We have stinky goodness, crunchies, and beverages! Panda Bear has graciously offered to serve as bartender! (ID required for adult kitty beverages, please!) Of course, there will be lots of nip! I am so delighted that you could come to my party!

Mom planted cat grass for us a few weeks ago, so feel free to nom nom nom!

In honor of Earth Day, Mom is going to dig in the dirt outside. She says we can help! It is Spring here in northeast O-Hi-O, and the weather is supposed to be sunny and mild!

Great napping weather! (Isn’t it always great napping weather if you’re a cat?)

Lots of interesting things to sniff in the back yard! Plus bird and squirrel watching!

Feel free to play Thundering Herds of Elephants! We have two sets of stairs – one to the basement, and one to upstairs. By the way, the powder room is in the basement.

If any of you choose to party into the evening, join us in the basement for Mouse Patrol! We will gather on the ledge at the top of the basement stairs at 8:55 pm EDT. Remember to keep your voices down, as we want to sneak up on the mousies!

Also today, my sister Cookie will be competing in Kitty Fight Club at The World According to Misha!

Photo: from Misha’s blog

Kitty Fight Club is a contest that pits two adorabubble kittens against each other for the title of cutest kitten! Cookie is nervous that she won’t get any votes at all!

Please vote for Cookie on Misha’s blog!

We had a multi-way tie for the Gold in the Bird and Squirrel Watching event! Give yourself each a Gold Medal. We adapted Katie’s Human Glogirly’s badge, so here is the Official Gold Medal for Bird and Squirrel Watching to proudly display on your blog:

Now, on to our entries!

*** Synchronized Snoozing hosted by The Island Cats ***

Meerkat and Padre are our resident love cats. Here are their two entries. The first photo shows them spooning in a dainty cat bed. Note Padre’s leg placement around Meerkat. This should definitely be worth additional cute points.

The second photo shows Padre and Meerkat cuddled together in a Ying-Yang with a Spooning Maneuver.

Also in Synchronized Snoozing, this is Panda Bear and Cookie, taken last summer when Cookie and I were still itteh bitteh! Note Cookie’s hind leg placement on Mommy’s gardening shoe, displaying added difficulty.

*** Balance Beam hosted by Fin of Housecat Confidential ***

This is Matthew, one of the foster kittens who stayed here last Fall. (Hah! Fall! Get it? What a great pun!) Matthew was the most talented of the foster kittehs at the Balance Beam!

Panda Bear often gets asked if he has trouble with balance or depth perception because he only has one eye. Well, take a look at his entry for Balance Beam, and you will see that PB has grace and style on the apparatus! This photo was taken at the V-E-T, so PB deserves extra difficulty points for the heightened level of anxiety!

*** Boxing hosted by Sparkle the Designer Cat***

These are our entries for Boxing. Here I am, posed graciously in the remnants of a holiday gift box.

*** Competitive Napping, hosted by Huffle Mawson ***

This is my entry. I am carefully color coordinated with the rocking chair, with my tail tucked under my chin like a Young LadyCat.

Also in Competitive Napping, this is Cookie’s first of two entries. Note the extreme cuteness of Cookie when she was an itteh bitteh kitteh!

Cookie’s second entry in Competitive Napping displays a high level of difficulty, as Cookie is shown sleeping in a PTU! Note the concentration which Cookie required in order to actually SLEEP in a prisoner transport unit!

*** Mile Long Machine Kleen, hosted by Tygana of One Cats Nip ***

Panda Bear and Cookie are entering as a team in this competition. Note the care with which Panda Bear washes Cookie’s head.

That concludes our Cat-O-Lympics entries!

And another big Thank You to Fin of Housecat Confidential for organizing the entire 2010 Cat-O-Lympics games!

Here at Casa Furry Bambino, we are hosting the Bird and Squirrel Watching Event. Like Fin, we are not too particular when it comes to rules. Just post a photo of yourself looking out a window.  If you get to explore the Great Outdoors, you can show us a photo of yourself outside. The photos do not even have to be recent! For example, if it is winter where you are, but you want to show a photo taken in the summer, that’s fine too!  Remember, no rules!

This is a good example of Cookie trying to communicate with a squirrel through the window.  Cookie was still a kitten back in July when this photo was taken, and the squirrel was almost as big as she was!

If you don’t have any photos handy, hey, that’s OK too! Remember, no rules! Just describe to us your bird and squirrel watching experiences.

If you live in an area of the world where there are no birds or squirrels, that’s fine too! Tell us what you like to observe instead!  Mouses, possums, raccoons, skunks, armadillos, hippopotamuses?  This is a photo of a Triple Decker Mouse Patrol event from last winter. From top to bottom (Hah! Bottom! Get it? Oh, I crack myself up!) is Meerkat, then me (Padre), then Panda Bear.

If there are birds or squirrels in the photo too, great, you get bonus points! Try to identify the type of bird for all of us. This is a Very Big Bird that we saw in our back yard last fall – a hawk maybe?

