Hannah's 10th Birthday and A Hamster Tale

Wanted to get some pictures up to remember Hannah's 10th birthday by.  A little late, but better late than never. Hannah's 10th birthday fell on the first day of school this year ( Sept 6)...Hannah's first day of 4th grade.  Time has flown by and it's hard to grasp she is in her last year at the elementary school.  I will miss that school. Although she will adjust to the middle school, there is a little less connection, a little less family like atmosphere that Dassel Elementary has. That school and it's faculty and staff will always be treasured. Hannah had ALL different teachers than Bailey had, so we had the oppourtunity to meet , many of the terrific teachers at Dassel Elem. 

We celebrated Hannah's birthday on Sunday, the day before school started with a small party. She enjoyed having the family over to celebrate her day and open her presents.
At her request she got a "Phineas and Ferb" birthday cake, which is one of her favorite shows.

We also celebrated her birthday on her real birthday date, on Monday night after school we headed to St Cloud for Bailey's hockey game.   We left early to eat supper at Space Aliens before the game. 

On Tuesday the next day as she went to school, my parents and I headed to the Mall of America to pick up her birthday present from us. The American Girl Doll--Kanani. She is the Girl of the Year doll, so she will be unavailable after Dec 31. Hannah really wanted her before she was gone, it's a doll that is Hawaiian, and it reminds her of her Hawaiian friend, Mileka who is now in heaven.

Hannah also made another purchase over the Labor Day weekend sales in Dassel.  She found 3 complete hamster cages with all accessories, and she has been determined all summer that she wanted hamsters.  Finding all this at a sale was her dream come true. I kept telling her NO all weekend, that we were not getting hamsters.  HA HA I finally gave into the thought, on the exception that she used her birthday money to pay for the cages and hamsters when we got them.  She had saved her money from last birthday as well, so she figured she would have enough for the cages and hamsters.  She did all her research online and came up with names before we even had them. The end of September, on a Sat morning, we went to the pet store in Hutchinson, where we were told all their hamsters are raised there, and handled alot-- therefore more friendly. Hannah fell in love with 2 little siberian white dwarf hamsters.  We went to the pet store to get 2 hamsters, but in this particular cage there were 3, thought about getting all 3, but when I saw how much little teeny tiny hamsters cost we only had enough money for 2.  Here are Hannah and her hamsters after we brought them home.

"Bella and Zendaya"

Here is the cage set up that she got at a garage sale for $40

For the first week, we had the cages set up in Hannah's bedroom. It worked out ok, but there was one of the spinning wheels that was kinda noisey, and at certain times the 2 hamsters would "fight" and one would be squeeking. It was just a little territorial play, I think, and they both got along well with access to all the cages together, since they were brought up in the same cage at the pet store. We did end up bringing all the cages downstairs-- besides the noisy wheel and squeeking that would occassionly keep us up at night, we discovered one week after we got them-- Sat. morning that one hamster was missing.  Hannah freaked out, as did I...we all got up and started searching for the missing hamster. I didn't have the cage together totally right, and there was a hole at the top and learned a lesson that hamsters can climb cages and get out. It was Zendaya that got out.  We searched all morning, and continued to search off and on the rest of the day and night.  NOTHING. We didn't have  a clue how to find something so small....we were worried the cats got her, but there were no signs of anything. We needed a clue. Made another last search before bedtime without any luck.  We thought since they are night animals that maybe she would be spotted or on the move.

I work up about 3:30am to Lou barking downstairs...just one bark-- he did that twice.  I thought he had to go out-- it is rare for him to have to go out in the middle of the night, but it has happened, so came down to let him out, he bolted out the door, so thought he really had to go.  Searched the floor for signs of a hamster, but never thought Lou may had just seen her.  Brought him in after  few minutes, looked over the floor and went back to bed.

I woke up at 7:30am to get up for church, came down to take a shower.  There,  laying on the floor in the laundry room, where Lou sleeps was a blob of what I thought was Lou had thrown up (didn't have my glasses on) .  When I got closer , I saw it was Zendaya our missing hamster....lifeless.  She made it all the way from up in Hannah's room to downstairs in the laundry room, where Lou musta got her in the night. dont think he tried , but he saw something and probably just pawed at it, killing it. It musta happened within the 3-4 hours since I was down letting him out and figured his barks and energy level must have been from seeing the hamster. I wish I woulda figured that out sooner.  I was glad we finally had answer as to where she was, it was so frustrating not knowing where or what happened to her. I cried my eyes out while wrapping her up in a washcloth and then proceeding to take my shower.   I went to show Hannah after, and it was time to get her up.  When I went upstairs she was already up and holding her other hamster, Bella.  I told her I found Zendaya this morning, but it was not good news.

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Hannah wanted to go back to the pet store and get the little hamster sister we left there. I said we should just stick to one for now. We fixed the cage and got it put together without having a "escape hole", cuz now we know they can escape when given a hole, even it's at the top.  After church we went out and buried little Zendaya and Hannah painted a stone with her name on it and placed  it in my flower garden where she is buried.  The whole thing was so sad...hard to believe, but it was.

Steve said she should go get another hamster, and when daddy gave her the money to purchase another one, we went back to the pet store.  I was nervous to head back in there, and didn't want to tell the store owner one of the ones we got last week had escaped and was killed by our dog.  So I kinda sorta lied, and said we wanted to get the 3rd one that was in the cage with the ones we bought last week.  She hesitated a bit trying to figure out who we were and which one we wanted, and then stated that even after 7-10 days of seperation hamsters will fight-- they are territorial and fight to kill. I said just after that short of time??  they are sisters, won't they remember each other?? She said we can try it and if worse came to worse we would have to put this one in a seperate cage. I figured that would never have to happen, and happily agreed to buy another hamster.  Hannah was happy.

So we get home and put "Zendya" ( newly named 3rd hamster Zen- die-a vs. Zen-day-a) in with Bella.  Immediately Bella attacked her. Hannah was freaking out.  I got her out of there as quickly as I could. Whoa!!  That was some nasty hamster fighting.  Bella didn't want her anywhere near her.  The pet store lady was right, the 10 seconds that Zendya was in the cage with Bella she had her ear almost bit off.  She had a sore spot next to her ear. We seprated the cages and have kept them seperate ever since.  We have had them sniff noses from behind closed cage doors, and each time they get all rilled up. We will never be able to keep them together.  Hannah was very upset at this situation, that she wanted to bring her back to the pet store.  We almost did that, but Hannah changed her mind and we have learned how to enjoy them seperately. 

 No hamster mishaps for awhile now!! :) 

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Hannah will be having a birthday party with her friends for Halloween this Saturday. (Oct 29).  We got around to planning a birthday party kinda late and thought it would be fun to incoorporate Halloween.  Alot of planning goes into something like this when Hannah invited 12 friends and 5 cousins. So far haven't heard that someone isn't coming-- so we will be having a FULL house.