Riley and Avery

Sprinkles on a free run.

Twinkles exploring her cage.

Twinkles and Sprinkles (yes, I lost the battle of the names!)

Twinkles with Avery.

Twinkles and Riley.

So, introducing our new rabbits! And man are they HUGE!! They are already eating us out of house and home. They're cage is WAY too small, and it was the biggest they sold in the pet stores. So I'm in the process of building them a cage like the guinea pig's cage. I connected the wire shelving for the outside of the cage and am not just waiting to get to the sign shop for a sheet of corrugated plastic for the bottom. They definitely need more room. So, we'll have a cage to put on craigslist to see if we can recoup some of the cost of making the new one (the bigger cage is actually less expensive to make than the store-bought one).

Twinkles and Sprinkles both get out of their cage for several hours a day. They are still acclimating, so I'm not entirely sure what their personalities will be. Twinkles is content being held but prefers being petted while she's on the floor rather than in a lap. Sprinkles likes to go behind the couch and try to dig up the carpet. Naughty rabbit. She will come up to me and sit on my foot, or explore me, but is still a bit skittish if you try to reach out for her. She likes when we reach in the cage and pet her. Sprinkles is bigger, and is the submissive one of the pair, so that may be why she's more hesitant.

We are trying to litter box train them. I'd say that starting on day one, 95% of their pee and poop has wound up in the litter box. I'm thinking, though, that that has to do with how small their cage is. The litter box is in one corner, and their hay holder is in the other, so they sit on the litter box while eating. I think that's why the poop gets in there. We'll see how it is when they get their bigger cage. It was funny, the morning after we got them, I came downstairs and noticed that all their veggie were gone, all their pellets were gone, all the hay was gone, and the litter box was FILLED with poop. Man, those rabbits eat a lot! So far they are not nibblers when they are out of their cage, which is nice. But we still are keeping an eye out so they don't chew cords. And Sprinkles loooooooves grapes. I've heard that rabbits have a sweet tooth, so we only give them as treats.

We are supposed to be going today to get our tree. We're chopping one down again, but this year we're bringing our snowshoes so we can go further into the woods and get it. Perhaps that way we'll get a tree that not everyone will make fun of :)

Riley and Avery are eating the gingerbread train that we made yesterday. Don't worry Mom, I got picture before the feast began, and I'll post them next! Anyway, Riley is trying to dictate to Avery what she can and cannot eat. Finally Avery just said "I've had enough of 'dis!" and climbed down from the table. It was funny.

Riley is really starting to write even more. She knows how to write Abby (Abe), Vera (she spelled correctly on her own, but the "a" was backwards), Christmas (crismis), deer (der), Dad, Mom, crab, Max (macs), frog, cart (crt), cow (cao), bed (bid), dog, and bat. She kept asking me for more and more words to write, and finally she ran out of room on her paper.