Belle!

Well we have a new addition to our family. Now as my sister was asking...how did you guys decide on this, M and I couldn't really remember. :-) Other then the kids have been asking for a new pet but we don't want to get a new dog until they are both old enough to help out. So we decided this would be something that would help them learn how to take care of an animal. We got all the cage and other stuff this morning and put it together by noon. Then we ate lunch and went to the Y and then back out to look at hamsters. We watched how they acted with just us putting our hands up to them and stuff...not really petting b/c didn't want to scare them too bad. This is the one that I decided that was not very skittish and seemed active and interested in things. We were told (even though the book we got didn't say this) that we should keep her in the cage for 24-48 hours before handling so she can get use to all the "new" stuff. So we are doing that. Tomorrow night we will give her a few treats and let her get use to us....really just one of us handling her to begin with. We also picked out a purple sparkly exercise ball so she can run around the house in it. She will live in the kids room so this should be interesting to say the least, but fun. It's also funny she has a "house" down in the main part but it looks like she has decided that the green pod off to the side (right in the picture) of the tube is going to be her sleeping place...which will be nice b/c then we can still see her when she sleeps. I am sure I will have updates as the next few days go by.