This is a Tasty Yellow Bird. (Mom calls it a goldfinch. Whatever.)

If there are no birds or squirrels in the photo, that’s great too! Tell us what you saw, or what you were looking for!  All five of us Furry Bambinos were caught on digital camera squirrel watching last summer.  Left to right, that’s Meerkat, Cookie, Panda Bear, Caramel, and Padre. Accidental cuddling may occur when trying to get the best window seat!

Here at Casa Furry Bambino, all five of us were awarded the Gold Medal for Bird and Squirrel Watching! Award yourself a Gold Medal for making a post about Bird or Squirrel Watching! Thanks to Katie’s human, Glogirly, for making the really swell medal!

Please join us for this mouth-watering event! Tell us about your Bird and Squirrel Watching experiences! (This is our first attempt at using Mr. Linky, so give that a try!) And wish our Daddy a Happy Birthday … he is going to be even OLDER on Saturday.

In the meantime, we have a new source of entertainment here: The DeLuxe Bird Feeder Station.  Mom and Dad bought it at the local Wild Birds Unlimited store. The real name of the bird feeder is the WBU Advanced Pole System. It’s really cool, and keeps us entertained for hours.  The right side has a regular feeder for tasty regular birds. On top is a nifty house that the squirrels have pretty much claimed as theirs. Check it out:

The left side has a special feeder for tasty yellow birds like this one. Mom says the bird is a Gold Finch.

And now that it is warm here in Northeast O-Hi-o, windows have been left open for our sniffing pleasure!  Here is a photo of all of us Bambinos sniffing a squirrel:

In other news, I have a confession to make.  I LOVE Mommy’s shoes and slippers!!  It’s a little embarrassing, but I just can’t help it, I LOVE to cuddle with her shoes and slippers.

Well, that’s all the Bambino News for now!

See, here is some evidence. The yellow flowers are crocuses, and the green thing may be a hyacinth (it’s hard to tell now):

This weekend, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, and it felt warm for the first time in a really long time! Daddy and Mommy opened the windows for us to get a good sniff.

Luckily, there is one window pane for each of us.

On Saturday and Sunday, Mommy took us outside into the back yard. We are not allowed to go outside unless we are on our harnesses and leashes, and Mommy or Daddy has to be with us at all times. I enjoyed sitting on the back porch, taking in the sights, sounds, and aromas.

Our harnesses feel kinda funny, so when we got outside, we just kinda sat still and sniffed.

We did get to listen to the birdies and see them flying around, so we had a great time!

Except for Meerkat, who seemed to be a little bit anxious the whole time. The look on her face and the position of her ears says it all… “Let me back inside!”

of course, us furry bambinos like to help mommy or daddy when they throw the food outside. we snoopervise and we perform qa checks of the peanuts and sunflower seeds.

we also like to sniff the outside air. it smells different than the inside air. in the winter time, the outside air is very cold. for some reason, mommy and daddy always put this gate thingy in front of the door when they feed the birdies.

but the outside air smells exciting!

one of these days, i’m gonna explore out there. for some reason, mommy and daddy always grab me and haul me back inside, just when i’m on the verge of escape!

but i think i’ll wait until it gets warmer.

have a happy easter efurryone!

However, the snow that we got last weekend was not lake effect snow. Lake Erie is mostly frozen over now, and the snow came from the south. Other Ohio cities, such as Cincinnati and Columbus, also got record amounts of snow. Unlike our neighbors to the south, communities in the Cleveland area have large fleets of snow removal equipment. Within a day of the snow stopping, things were pretty much back to normal. However, in parking lots, there continue to be residual MOUNDS of snow, six or more feet deep, where the snow was plowed to make room to park cars.

Panda Bear Here:
Last weekend, we gots lots and lots of snow. Here at Casa Caban, we got about two feets of snow by the time the it stopped snowing late Saturday night. Mommy and Daddy stayed inside most of the day and played with us! Twice, they opened the front door and let us walk around on the front porch.

It was so much fun! I dug in the snow, and bit it and ate some of it.

I enjoyed myself very much. Here I am taking a leisurely stroll on the porch.

It took Mom and Dad many, many hours to dig out the driveway and the-room-that-moves. It became the-room-that-doesn’t-move. This is what it looked like before they started digging. It’s almost invisibubble:

Mommy said that she could not lift her arms above her shoulders for the rest of the week. We think that she is a wuss.

Of course, Mommy made sure to feed the beaver squirrels and the birds (the ones that did not fly south, like the blue jays and snowbirds).

We enjoyed watching the blue jays and squirrels out the big tall windows. Do you like our stalking technique? The snow was so deep that we could use it to hide behind, so the blue jay wouldn’t see us.

Even though it was fun to play in the snow, we are very grateful to be indoor kitties! See how deep the snow was?

These are my footy prints in the snow:

OK. The snow was fun. But it can go away now. When will Spring get here?! Mom keeps saying that she is “OVER the snow already”.