Christmas Kitties

This is a post totally unrelated to writing, but I'm excited about it, so I'm blogging about it. ;) Hubby and I decided last month to get the kids kittens for Christmas. I am a total cat person; I adore kitties, and it's been a while since I had one around.

Anyway, hubby wanted to give cats to the kids on Christmas morning--wrap them up as soon as the kids woke up so they could unwrap them and be surprised. I wasn't sure how that would work, but in the end, here's what happened: we found a wonderful woman who had just moved into town with her husband and two kids, and had brought two cats and a litter of seven kittens with them. I talked to her and she agreed that if we came and picked out the two kitties we wanted, she would hold them for us. So last month, hubby and I went and picked out two kitties, and in the process, I made a new friend! The woman with the kittens has gotten together with me and another of my friends a couple of times for playdates, and that's been tremendous fun.

Last Wednesday, I went over and picked up the two kittens. They were the last two left, and as such, they've bonded and they play together and fall asleep cuddling and do all sorts of cute kitty stuff. So I packed up the kittens and took them to my sister's house, because my sis volunteered to kitty-sit until Christmas Eve.

This was when I first picked them up:

My kids have already named the kittens, though they don't know it. We asked, hypothetically, if they ever got female kittens, what would they name them? I've been reading the Harry Potter series to my kids at bedtime for the past eight months or so (we're currently on book six), and my daughter immediately said Lily, and my son decided on Tonks. So Lily and Tonks it is.

Lily is the gray and white kitty here (held by my three-year-old niece, who is thrilled to have them at her house right now):

And Tonks is the tortoiseshell here:

My sister keeps giving me updates on them, and I'm so, so excited to bring them home next week and to see the kids open them on Christmas morning. (The kids know they're not allowed to go downstairs on Christmas morning this year; they have to come straight to us and wake us up. I just need to remember to add in that it should not be four in the morning when that happens. ;))

So that is what I am going to be doing on Christmas Eve night--picking up kitties. :D

Do any of you have special plans for the holidays?