Kittens! (Introducing Poppy and Sesame)

Rare pic of all three kitties

We weren't initially in a hurry to get another cat after Oreo died, since none would be as awesome as Oreo was, but it very quickly became clear that Pepper was not very happy as an only cat.  I don't know if she was lonely exactly, or if she was just bored.  But she was noticeably needy with us, especially when we left her home alone, even for only a few hours!  So we decided pretty quickly that we'd need to find her a new friend.  (To be fair, Rob and I were also super needy with Pepper -- often competing for Pepper's affections, and lap presence.)

Poppy and Sesame

We figured at Pepper's age, getting one young cat would be a recipe for annoyance.  So we decided to get two kittens, who could annoy each other, but still keep Pepper company.  So we started looking around at various rescues and shelters to see what we could find.  We weren't particularly looking for more black and white cats, but boy are there are a lot of black cats (and tuxedo cats) out there to adopt!  And then Rob fell in love with "Bonnie and Belle" -- but mostly Bonnie, a very pipsqueaky looking black kitten.

Poppy in a hammock in my office

When we went to meet Bonnie and Belle, we also met their sister, Hobbes.  Bonnie was the smallest one, who Rob was obsessed with.  We couldn't really decide how to pick between Hobbes and Belle, but Hobbes seemed kind of into Rob, so we broke the tie like that.  When we picked out Pepper and Oreo, Rob picked Oreo and Pepper picked Rob.  So this seemed similar, and that worked out well.  (If it sounds terrible to take two out of the three sisters, don't worry -- they had a brother too, who Belle was eventually adopted with.)

Sesame keeping the cable modem warm

I'm not really into cats with people names, so of course, we had to pick some new names.  We stuck with the food theme, and after considering quite a few black food words, we finally settled on Poppy (for Bonnie) and Sesame (for Hobbes) -- also known as "the seeds".  Pepper also got a new nickname -- the Giant, because she looked huge compared to the little teeny kittens!

Pepper the Giant

What we refer to as a "Peps-Pops pile"