The newest member to our Chaos..

Meet Tiger Lily-

About 2 weeks ago, my soul sister lost her dad for the 2nd time. When she was a teenager she lost her father, then recently she lost her step dad to a rotton cancer.

Before he passed her mum (my other mother) and her Step dad Gary bought a kitten. A gorgeous little kitten which i think secretly sent them insane!

For weeks i constantly heard about the late night and early morning meowing. The scratching at the bathroom door. The sleep deprivation.. All the things you would expect from a newborn. The reasons why we just dont do kittens very well.

We adopted our Jezzabelle from the Animal Welfare League in Coombabah on the Gold Coast about 8 months ago. It was a very unexpected adoption after a school holiday trip with master 5 and i.

I wanted to stress to him the importance of respecting your pets. That animals are not a seasonal thing. Pets are family members.

We lived in a town house before having our 3rd child and after hearing a friend say she was taking her kitten to the pound, we jumped in without thinking and took her in.

She was a gorgeous kitten. We called her Aria.

The kids adored her. We rented privately so we didnt think it would have been an issue. We are fantastic tenants. Rent paid without fail and the house was always immaculate. We even had the owners around weekly allowing them to do maintance.

Then came the 'Notice to leave' .. We had breeched our lease because of our decision to save a kitten.

I fought it and fought it.

The house had a cat door! There must have been pets here before! I fought it untill they notified us we would be evicted.

1 week before Christmas.

I refused to let this kitten go to the pound. So i started looking for other rentals. 2 children under 5 and 5 months pregnant. It just wasnt possible.

I remembered a friend finding a dog needing a home on Freecycle. And after a good hour of typing and retyping a letter of offer with to many tears. I finally advertised our gorgeous Aria, in need of a good home. I had over 20 replies that day. Deleting them one by one untill i reached an amazing email.

I phoned the potential owners to arrange to meet.

I was taking this very seriously.

I spoke to a mother of 2 children. A wife whos husbands car had just died that morning on the hwy and her power steering just gave up as well. 1 week out of Christmas, with now no money to pay the chrissy laybys off. They wanted something for there children, untill after the silly season and they could afford to fix the cars and spoil there kids.

Her husband had only been looking at photos 2 days before of his childhood cat.

This was the perfect family.

On Christmas eve , A friend at the time and i drove her up to them. I met the mum out the front of the house so she could surprise her children. I gave her Aria and watched her wish Merry Christmas to her kids and handed them there kitten.

In the mean time both of us are pregnant, hormonal and blubbering like babies!

From that day we swore we would never get another pet until we were locked in to being allowed animals.

I explained to Jett this is why we no longer had Aria. And off we went to the shelter to see the animals who have been abandoned or lost. With NO wallet, so we couldn't come home with a little surprise.

We walked around and chatted to the cats. Gave them some attention and spoke with the volunteers. I could see the look in Master 5's eye. He was ready for a pet.

That night i had a talk with Hubby. Showed him the AWL website . And he suggested we went back as a whole family. All 5 of us, and take a look.

We met alot of different characters. Gorgeous cats with crazy personalities. Odd looking kittens clutching to the sides of the enclosure.. And cats that just slept and slept..

We were looking for a cat who was looking for us.

We made a promise to not pick one.

We would wait to be chosen. If not that day.. Another day.

There were a few that were just gorgeous! We got a little attached to them.. until they got permanently attached to us! Digging there claws in and hissing.

There was one cat that just followed us. With a tiny little Siamese head and a long sausage dog like body with a droopy saggy belly that nearly rubbed along the ground. Puring and walking between our legs. Miss 2 gave out an all mighty squeal of delight at her ' Jezzabelle responding with a quiet 'Meow' .. Thats our cat.

We decided to 'sleep on it' ..HA yeah right! We drove all the way home, Hubby doing a bit of a detour to delay the eneviatable and then said.. "Do you love her??' And i replied 'I LOVE her!' .. So we phone the shelter which closed in an hour and asked them to get her paper work ready!

We drove all the way back to get our lady...

We raced up to reception and applied to adopt. We had a meeting with the volunteers and signed all the papers.

Best of all, Jezzabelle was 'Pet of the week'

We bought her home and she spent the rest of the night sitting next to me while i cut and stiched.

From that day, shes just been another family member. Taking her place every night on the end of Master 5's bed.

Today we introduced a special little lady to our family.

Tiger Lily.

Adopted from My best friends Mum.

Since losing Gary she has been living with her mum. Lucys babushka. They owned an absolutely stunning self designed 'mansion' up on Mount Tambourine.

But with Julia suffering epilepsy, it was not safe her being up there alone.

With that, And the sadness of losing her husband.

We adopted Tiger.

So far she is settling in well. She spent a week at Lucy's sister so was used to noise and chaos with there 3 kids. I actually think she is enjoying her self here!

So, welcome to our would gorgeous girl! Your very much loved.

x N

Tiger Lily