Secret Paws

CHRISTMAS SECRET PAWS

Secret Paws 2017

As we have since we began blogging, we are participating in the Secret Paws gift exchange. This is coordinated by Truffle and Brulee’s mom, Paula, from Sweet Purrfections. We are most appreciative for her hard work in gathering all the information and assigning the Secret Paws.

Since it is a secret, we cannot tell you where or to whom we sent our gifts. And we have no idea what Mom sent, as we were not allowed to help with the wrapping for obvious reasons: 1) ripping the paper; 2) getting tape stuck in our furs; 3) chewing on ribbons; 4) trying to steal the gifts for ourselves and 5) spilling our guts and letting everyone know what we sent.

So here are some rather boring (and bad) photos of our wrapped gifts.

We have no idea who our Secret Paws is, as we have not received our gift yet. But Christmas is still six days away, and Mom won’t let us open our gifts until Christmas Day, so we aren’t worried about it. We’ll let you know all about our gift after Christmas as well as where we sent our package.

We told Mom that the Hello Kitty wrapping paper wasn’t a good enough cat representation for this post. So, here is our gratuitous kitten-in-a-box photo.

Last night was the first night Sawyer was not confined to the living room. When we went to sleep, he was sleeping on a pile of pillows atop the antique trunk at the end of Mom and Dad’s bed. You’ll have to wait until Thursday to find out how that experiment worked out, as tomorrow we’ll be wordless.

Purrs and paw-pats, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, angel Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth, Calista Jo, Cooper Murphy and Sawyer

SECRET PAWS CAME TO TOWN

Once again we pawticipated in the Secret Paws gift exchange organized by Truffle and Brûlée and Mom Paula. We really appreciate all their hard work in setting this up each year.

Our gifts this year came all the way from the U.K. and the Katzenworld gang. The box was chock full of toys from their shop as well as a super cute “Oliver, Nubia & Snowball” mug for mom.

Most of the toys are filled with either catnip or valerian. We have not had valerian before so we will have a new experience playing with these toys. We let you know what we think in a future post.

Of course, not all of us showed up for the opening ceremony. But those who didn’t (Giulietta, Astrid and Lisbeth) will get plenty of opportunity to try out and play with all the goodies.

Mauricio really enjoyed the gingerbread man with valerian. And he’s already taken one of the big grey mousies upstair for some night-time play. Only the best toys get dragged from one floor to another!

Of course, Mom did not open all the toys for us. Even with seven Kitties Blue, it would be too much all at once. We know she’ll be doling them out over the next few months.

Sorry our photos are sort of blurry. It’s hard to sit still when kitty stimulants are involved!

All of us are sending great big kitty kisses and a huge T-H-A-N-K Y-O-U to Oliver, Nubia and their humans for the terrific gifts.

To see other Secret Paws posts, click on “Secret Paws” in the first paragraph.

Purrs and paw-pats, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Angel Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo

December 27, 2016 by Janet Blue Christmas Kitty Written Blog Secret Paws 23

HO, HO SECRET PAWS PART ONE!

Secret Paws 2016

If you are pawticipating in this year’s Secret Paws gift exchange, and you have not as yet received your package…it’s probably from us.

Kitties should be able to rely on their human (who didn’t do any decorating or baking this year) to get the Secret Paws gifts wrapped and sent in a timely manner. But NO! Our petretary totally fell down on the job.

It really is inexcusable. It’s not as if we can do the wrapping on our own. The tape always gets stuck to our furs, and we easily get distracted playing with bows, ribbons and empty paper tubes.

Of course, we cannot share with you where the presents are headed, but the package was finally mailed yesterday. Here’s a look at what we sent.

Did you honestly think we were going to show you the actual items? No way! You’ll have to wait until our recipient posts.

We got the petretary to wrap everything in our special Kitties Blue wrapping paper. That alone makes the purrfect gift. Don’t you think?

Our Secret Paws package arrived a few days ago, but Mom says we cannot share who sent it, and we have not been allowed to open even one thing. She never lets us have anything before Christmas. We don’t get it. Our dad has already received a couple of his gifts. We think the double standard for humans and cats is totally unfair and stinks! Are your humans as mean as ours?

The petretary finally finished our snail mail cards and Mau’s cards for his Cat Scout friends. All of those were mailed yesterday as well. E-mail cards have not been sent. They will be sent on Christmas Eve.

The most inexcusable of all the petretray’s laxities, however, is that none of the gifts for Allie, Charles or Sampson have been wrapped or mailed. We cannot believe we have to depend on her to accomplish these simple tasks. Pffft!

This is Part One of our Secret Paw’s post. Part Two will occur after we are allowed to open our gifts.

