Our cat is crazy.
He's spoiled rotten, and the most pampered kitten you'll ever meet in your life. He loves being around people, so naturally, he sleeps all day long, and then proceeds to keep us up all night. In summary:
12:05 - Lay down in bed, set the alarm and turn off the lights. Exhausted.
12:10 - Freeney comes in the room and proceeds to attempt to jump up on the bed twice, and misses. Finally gets up there on the third try. Promptly walks up to the head of the bed and starts to chew on my hoop earring. I put him under the covers, where he sleeps most of the time.
12:15 - Decides he'd rather engage in a "pouncing spat" than sleep. Proceeds to get out from under the covers and jump from one end of the bed to the other, stopping just long enough to lick my hair every so often. This goes on for ten minutes.
12:25 - Freeney is now standing on my nightstand licking my glass of ice water. I find the squirt bottle and squirt him in the face. He jumps down and disappears under the bed for a while. Presumably, licking himself.
12:45 - I'm almost asleep. I am woken up by the noise of my cell phone beeping. It's not a familiar noise to me, so I pick it up and see what it was making that noise for. Oh right. I had plugged it into the charger next to the bed (not normally where I charge it), and Freeney was playing with the charger, pulled it from the wall, and my phone was alerting me to let me know that it was no longer charging. I get out of bed and plug it back in. While I'm up, might as well go ahead and get some new ice water, since the cat has had his face in it. This time, I put it in the "Freeney-proof" cup, with a lid. An adult version of a sippy cup.
12:48 - I return to the bedroom, and find Freeney swatting at, playing with, and chewing on the string for the mini-blind. The blinds are half up and half down, and all tangled up. I take three minutes to put them back in place, this time securing the cord at the top so it is out of his reach.
12:50 - Another 10 minutes of pouncing. This time, I spank him and tell him to lay down. He does. That lasted about two minutes.
1:02 - Again, I'm just about to sleep, and BANG! I sit straight up and look around, searching for the prowler that I thought was somewhere in my house until I hear a horrific sounding buzzing noise. It is then that I realize that Freeney, in his playtime on DAN'S nightstand this time, knocked over his fan, and a picture frame that was sitting there. I again get OUT of bed and pick up the fan.
1:12 - Freeney is chewing on my engagement ring. I don't think he can hurt it, but it's annoying. I spank him again, a little more sternly, and put him on the floor. Hoping and praying that he will disappear until I am at least sleeping heavily.
1:15 - Freeney is in his litter box, which is in Dan and I's bathroom. He proceeds to (what I refer to as) "play" in there for approximately 4 minutes. I'm yelling at him, and the noise stops. He doesn't come out. I again get up, to find him stuck, half of his body in the toilet, and half of his body out of the toilet. I retrieve him, and put him on the floor.
After about 45 more minutes of pouncing around, jumping off and on my face, waking me up several times, and jumping from the bed to Dan's nightstand to our dresser and knocking over about 5 bottles of perfume, Freeney got kicked out of the bedroom and the door shut. He only sat at the door and whined for ten minutes, which is an improvement on some nights. I think I finally got to sleep around 2:00. And I'm glad that Dan is home for the next week, because the nights with "Freens" is much easier with another referee.
Here are some recent pictures:
If he cannot sleep with us, paperwads are the next best thing. He's particularly fond of paper wads. 
We are clearly not kidding about the cat wanting to sleep right on top of us. He prefers our faces, actually, but this is about as close as we let him get.
Or on our arms, during a nap on the couch.
And if that doesn't work, he'll curl up in any bit of laundry that he can find. Notice this is next to the laundry basket.....so the jeans must have come FROM the laundry basket onto the bed, where he made his nest.
And THANK YOU, TIFFANY! The pooping penguin was not intended to be a cat toy. However, it's one of his favorites. It doesn't poop anymore, and I think it might not have a head anymore, either, but it does still bounce around and jump and make some really obnoxious noises. We're forever grateful. :)
Although a little picked over in this photo, this was my contribution to the Christmas dinner. Every year, for Christmas, I make a relish "tree" (as opposed to relish "tray")..... It's nothing more than a foam floral cone, covered with aluminum foil, and covered with broccoli (for the green part of the tree), cherry tomatoes (for ornaments) and a yellow pepper (for garland). Dan and I sat together at the kitchen table at my parent's on Christmas Eve, and he helped me stick the toothpicks in the vegetables and apply them meticulously to the tree. Dan's family thought it was a hoot! I'm glad that they liked it! :)
OK, so here's the deal. Dan spoils Olivia. Horribly. Although he blames me for it, he's just as bad or worse than I am. She's recently taken a liking to Barney, and all of his characters. You know, B.J., Baby Bop, and the rest of the entourage..... :) Dan found online the WHOLE SET of plush Barney characters. So, of course, he bought them for her. He paid too much for them, and they are ugly, but it was his mission to make her the happiest little girl on Christmas morning, ever. And so he did.......This was the expression on her face when she opened the box. :)
And later when she wanted to take a nap, on the rug in the living room.....all covered up WITH them. She insisted. Hee hee.....
