, but we wouldn't trade him for the world. He's wonderful. He and Vincent get along very well also - they love to chase, play and wrestle - it's nice that they have each other as the other 3 still struggle to accept the new ones. Considering that it's only been 1 week, Bailey and Claudia are already doing well accepting the new guys, hissing and growling far less - they never have tried to hurt or chase them that I've seen. Leila, on the other hand, is always out to get them, but I think Vincent has bravely chased her on several occasions, which is great to watch.

In the next post on this thread, I posted a couple of pictures. We haven't taken too many so far, but I will continue to post them periodically when I get the chance. ;)

Here are a couple of pictures of Vincent:

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...0/ed0e3a46.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...3/ed0e39fc.jpg

Here are a couple of pictures of Mikey:

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...7/ed0e36d1.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...a/ed0e36d0.jpg

And if anyone wants to volunteer to help me come up with a few new signatures incorporating our new 2 kitties with Bailey, Leila, and Claudia, as well as Leo specified as RB, that would be so great, and I would really appreciate it. I also love the avatar that I've created, featuring Brent and me, as well as Bailey, Leila, Leo & Claudia, but now we'll need something else that also has the new ones. If anyone could recommend how I go about changing that avatar fairly easily, I'd appreciate it as well. I know I could do a trial-version of programs on this laptop, since I've never downloaded any programs' trial versions on here. Again, let me know of any programs that would work well for me to create a new avatar, and let me know if anyone would be able to create a new siggy (or a couple) similar to what I have and possibly seasonal as well. :)

Welcome to the PT family, little guys! They are both handsome babies! CONGRATULATIONS! :D

Aww! They are such CUTIES! :D

Your older boy looks very sweet! :D Ze kitten looks like my RB Oliver! :D

The kitten, Mikey, also looks like our RB Leo, which is part of the reason he became our second adoption from Open Door last week. He walks around the house like LSU's Mike the Tiger walks in his sanctuary - he struts, though he is tiny, compared to every other kitty. :)

Awww bless you for adopting 2 kitties, especially an older one.

Vincent is so darn adorable with those face markings. He looks so stunning in his pictures.

Mickey is so darn adorable and in those pictures, he looks so darn innocent.

Congratulations on your new additions to the family.

Looking forward to hearing more about them and of course seeing more pictures of them and your other beauties.

Mikey is just so cute, looks so innocent and sweet. Vincent is really mighty handsome... You are SO lucky!!!

Congrats on your 2 new additions!!!:D They're both very handsome.:)

Well, Vincent really isn't that old - he is just 1-year-old, like Claudia was when we adopted her. We do like to adopt ones that are not tiny kittens anymore, though, b/c it's tougher for them to find homes sometimes. Leo was supposedly between 1 and 2 when we adopted him, but he could've been a couple of years older than that - you never know. Leila was only 5 months old when we adopted her, but didn't grow too much more. Bailey is the only other one we've had since he was a kitten - he was only 4-6 weeks old when we took him in as a stray and 1.5 lbs! However, Bailey was a much more mature kitten than Mikey is - Bailey played and had his crazy kitten times, of course, but Mikey in the last week has definitely shown us that he's a truly crazy kitten. Into everything...

He likes to climb on us - one night, after my shower, I had my hair wrapped in a towel and was standing at the sink. He decided to climb from the sink to my shoulders to my towel on top of my head and stayed there a couple of minutes. He likes to climb onto my husband's shoulders. He also seems to love jumping onto the kitchen counter, and it's hard sometimes to get him to stop, but he'll learn eventually. I don't mind when they get on our counter space or the furniture, but when we're prepping food, I don't like them to be into it...everything else is fine. Both Mikey and Vincent love to drink out of the kitchen and bathroom sinks. Bailey was the only die-hard sink-drinker before, and now he's finding that he has to take turns. B/c the young ones are new, though, I make sure to get them off of the sink when Bailey wants to drink. We want him to feel like we're not trying to replace him or anything! He is definitely king of the house.

We were just happy that Vincent spent his first birthday in his new forever home. Bailey's 4th b'day is coming up soon too - on 9/17. :) By then, hopefully they'll all be getting along well enough to kindly share special b'day food.

What cuties!!! Congratulations! :)

I would be happy to make you a new signature if you would like it, just pm me the photos soon. I don't know how to make animated avatars though so you'll need somebody else to do that...

CONGRATULATIONS

What wonderful new additions. :D :D

What handsome boys they are!

Congratulations you lucky lucky kitties!

They seem wonderful!

They're darling! From the looks of Mikey's tail, I suspect he's going to be a BIG boy and I do see mischief in that innocent little face :)

Congratulations!!!

They are both adorable and lucky kitties to get such a good forever home.

I look forward to seeing more of them.

And Leo with the Pet Angels is so happy that two Lost Cats who were one day very sad, are now Companions and have a Furr Ever Home and Loving Guardians.
He knew that you needed an Orange Cat, and he knows that Mikey will more than fill the bill.
And he loves Vincent too.
And he says not to be too sad as he is always with you in sprit, and will reunite with you, his Guardians at the Rainbow Bridge.
One Fine Day.

CONGRATS with the newbies!!!

Both cats are gorgeous!!

btw, I hope you are completely settled in now in your St.Louis home :)

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome to our new kitties, Vincent & Mikey. We do think that Mikey will be a big boy once he's all done growing, though he's not even 5 lbs right now. His tail and feet lead us to believe he might get almost as big as Bailey is/Leo was. We'll see. :) Vincent's tail is huge as well, but he's a year old and seems to be more of a lanky, skinny cat. The tails on these little ones don't seem to fit the size of their bodies (right now).

It's still a work in progress getting everyone used to each other. Hopefully before too long, they'll all be pretty good friends...