New kitty toy?

Gunnar decided to help me do laundry last night. And by help, I mean he jumped in the laundry basket. He always does. He thinks it's a pretty cool hang out.

Water bowls

The pets like to surprise me by putting funny things in their water bowls.

It started out with hair elastics. Katie liked to steal my hair elastics. She thought they were the best thing ever. I read up on this online and apparently cats do this to their treasured possessions, things they want to keep safe.

Next up was shoelace—both of the cat's favorite thing to play with. Shoelace gets dunked a lot.

This morning what I found in the water bowl was downright funny: A frog! Ok, so it's a green ball shaped like a frog. Technically it's Mojo's but I'm sure it was one of the cat's that did it. It's just funny because frogs belong in water.

Favorite things

My pets are spoiled. They have all sorts of toys. But nothing I ever bring home from the pet store is apparently as fun as household junk.

Katie's all-time favorite toy is shoelace. I had a pair of boots that came with an extra set of shoelaces. She loves to swat at it when we swing it around. We used to play this game every night before bed. This was back when she was an only pet. Now I try to play it with her every day. She sits near shoelace all the time. She brings it to me and meows up a storm, asking to play. She carries it upstairs, downstairs, in the bed. There was even an unfortunate incident where Mojo ate one of the shoelaces. (I saw some very gross proof). Gunnar loves shoelace too. It's to the point where, they'll even steal small ropes and cloth belts that are attached to my clothes. I had a black sweater that had a belted waist. The belt was a thick black string (or thin rope) and the cats pulled it off the sweater and brought it to me. If I ever have laundry on the floor with any sort of strings, they'll play with it.

This looks like a fun string.

Katie used to steal my hair elastics all the time. But after Mojo ate a few, I've stopped leaving them around. They stay in the bathroom—not the nightstand where the cat can get them.

Gunnar's favorite toys are Q-tips, cheap plastic drinking straws and dog food. He loves Q-tips. He knows they're in the bathroom. He's even knocked over a trashcan to get to them before. He loves to bat drinking straws around. He's broken into my lower kitchen cabinets to find straws I didn't know I had before. But he can't really play with either of these these because he wants to bring them to Mojo so Mojo will play with him. And Mojo will just eat them. Game over. (And Mojo doesn't really need to digest either.) And then there's dog food. Every day he'll find a single piece of kibble and bat it around the house. Every day without fail. He thinks it's the best thing ever how it slides across the wood floor. This game always ends when Mojo eats the kibble. I'm not sure if this is an intentional part of the game, but Gunnar does bring it to Mojo and dogfood is for Mojo to eat.

Guarding the much sought-after shoelace.

Helping mom work.

Mojo's favorite is socks. He LOVES socks. Every night he finds a pair of socks to play with and does a lap around the bedroom with socks. He'll carry the socks around with him—upstairs, downstairs, even outside if we let him. He likes to play keepaway with the socks. He'd like to play tugs too, but I don't really want to destroy our socks.

Delicious, mom.

Surprise Christmas Gift

I went to my parents' house for Christmas. We left the kids at home, but their cats were very entertaining.

It was so fun to watch the kittens pounce on each other, chase each other through the dog door and hide in the wrapping paper.

I had hung my coat on a chair and put my purse under the same chair while we swapped gifts, and the cats seemed to think that the coat-draped chair was the best cat tent ever because they kept playing under it. I kept my eye on it to make sure they didn't claw my coat or purse, but generally left them alone.

A few hours after we came home I was looking for the checkbook in my purse and found a pom-pom ball cat toy that one of the cats had apparently hidden in there. I called my mom to make sure it wasn't a cherished toy that needed to be returned immediately. She said it was one of a nine-pack that she had bought for the cats and to keep it for Miss Katie.

Katie loves her new toy and would like to thank Nugget for the surprise gift.

When thanked for the gift, my brother says that his cat Nugget likes to share.