Meet Kiwi, our Green Cheek Conure

So five years today my husband David and I got a bird. It was the cutest bird in the pet store.. for days I would just go to the store and play with him through the glass. I looked up all the information I could get on Green Cheek Conures (GCC) and I learned everything there was to know. I even named him before we bought him (oops?). I named him Kiwi. And apparently that is what made my husband make up his mind to get him. So I guess lesson learned? Name the animal you want and your family members will want to get it for you ;) 


All kidding aside I love my Kiwi.  He loves for me to scratch his head, he cries when we leave the room, he loves to sit on my shoulder or to hide in my bathrobe when it is cold, he repeatedly says "I want some" whenever I am eating, regardless of what it is and he LOVES to shower in the sink (he'll shower in the shower too but he prefers the sink!)  All in all he has been such a wonderful bird who is playful, cute, and really not high maintenance (unless you consider the fact that you can't do dishes without him flying over to you and trying to jump into the sink high maintenance lol).  We decided to let his feathers grow so that he can fly.  And he actually has learned to figure out which room in the house we are in and can fly to us and land on our shoulder which can catch you by surprise if you didn't remember you left the cage open! 


This is a picture of Kiwi the day we got him (11/17/2006)

5 month old Kiwi

Kiwi was born in June of 2006.  My husband and I had just gotten married that June.  So of course I thought Kiwi was destined to be ours! Now Kiwi is 5 and my husband and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary this past June. This is my most current picture of Kiwi. This is also Kiwi's way of telling me "I want a shower!" He flew to the kitchen sink faucet:

5 year old Kiwi

Alright enough about my bird ;) Now onto food! In June I decided to make a cool lunch for Eliana to celebrate Kiwi's birthday. Sorry for the poor quality in advance.  It was taken with my phone and it was dark that day! 

Happy 5th Birthday Kiwi! :)

I made the parrot sandwich out of a spinach tortilla filled with ham and cheese cut with a parrot cookie cutter.  I cut some of the beak out the spinach tortilla and use a food safe marker to color the cheese underneath to make it look like a beak. For the maroon colored belly I cut out the shape with fruit leather.


The "perch" is a bread crust


The cupcake was cheese that I cut with a small cookie cutter and then decorated it with food safe markers.


"Kiwi" was cut out with cheese with alphabet cutters


I added some raspberries and blueberries for the border


This lunch was fun to do and Eliana loved it! Next time I try to make a sandwich like Kiwi I may want to try to add more colorful tail feathers, but for a first try I was really happy with it.