meet our newest family member

as long as i have known cade, he has wanted a cat. since we have been married, cade has constantly threatened to come home with a kitty the first chance he gets. i, in return, threaten that if he ever did bring a cat home, he would be living with just the cat from then on. you see, i have never liked cats. growing up, we had dogs, guinea pigs, snakes, geese, birds, lizards, fish, crabs, salamanders, rabbits and toads- but NEVER a cat. truth is: i am afraid of cats. they have claws, persnickety personalities and i have even seen them bite. i NEVER wanted a cat.

well, a few weeks ago i was chatting with a neighbor who told me she recently had to get a cat after she realized that the mice were invading her house this spring. i thought to myself how tragic her life was- mice AND a cat!? that is HORRIFIC! well folks, i kid you not- that very day when i was cleaning up my kitchen i spotted something that looked vaguely familiar. could it be? yes... it was a mouse poopy. my neighbor cursed me. the next day, i found another. this was an all time low in the taylor home because i had a choice to make. we could...

a) pretend none of this is happening and see how long it takes the mice to completely take over

b) set traps or lay poison- both of which i want to keep far from little vi

c) get a cat or...

d) move

i figure option 'a' is just immature, 'b' was only a temporary solution, and 'd' would not guarantee that my next home would be mouse-free. so- would i REALLY consider option c????

well, it just so happened that the very week this little mouse (i like to pretend there was just one) made his appearance (i also like to think the mouse is a boy), my sister was making the move from denver to lehi. she was taking her dogs, but wasn't able to keep her cat. could this be the instant solution?

answer: yes.

cade is in heaven!

thus, sookie moved in and has made herself at home. she really is a pretty cat- even with those fangs and claws. i think she likes it here and i am slowly learning how to overcome this fear.

the best news of all: no sign of a single mouse.

little addy takes us all to the zoo!

for addy's birthday this year, she insisted we go to the zoo.

when the weather man said it was going to be a FREEZING cold day, she insisted.

when we gave other suggestions for a birthday celebration, she insisted.

when the rain started, she insisted.

but after the gorillas, the giraffes, the penguins, the tigers, the camels, the monkeys, the snakes, the birds and the chinchillas- we were ALL sure glad she insisted because we had a blast!

even this little beauty who insisted she sleep the whole time.

we had a fabulous time celebrating at the zoo with addy. happy birthday!

my summer home in salinas.

i loved this book. LOVED this book.

as an english major i am STILL shocked that i was never required to read this classic.... of mice and men, cannery row and selections from the grapes of wrath were all steinbeck's homework assignments- but little did i know this gem was somewhere up his sleeve.

bless you, jason, for choosing this as our book club book. bless you, steinbeck, for writing about such great characters. and bless you, readers of this blog, who pick this up for some summer reading.

TIMSHEL!

2 years already!?

last month (yes, i am still playing catch up) cade and i celebrated our second anniversary. time is FLYING by! i still remember the day i met cade like it was just last week. i was walking up the big hill in logan on my way to church on the first sunday after i moved back up to logan. as my roommate and i passed cade's apartment, he was walking out on his way up the hill too. now- i won't use the phrase 'love at first sight' - but i will say that there was something very intriguing about cade and it caught my attention. we chatted to church, through church and all the way home. on our way home, cade was commenting on how good of a day it had been and insisted we take a picture. this is us about 3 hours after we met...

three years later, i love looking at this picture. we have no idea that this little meeting on our way to church would lead to all of this....

it has been quite the adventure.

since cade and i switch off who will plan our anniversary each year, this year fell on him. after we both gave one another books last year, we decided to continue following traditional anniversary gift protocol. as this is our second year, it requires a gift of cotton. cade planned a trip to park city to pick up a few cotton clothing items for one another before heading to dinner and then off to the jazz playoff game. it was a blast.

looking at all the great times these first few years have been, i am excited about what is ahead. it is tough to imagine anything better than this....

violet's blessing

violet was given a name and a blessing in may and it was quite the event...

when i was blessed, my mom spent many-an-hour sewing my little dress for the special occasion. i have always loved it. my sister and i shared a room growing up and on special hooks on each side of the room hung our blessing dresses. it was fun to see the tiny dresses while i got older but years of hanging on the wall had left dust and yellowing behind. when my mom found out i was having a little girl, she pulled the dress out and began restoring it. i am so thankful- she did a fabulous job. violet looked so cute and i thoroughly enjoyed passing on this little heirloom.

i had to take a few without her bonnet to show off her luscious locks.

when vi was born, it was a freezing february outside which turned into a freezing march which turned into a mild april. so, naturally, we thought that if we blessed her in may the weather would be nice and the kids would have the yard to go nuts in. well... the mild april turned into a freezing may but we went ahead with the blessing regardless. the kids still braved the cold backyard but they were sure to stay bundled.

vi LOVED all the attention she was getting and freely handed out smiles... just not to the camera.

there may not have been much seating....

but we are so thankful to all the friends and family who supported our little family.

i love little violet and all the fun she brings. she is growing up so fast! now that she is feeling better, she is quite the chatterbox. she loves to hear her own voice and she sings all day long. lately, she has discovered a growling noise too. it is also so fun to see cade as a daddy. he is so loving and cute with vi. she lights up when her daddy is there to play. time is flying by!

we have a yard?

it is crazy to be living in a house- a place where we are actually required to fix broken things, fill your own nail holes and take care of a yard. it is quite the responsibility but we readily stepped up to the challenge. every saturday morning that we have free we roll out of bed, put on a pair of "work-hard-pants," as cade calls them, and head out to dig and prune. here are the yard projects 2010:

1. THE LAWN

when we first moved in, our yard was covered in snow; however, as the snow melted we started to understand what happens to a lawn when a house has been vacant for a year. it disappears. completely. if it was green and in our front yard- it was a weed. little nubbins of dry grass peeked through in places but overall it was a sad sight. when the weather started to warm up, our backyard turned into a jungle of fast-growing, lush, green weeds. since the front yard is a huge project to undertake, we just decided to mow the back weeds into a pseudo lawn for this first year. that will have to do.

to tackle the front yard, we started early and came out swinging. we have been busily weeding, planting and spraying to get some sort of lawn back and we are starting to see some results.

2. FLOWERS

i have always looked forward to having my own flower beds planted all pretty and nice. my mom always had flowers in our yard on all over our back deck and i loved it. with bright eyes and huge expectations, i headed over to home depot to gather all my flower friends to join me in the yard. it didn't take long for my dreams to be crushed... i quickly realized that flowers cost your right arm and filling a huge plot like mine- to fit my expectations- was going to require a second mortgage. i priced and perused and finally picked out my flowers for this year. i am a first time gardner but i think it went well for my inaugural plot. needless to say, after this first planting experience, i have learned much for next year. lesson one: plant them low- never grow, plant them high- never die. lesson two: don't plant flowers in may. repeated snow and hail storms will freeze them. lesson three: just like flowers, weeds grow. plan accordingly.

3. GARDEN

when i was a missionary, i was called as a welfare specialist and received extra training in the mtc on debt management, first aid, hygiene and gardening. we planted a square foot garden on the mtc grounds and the whole time i was digging and pruning i thought, "do they even have gardens in japan?"

turns out they didn't. BUT- they do have them in lehi and we wanted our own! cade set out to build us a nice planter box. we got some good soil and planted this year's crops. corn, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, strawberries, raspberries, and onions. square foot style. they are all growing like crazy and we are already seeing some ripen. we only did one planter box this year- but we are already excited to build another one next year and double our harvest.

4. THE PLUM TREE

as you can see by the picture- this project is pretty much failing. maybe we aren't the gardners we boast to be...

and finally... you may be asking, "where was violet this whole time?"

right here, of course! (yes that is what our back "lawn" looks like) vi is a little outdoor baby and she loves working in the yard.

Clean as a Whistle

So a second sample from Violet was tested and came back clean as a whistle. This sweet little one is on her way to accomplishing great things.

(Daddy-Daughter day at work)