Purrs and paw-pats and a ho, ho, ho, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Angel Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo

December 20, 2016 by Janet Blue Christmas Kitty Written Blog Secret Paws 27

SECRET PAWS 2015 RECEIVED AND SENT

Secret Paws Gifts Received

It took us until a couple of days after Christmas to finally convince Mom to let us open our Secret Paws gifts. We know she wasn’t trying to be mean. We know she and Dad were super busy with Fiona and not in a very festive mood.

Let us tell you…it was worth the wait. We’ve never seen such a treasure trove of goodies all at one time. But before we show you the prezzies, we want to reveal who our Secret Paws gift giver was.

Except for Astrid, who watched from the dining room table, we all got involved in checking out the loot. Even Fiona felt well enough to purrticipate.

We received treats, noms, and lots of toys, including a wand toy with purple feathers and a bird toy that chirps. We also got this Snacky Snowman. We had the treats out of it within seconds. There also was a beautiful green Christmas stocking and cozy blanket (shown here with Mom’s gifts: a bracelet, holiday pin and small hinged box with angel cat.) The blue-eyed, white kitty looks just like our angel brofur, Madison, which touched Mom’s heart.

We love all our gifts and send special thanks to Samantha and her mom for taking such care in choosing the most wonderful presents.

Secret Paws Gifts Sent

We agreed this year to be matched with a Secret Paws purrticipant located outside the U.S. We were so excited when we were matched with dear New Zealand friends, DashKitten. Mom was late to mail and was certain they wouldn’t get their gifts until after Christmas, but we received word that they arrived on Christmas Eve. Mom Marjorie has posted photos of a couple items on their blog. That was nice, as our empty-headed mom only took a photo after she had wrapped everything.

Do you like the wrapping paper Mom had made for us? It matched our Christmas card, which she actually got in the mail today. For those of you who live outside the U.S., we figure you might get your card in time for Valentine’s Day. In the next few days, while our dad is watching football, Mom will do her best to get our e-mail cards sent.

We want to thank Truffle, Brûlée and Mom Paula (Sweet Purrfections) for all the hard work they do to set up the Secret Paws gift exchange.

Purrs and paw-pats, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo

December 31, 2015 by Janet Blue Christmas Secret Paws Thankful Thursday 33

MONDAY MEOWSINGS: SECRET PAWS PREZZIES

On the morning of Christmas Eve, Lily Olivia gave Mom 40 face kisses to make up for the cookie fiasco of the day before. So, in the spirit of forgiveness, our humans allowed us to open our Secret Paws prezzies that afternoon. As reported previously, our Secret Paws came from Mom Alana, Crepes, Mrs. Peabody, Louie, Niles, Sprinkle and Doodle from Cat in the Fridge. If you missed seeing the incredible sketch of Astrid that Alana made for Mom, you can see it here.

Here’s a couple photos of our loot with Fiona photobombing in the second one.

We received our favorite treat, Pounce, as well as Simply Nourish Freeze Dried, Turkey Treats. We haven’t tried these yet. We also received two fuzzy mice with feather tails, and a huge pack of Catnip Puffs as well as that cool owl with a feather tail. It hangs from a doorknob.

Calista Jo & Fiona (in their Christmas flowers) check out the owl toy.

Misty May, Calista Jo, Giulietta, Lily Olivia, Lisbeth and Mauricio inspect the Catnip Puffs and wrapping paper and nom Pounce.

Lily Olivia (wearing her crocheted flower from Kitty Cat Chronicles) and Lisbeth surrounded by Catnip Puffs.

We are extremely grateful to Mom Alana and all the gang at Cat in the Fridge for these most pawsome prezzies and treats. Secret Paws rocks!

Purrlease join us tomorrow for a special post: Sharkie & Blue’s Most Excellent Cycling Adventure. If you missed our post, We Have Holiday Visitors, Sharkie and Blue are our honorary brofur Bailey‘s plushie furiends. They are visiting from Rome for the holidays.

Purrs & Paw-pats, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth & Calista Jo

December 29, 2014 by Janet Blue Christmas Holiday Honorary Kitty Blue Kitty Written Blog Monday Meowsings Secret Paws 28

FLASHBACK FRIDAY WITH MACKENZIE

Mom is exhausted! She add Dad served 267 take-out meals yesterday at the local Rescue Mission where 600 sit-down meals were served.

And y’all thought that Mom only wears cat ears.

So we agreed to having a Flashback Friday and allow her to repost this Wordless Wednesday photo from This is Not a Partridge, originally posted on December 19, 2012.

This is our angel brofur, MacKenzie, as a kitten. It is Mom’s all-time favorite Christmas photo. It is from 2001. Mac was quite proficient at climbing the Christmas tree when he was little. Little MacKenzie, however, turned into Big Mac and by the following year his Christmas tree climbing had come to an end. He could not haul his large rear end up into the branches. That made our humans quite happy!

