arduinna | One year later, they are not so much kittens anymore

One year ago, I went off to a local shelter in search of a bonded pair of young cats, and wound up with a very sweet pair of 8-month-old brothers I named Darien (orange) and Hobbes (brown & black). *points to icon*

They're now 20 months old and in the last month or so have suddenly stopped looking like kittens; they've turned into young cats instead. And they are still so very cute and sweet. <3

So in honor of their adoptaversary, have some pics!

These are "sleepy pods", carriers that can double as cat beds if you zip the domed top off. I brought them on their first vet visit in these last year, and took the tops off as soon as I got home. They sat completely empty all year, until I put the tops back on a couple weeks ago to bring them for their annual checkup. I left the tops on because I need to bring them back in early March for more shots.

Darien promptly decided that they were the best forts EVER, and is in that particular sleepy pod almost every day (it's "his", the one I took him to the vet in). Once he got into Hobbes's, though, and I finally had a chance to take a picture of him hanging out in his fort the way he does.

If he isn't there, he may be trying to "cuddle" with me, which means being somewhere near me, because he isn't really a lap cat. This is both adorable and hysterical, because he is no longer a tiny cat - he's not huge, but he's almost 12 pounds, and shaped, as

mollyamory put it, like a bowling pin on legs. And yet he managed this a couple of months ago, tucking himself into the bookcase near my chair:

Hobbes, meanwhile, has decided that this fuzzy white blanket is the best thing EVER, and is curled up -- or sprawled out -- in it almost all the time.

They also hang out together, usually to play rather than cuddle. This is "Da Bird", the favorite toy in the house:

They discovered the fridge this fall, when my landlady had some work done in the kitchen and I cleared the (formerly very crowded) fridge top off. They fell in love with it, so these days it only has a few things on it, so they have room (if I don't keep it cleared off, Dari will do it for me...)

But Dari has really claimed it as his domain; he's up there almost every day, hanging out on the front corner sleeping or keeping an eye on things.

This is not always an awesome thing, really.

... yeah. That's a turkey breast he's got his eyes on. Five minutes earlier, he'd been parked in front of the stove waiting diligently for it to come out of the oven.

Hobbes doing what a Hobbes does, checking out a box:

And declaring it good:

They both adore people food (as evidenced by the turkey lust above), and any time I'm in the kitchen, they're right there with me, either sitting on the table to watch me work, or getting right into things.

(No pie was contaminated during the inspection of this process.)

They're fascinated by green beans in particular. IDEK.

They're also fascinated by anything I'm eating, by which I mean they would like me to give them their fair share. Now.

I'm eating a bowl of soup here: