Alfie - kitten pics (~5 months)

I'm kind of disappointed at how these came out.  I fixed the exposure a bit, but now they're slightly over-exposed (I wanted a little bit of that, but maybe I went too far).  Also, I shot almost all of them at ISO 800, so there's a fair amount of noise, amplified by my fixing the initial under-exposure.  I guess it's a learning experience.  As I've said before, I'm new to photography and am still learning.

In any case, here are some photos of Alfie I took on Saturday.  After ending up with only 6 decent photos of Ollie after he died (I thought I had plenty of time with him to create memories), I'm not letting that ever happen again. (They're clickable thumbnails).

Alfie at ~5 months Clickable Thumbnails

Oh and also, any tips on improving my photography skills would be welcomed. :)

So, I've been noticing that at full size, these images are just riddled with noise from the high ISO.  What terrible quality.  I feel that I pushed my P&S to the limit, but I got this camera (Canon S95) to hold me over until the Nikon D4 and D800 came out.  Didn't want to spend my money on a DX format DSLR - only FX format (much larger sensor). Supposedly the D800 comes out this month.  I'm hoping I can shoot at lower ISOs with the larger sensor.  Gotta wonder how long it's going to take me to afford either one of those cameras though.

Aside from more light and a longer exposure, any tips on noise reduction without quality reduction?  And for that matter somehow getting away with lower ISOs?

He's a looker.  That's for sure.  He's also very sweet and loving.  Ollie would have loved him.

They get along at times.  Other times, Ally kind of hates him a little.  I think she's just feeling confused still about there being no Ollie and Alfie being around.  They cuddle and play though, which is a good sign, but sometimes Ally hisses at him to leave her be.