Hope you all had a spectacular Christmas and that Santa brought you everything your hearts’ desired. Mom took pity on us, and we finally were allowed to open our Secret Paws gifts on Christmas Eve. Pawsome…simply pawsome! We’ll report about those and our other purresents on Monday.

Ho, ho, ho, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo

December 26, 2014 by Janet Blue Angel Cat Christmas Flashback Friday Holiday Kitty Written Blog Secret Paws 21

A NAUGHTY MEOWY CHRISTMAS GREETING

Well, it is Wordless Wednesday, but Mom said we could not remain quiet as she had intended. Yes, she said that we must confess our naughtiness once again. Though we saw her put our Secret Paws gifts under the Christmas Tree, she says that Lily’s transgression today could find them becoming Valentine’s gifts.

So…here’s what happened today. Mom was baking cookies and Lily kept trying to get into everything, including the shortening, which Mom found her licking. Needless to say, she was not happy with Lily Olivia’s behavior but was willing to cut her a little slack. Then IT happened. Mom had to turn her back for a nano second to open the door to the catio for Giulietta. When she turned back, she found Lily Olivia standing on the cookie sheet nomming an unbaked cookie!

Though he was not the one involved in the cookie incident, Lily tried to make up by giving Dad seven kisses at bedtime. Mom said that even had Lily Olivia given her the seven kisses, that would not have been enough of an apology!

Can you believe it? We can’t seem to get through even one day without somebuddy acting out. It really isn’t our fault. The decorations and unusual activities around the holidays upset our normal routine and get us all confused. It makes it so easy to forget our manners and get into trouble. So we think it is totally unfair to withhold our loot. Please cross your paws that we can make it through the day so that we can get our gifts on Christmas morning.

Finally, we’d like to share our first ever Meowy Christmas card for those of you who did not receive it through either snail or e-mail.

Ho, ho, ho, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo

p.s. Look at those innocent faces. Santa will never believe we haven’t been purrfectly good all year!

December 24, 2014 by Janet Blue Christmas Holiday Kitty Written Blog Secret Paws Wordless Wednesday 40

TUXIE TUESDAY DOOZY OF A SNOOZY

Once again we got caught up in the naughtiness that has been plaguing us the last couple of weeks. Consequently, we did not get to open our Secret Paw’s gifts. So we won’t be sharing with you today as promised.

It is all Misty May’s fault. We usually try not to “rat” out each other, but her bad behavior is hurting all of us. Last night she did not come in when called for dinner. First the humans searched every inch of the house and basement. Then they started searching the yard and alley as well as going up and down the front walk, calling her name. No reply from misbehaving Misty May and no sound from the bell on her collar were heard. And, of course, it was dark outside.

She didn’t make Mom and Dad panic for too long…only 40 minutes. But it was long enough for them to rescind their promise to allow us to open our gifts.

So in lieu of that post, we are sharing a “Doozy of a Snoozy” featuring Mauricio in Dad’s lap. This nap followed a big day at The North Pole with Cat Scouts.

Scout Sammy (onespoiledcat), Mau’s Troop Leader with the Worldwide Wildcats, has a Travel Service at Scouts and plans fun trips for the Scouts. On Sunday the Cat Scouts flew to the North Pole, met Santa, helped the elves in Santa’s workshop and tended to reindeer prior to having a huge buffet super and a ride through the night sky in Santa’s sleigh.

Mauricio planned a couple of exciting things for he and his girlfriend, Scout Allie (Friends Furever). She and her brother, Scout Raz, had a nice slide show about the trip on their Monday post.

Allie and Mau dressed as Mr. and Mrs. Claus

A private sleigh ride for two.

Photo-op.

Mau took Allie’s Christmas Stocking with him and asked Santa to fill it with love, joy and happiness!

Mau meets Santa Claus, the real, real Santa Claus.

If you are not a Cat Scout you are missing out on lots of fun with good friends. Maybe you can make it your New Year’s resolution to join. Worldwide Wildcats is always looking for new and enthusiastic members.

We are not making any more promises as to when we will share our Secret Paws, but we do know it won’t be before Friday as there will be no early opening of gifts for us. So, see y’all tomorrow for Wordless Wednesday.

Ho, ho, ho, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May the Naughty, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo

December 23, 2014 by Janet Blue Allie and Mauricio Cat Scouts Christmas Doozy of a Snoozy Holiday Kitty Written Blog Secret Paws Tuxie Tuesday 25

THE NAUGHTINESS CONTINUES

We had expected to be having a Thankful Thursday today and telling you all about our Secret Paws gifts. But an unidentified kitty got into some mischief Tuesday night.

