Joe & Marissa Taylor: What happened to the Taylors in January 2012??

Well this year has started off really great and were excited for all the adventures that will come our way in 2012!

This month we had Joe's youngest brother Davids Birthday! He is now officially 23 years old haha! Happy Birthday David!
That same weekend Joe's sister Cassie and her son Jacob flew in for the birthday as well as Davids homecoming talk and party! It was so fun to have Cassie here and get to start the year by spending some time with her and our nephew Jacob!
Davids talk was FANTASTIC and really showed how much he had learned on his mission and how much he has grown up over the past 2 years! The party was lots of fun, all the family came, and it was nice to spend time with them and munch on yummy food and mouth watering deserts!
From left: John,Dorothy, Jacob and Cassie

From Left: Thomas,David and Joe getting food (of course ha)

This month I have caught the baking bug! I am OBSESSED with baking cupcakes lately and it its so fun for me! Anyone who knows me knows that I have always loved to cook and bake but there is something about making cupcake creations from scratch that is so fulfilling!
These are just a few of the mouth watering creations I have made over the past month:
Double chocolate Chip Cupcake with Heath Bar Chocolate Frosting garnished with Heath bar crumbs and a Carmel Glaze

Devil Foods cake Cupcakes with Vanilla Butter cream Frosting garnished with a fondant pint heart

Chocolate Cupcake with peanut butter butter cream frosting garnished with a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup

Now that we were coming to a close for January (unseasonably warm weather for January by the way = AWESOME!) we had to make a VERY difficult decision to find a new home for our adorable and super sweet kitties, Simba & Panther. :( It was so hard to make this decision because we have loved and took care of these cats for the past 5 years but over the past 3 years I have been struggling with super bad allergies to them and was having to take an allergy pill EVERYDAY to live with them and now that we want to begin to have children my doctor said its very unhealthy to be taking an allergy pill everyday while being pregnant. We knew this was coming for a long time but we waited as long as we could because we knew it would be so hard (and it is, :'( ) So we posted them on KSL the last weekend in January for free (and with all the fixings) to a nice, loving FOREVER HOME! 2 days later we got a call from a guy named Jake (a single guy) and he was very interested in them. After quizzing (poor guy sorry for the questions) him on himself and whether he was a good fit for Simba and Partner and doing an at home visit to see where they would be living AND having him over to meet the cats so we could get a feel about how the cats liked him (Panther LOVED him but Simba was shy) we finally decided to give the kitties to him! We truly feel they are going to a very good home and will get much more attention with him then they were getting from us (it was hard for us to pet them a lot because of our allergies) but it still hurts to give them up none the less (they were our first real pets)! Simba and Panther were born on January 5th 2007 and became a part of our family right away! They lived with me (with joe visiting a lot) all through college and in several apartments and finally got to live with us both when we got married in 2009 (which is also when we found out that I developed high allergies to them)! We have really loved having these kitties apart of our little family and I know Maddux LOVED them too! We will miss them dearly (its hard to think about it because it makes us very sad) and know they will be in our hearts and memory forever! WE LOVE YOU SIMBA AND PANTHER!
Both loved to cuddle under our bathroom sink!

Panther: VERY sweet and purred A lot. loves people, feathers and lazor pointer.

Simba: Talkative, mischievous, and cautious. he warmed up to people after awhile and once he was comfortable he was VERY playful. He loved to play with Maddux and look outside all windows. He loved food and would sit and stare at you and meow if he was out. Loved all kinds of feathers!