He's Gigantic!

 At least to us he seems gigantic. We've had Pepin for a month and a half now and in that time he has gone from just over 2lb. to a whopping 4.5lb. It's hard to tell he's bigger when he curls up, but if he stretches out, you can tell how much he's grown. 

In some ways, he is a very strange kitty:

He insists on being at least at eye level with the counter when we are cooking in the kitchen, even if that means sitting on our shoulders or in this case, tucked into the hood of my sweatshirt. 

 

Please ignore the 6:30am version of me in the picture.

He sometimes sleeps at my feet, similar to a dog.

And if you look at Lolcats at all, you'll know what I mean when I say that he vastly prefers to be held "monorail cat" style.

In many ways though, Pep is most certainly a cat:

Upon receiving some cosymakes yarn in the mail, he proceeded to make it absolutely impossible for me to get any knitting accomplished.

He's found his way up on to the mantel, using our bottle of used corks as his own personal toy dispenser and putting our "fine crystal" (haha!) in danger. We've since remedied the problem by both installing a deterrent (double-sided tape) and getting rid of his way up (a.k.a. our TV that he would jump from is now dead, and will be replaced next week with a flat screen that he hopefully can't balance on to use as a jumping-off point).

Pep has also taken to attacking my houseplants. You can barely see it in this picture but he had already taken a chomp out of the bottom right leaf (the plant has since been moved to higher ground). And fittingly, this reminds me of a little ceramic cat that my grandma has hanging off of the side of one of her houseplants.

Pep also loves to play, mostly by attacking our arms. Thankfully he is quite gentle, never using his claws but we are occasionally bitten a bit too hard.

And he talks and complains almost constantly. Especially with a Siamese cat, you can never, ever do anything right. *sigh*

Easter

Our little family of three had a nice, lazy Easter Sunday this year. We started the morning opening our Easter basket (bag) filled with Highland chocolates and Jelly Belly jellybeans. Pep even got a bag of treats in the bag but as per usual, he was much more interested in the packing materials than the actual gift.

So, we spent most of the morning with the crinkling of paper and occasionally we would see a freaked-out blur of yellow speed by when a claw or tooth got stuck.

After a delicious brunch consisting of an asparagus and goat cheese omlett (sounds yummy, huh Mom?), cappuccinos, and bloody marys we spent a good few hours playing Pep's favorite game of "stalk and pounce". (Sorry for the poor photo quality.)

We then dyed eggs and hid them for each other.

And at dinner time we made this amazing Roast Leg of Lamb with Tarragon-Mint Butter, roasted-garlic smashed potatoes and salad.

I can get used to early planting times in the Midwest!

I seem motivated to blog lately! So motivated, in fact, that I spent a few hours this morning figuring out how to stitch together photos in Pixelmator (something I have been meaning to figure out for oh, maybe a year now) just to show you all how much my lovely balcony garden has grown. 

I mentioned in the post about my family's visit that while Mom, Grandma and I were at the Botanical Gardens enjoying all of the pretty colors, my dad stayed home to build me a balcony-wide planting box. 

Not only did he befriend the local lumber yard owners while buying the supplies, but he also managed to convince a man working at a Catepelar store to use his torch to bend the brackets you see holding the box up in the photo (originally simple L brackets) so they could wrap around the bottom of the planter box and up over the balcony railing.

Many of the plants on the balcony were herbs planted in pots and other railing boxes that were already here and they are all doing splendidly. 

But we also planted some plants from seeds to fill the planter box and some other spaces in the other railing boxes and despite some lack of sun (which will be aided come summer when the sun is higher in the sky), and a ridiculous amount of rainfall, they are all doing amazingly well!

The "before" pictures were taken just a few days after my family left and the "after" pictures were taken yesterday (just two weeks later).

 Leaf lettuce: I'm going to need to start pulling some micro-greens for salads here soon.

Radishes and Scallions: look at those babies go!

Sage (not really important) and Cucumbers (really, French Cornichon seeds that we kind of snuck through customs on our way back): These took awhile but I'm happy to see some sprouting.

Lavender (not important) and more Cucumbers: same as before, but this pot actually has all three cucumber seeds sprouting as of today!

I have lots more going on out on the balcony that I'll be sure to update you on, but for now, keep your fingers crossed for me that no natural disasters or my black thumb cause any damage.