Meet Maddi And The Rest Of Our Summer

Shortly after our return from Costa Rica, our hearts were aching to try to fill the space that our Freddie Boy left behind. So we went to a local shelter to look at kittens. Michael was excited about this because ever since he met me, I'd had the three adult cats. They took a while to warm up to him, and he never felt like they truly accepted him (typical cat attitude, huh?) So he looked forward to the idea of picking out a kitten together that would be just as attached to him as to me. So on that note, we'd like to introduce you to our newest addition to our family:




Her name is Maddi, short for our favorite kind of date, the Medjool date. The shelter lady was so excited for us to adopt her and said that unfortunately the black cats are harder to adopt out. Silly superstitious people!






Although there is some truth to the fears...Maddi does act possessed by a demon on occasion. We joke and call her Mad Cat or that she has an evil twin, Caddi, who sometimes takes over her personality.







Seeing as how our other two cats HATE her (perhaps because Maddi keeps trying to chew on their tails and pounce on them?), she has resorted to buddying up with the dogs. We think she believes she's a tiny dog too.


The dogs were so curious about her from the beginning, sniffing her underneath the bathroom door.





She's crazy sometimes, but she's a cute fit in our family.



Other updates since Costa Rica:

More Pet Cuteness


Someone who wanted to workout with us.


And a whole lot of sleepy going around.





Garden
God has blessed us well with the garden this summer. We've been swimming in squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, and watermelon. We even hunted around town and found a very mature fig tree that no one was harvesting from - their loss is our delicious gain!






A Very Thoughtful Gift
Suzanne, the student intern who attended to Fred while he was hospitalized was so kind to paint a watercolor portrait of him and send it to us to remember him by. She will make a wonderful veterinarian with her heart of compassion!



Approved and Waiting
We found out we were officially approved to adopt through our agency and are now waiting to be chosen by a birth mother. You can follow our adoption journey on Hope Does Not Disappoint.

Family and Home Life Pictures
Because we have been approved, the next thing we had to do was finish our profile book, which meant taking some pictures of family and our home life.



Silly pictures and all. Hey, we're just being ourselves.


We even had a Family Movie Night. We watched God's Not Dead, ate dinner together, and had banana chocolate pudding for dessert (all plant-based of course). It was so much fun!


Travel System
We also started shopping around for a travel system because an infant car seat is the one thing we absolutely have to have in order to bring a baby home. We have decided on the Graco FastAction Fold Jogger Click Connect Travel System/Click Connect 35 travel system. But it had to pass The Michael Test first (a.k.a. running around the store like a crazy person to try to test it for weaknesses).




One Republic Concert
We attended a One Republic concert and had a great time. This time around, we bought pre-assigned seating tickets so that we could get there whenever we wanted to (rather than first come first serve on the lawn). It was worth the increased price in my opinion. We shopped around at a Babies R Us (where we confirmed the above travel system is the one we want to get someday), ate dinner at Salata, and then went to the concert. Christina Perri was one of the opening acts, and she was wonderful too. One Republic was really good and they played a lot of familiar songs.

Prelude to Spring

The Yagers (mainly Michael) have been busy bees during the winter in preparation for springtime.


BEFORE: We literally had a dump truck bring us a load of compost and mulch.


Thanks to Josh's help one long morning, we moved most of it to the backyard.


AFTER: Phew, that was exhausting!


Michael first had to spend time tweaking our sprinkler system so that the trees will receive proper watering. He did this all himself!


He rented a sod-cutter and began removing 10 feet of grass along the back and side of the yard.


The sod-cutter made it so much easier than to remove with a shovel!


My OCD tendency showed because I liked when the sod neatly rolled up...


After Michael spent a lot more time removing the fine chunks of remaining grass, he could cover it with compost, and then treat the soil so it will be nutrient-rich for tree-planting.


Some of the trees will bear more fruit if you spread the branches out, so Michael made "branch spreaders" using wood scraps and placed them in some of the trees.


This was one of the peach trees as it first started to bloom.


It quickly began to have more blossoms and leaves.


We still had our garden box full of kale, and we easily yielded enough kale to more than cover the cost of planting it (compared to buying from the store). Dino kale is our favorite kind!

All in all, Michael planted:
4 Apple trees
57 Blackberry bushes
2 Pineapple Guava bushes
5 Fig trees
4 Bunch Grape vines
2 Muscadine Grape vines
2 Mayhaw trees
5 Peach trees
4 Asian Pear trees
4 European Pear trees
2 Plum trees
1 Satsuma Mandarin Orange tree

Since Michael has gained an interest in gardening, we both have begun to appreciate the natural beauty in God's creation.


A beautiful Chinese Pistache tree that's at our work. They turn this vibrant red color every fall!


We are so thankful to have such a quiet and peaceful backyard to enjoy sunsets right from our porch.


Another beautiful sunset in Texas

Other random happenings include:


Michael buying a power tower...and putting it in his office


For New Year's, we hung out with some friends from Bible Study. One of them has a pet snake and it was really cool to play with. I think she (the snake) was cold, because she kept trying to get into my hoodie's pocket.


We bought some horse stall mats for our garage gym. They make doing Insanity videos so much cushier, and we can still park the car when we're done.


While riding our bikes one day, we noticed a hidden garden/park at a local church. It was such a beautiful and peaceful place, we hope to visit regularly.


We got our first snow in our new house! It wasn't much, but it stuck for a full day.







And no blog post would be complete without the other members of the family...


Ethel putting Fred in a sleeper hold


He got her back one day though


Lots of lazy dogs and cats in our household this winter






Ginger just loves to weasel her way UNDER the blanket I attempt to cover the couches with


And this is what happened when we left the dogs outside after a rainy day. We were especially surprised because Ginger normally hates to get dirty. She must have had a lot of pent up energy!


No shortage of energy here!


I can't stay mad at her for too long though



Could she get any cuter??