This is what Mom found when she went downstairs Wednesday morning. Not only was efurrything in disarray, but some extra-bad kitty had peed on the table runner. We’re pretty surprised we got our breakfast after this blatant display of naughtiness. Of course, we never tattle on each other. Even though we are not each others’ best friends, we have to stick together when it is humans versus cats.

Due to the inappropriate behavior, Mom said we could not have our Secret Paws presents today. She is letting us tell you who sent the prezies and show you her gift.

So, some cat, purrlease man the cymbals and tambourine and make lots of noise: Our goodies were sent to us by Mom Alana, Crepes and the gang from Cat in the Fridge. We think that is particularly cool as Crepes and Mau are both in the Worldwide Wildcats Troop and the Wolverine Patrol at Cat Scouts.

And here is the special gift for our mom from Mom Alana. Our Mom is over the moon with the super personal gift.

It is a exquisite sketch of Astrid drawn by Mom Alana. We apologize that the photo really does not do it justice. Alana is a much better artist than Mom is a photographer.

Purrlease keep your paws crossed that no cat gets into trouble overnight. That’s the only way we can hope to open our gifts any time before the New Year. Even if we do get to check them out, we won’t be reporting about it until next week.

We have a huge surprise for Friday’s post. We have some visitors who will share the holiday with us. We will introduce them to you in the special post. Some of you will recognize our visitors. But that’s all we are telling you now.

See y’all on the flip side.

Purrs and paw-pats, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo

December 18, 2014 by Janet Blue Christmas Holiday Kitty Written Blog Secret Paws Thankful Thursday 30

YOU
For Fiona

It seems like only yesterday…
You were just a kitten.
When I saw your pleading look,
I was completely smitten.

Now at only six years old,
You are getting ready to leave,
Soon you will have your wings.
I’ve already started to grieve.

You’ve fought hard for the past year,
And I’m not ready to say good-bye.
I can’t imagine you not in my life
I am so sad…today I had to cry.

I am grateful and blessed
For my six years with you.
You’ll live in my heart forever.
You’re one of the best ever Kitties Blue.

YESTERDAY

Many yesterdays have passed since
You gained your angel wings. Today
Is six months since you left us behind
To remember and mourn. Our hearts
Continue to hurt, and we miss
You as much as the day you left.
Giulietta whined from the catio
Yesterday as I worked in the yard.
I know you put her up to it. That
Was your way of getting me to,
Allow you to join me as I
Gardened. You were there with me
In spirit. With every meow
I thought of you and how much I miss
Your sweet face and disposition.
In these past few months, many friends
Have traveled your same path in your
paw-steps. I am certain you were
Waiting to greet them with purrs and hugs.
I pray you and your friends are laughing,
Frolicking and having fun together.
Picturing that makes me smile, but
Does not lessen my sadness at your
No longer being here to snuggle
And receive our love, care and kisses.
Fiona, please do not ever forget
You are still and always will be loved.

ONE YEAR MISSING YOU

One year has passed since you flew away,
And I still think of you everyday.
I see your sweet face in my mind’s eye
And wish we’d never had to say good-bye.
It’s nice you’ve sent us kitties needing a family,
But my dearest love, we are now at capacity.
You thought it would take more than one cat
To take your place in our habitat.
We love Cooper Murphy and baby Sawyer dearly
But thinking either could replace you makes me teary.
You were one-of-a-kind and will stay in my heart
Until the day I join you and we’re no longer apart.
When once again I can hold you in my arms
And revel in all your love and feline charms.
Together with you and all who have passed.
I will spend eternity contemplating how blessed
I was to share my life with my furry children,
Each and every one of you one-in-a billion.

UNTIL

I miss you each day.
Until we meet in heaven,
The pain will remain.

ONE OF A KIND

I don’t know how to say good-bye.
I thought you were invincible; though,
You used up many of your nine lives.
You ruled us all with an iron paw;
Never took “no” for an answer
And always got your way.
If not, you’d bark to signal your
Displeasure and sometimes raise a paw.
I always joked that you were bi-polar.
When I told people you were a calico
They immediately understood what I meant.
Today was unnaturally quiet in the house.
Can a home seem empty with eight cats?
I will miss waking up at night to find you
Sitting next to me and staring at me.
I will miss you yelling at us as you did
When you wanted breakfast and dinner.
I will miss watching you lounging and snoozing
On the porch settee on a warm afternoon.
But most of all I will miss your kisses!
When kitten Sawyer befriended you,
We suspect you were imparting your
Wisdom and secrets for controlling us.
Time will tell if he was a good listener.
But whatever he may have learned,
Neither Sawyer nor any other cat
Can or will replace you in our hearts.
Lily Olivia, you were one-of-a-kind.