Goodbye Sweet Dirkins....

While we celebrated Landon's 1st birthday this past weekend, we also lost a dear member of our family. Our sweet little cat - Dirkins - unexpectedly passed away Saturday night after being attacked outside. Despite our efforts to save her, she died during the night at the emergency vet clinic. This blog is all about our family, and she was definitely a part of us - one of the "Thomas Kiddos-" so I wanted to properly honor her on our blog. She was only 7 years old, and we miss her terribly and have been having a very hard time. I got her when she was a kitten from the Charlotte Humane Society... Brandon and I picked her out together when we were dating - he actually "bought" her for me, so the deal was he got to name her. She was an incredibly sweet cat and one that I completely trusted around Grady and Landon. She would never scratch them (even when their "playing" was pulling her tail, etc.), and often times when we had a hysterical baby/toddler (for whatever reason) Dirkins was the only one that could calm them down. We would actually go looking for her in those situations, and that always did the trick to distract them. She had a very quirky and funny personality, which is what made her so unique. The place she loved in our house was the upstairs hallway and stairs (for some reason), and we always joked that whenever we walked anywhere, she was right under our feet doing figure eights. She was also always my special buddy when I was nursing the boys during the night....we were always up together when the rest of the house was asleep, and she loved following Brandon all over the house (including to the closet and the bathroom) when he was getting ready in the morning. She had such a presence in our family, so our house feels really empty now without her. We love and miss you Dirkins and will never forget you!