our family grows

last weekend we became foster parents to two baby robins, one momma cat, and four kittens! a little overwhelming for me but the kids sure have loved having all these babies around.

we saw a robins nest up in the tree right above their tree fort. the kids could see the nest but not reach it. one day they went up there and the next thing they knew there was a baby bird laying at their feet. the crazy little thing must have thought the kids were momma bird and jumped right out of the nest. we tried putting the bird back in the nest but he just kept jumping out. he was very young still with hardly any feathers. after trying to put the bird back a few times we decided we would put it in a box and wait til dad came home. FYI.... it is a myth that the momma bird will not take care of its baby after a human touches it. if the bird seems healthy, it is best to get it back in the nest for the mother to care for it.

baby birds are very hard to keep alive so we were not very hopeful for this little guy. the next morning i am woken up by the girls, who have gotten themselves up and dressed before 6:30 and headed outside to see how the other baby was doing. (let me just say here, they are not allowed to come out of their rooms til 7am, and got themselves in trouble for being outside without telling anyone!) raelyn found a rake and nocked the other little bird and nest out the the tree! my nature loving daughter. we had a lot of explaining to do that even though baby birds are cute and fun to hold, humans have a really hard job of taking care of them. so now we have two baby birds.

we started feeding the birds wet cat food. they seemed to love it and ate it right up. baby birds get fed every 20 minutes in the wild so they are a pretty demanding group. we still were very skeptical if the birds were even going to make it....well now 10 days later and they are just THRIVING.

it has been really fun to watch the grow and change daily. they can now even fly short distances.
we have started feeding them some strawberries and worms too. they still open their mouths to be fed and do not pick up the food themselves.
we let them out in the yard to watch and learn from the other robins. our yard is full of robins. we are hoping that they will be able to live strong and free in the wild again soon.
right after i got off the phone with dave about the birds, one of the kids walked past the front door and said "mom, there is a kitten on our porch!"

a few weeks ago i noticed a white cat sitting on our porch. i saw that it had a pink collar around its neck to i tried to just shoo it away so dakota would calm down. i never really noticed it again.

i probably never noticed her again because she was under our house given birth to kittens!

i went out to see what was going on and saw that there was a little tiny crack under the house and 4 kittens coming in and out of it. momma was super friendly, or maybe just super hungry. she let me pet her and she was just bones so i went in the house and found a can of tuna (remember the baby birds were eating the cat food :)) i put a little tuna on a plate and she ate it up so fast. i put the rest of the can out for her and she ate it all. poor girl was so hungry.
momma is so cool looking! she has one green eye and one blue! the kids have named her "half and half".
there are two all white kittens with blue eyes. the kids have named these two, Mary and Chip Chip. there is a black and white one they have named Foxy and a gray and white one they named David. his name is david because he is so brave. he would be brave enough to fight goliath.
david is by far the most friendly and is still the only one we can hold. all the other kittens are very scared. he is also the runt i think. he seems way smaller.
so right now the cats are still living on the porch and under the house. im not sure what we are going to choose to do with them all but the kids sure have enjoyed watching them and getting to hold little david. hopefully soon we can get our hands on the other ones too.

when we were little and acting crazy or being messy, mom would ask us if we were raised in a barn. well if i asked our kids that right now, they might say yes! 1 dog, 5 chickens, 2 birds, and 5 cats! thats a lot of mouths to feed. :)