Zoo

Last week, Mark took Jacob and Sarah to the zoo for some daddy bonding time.  It was all Mark's idea and I have to admit, I was a little jealous, but mostly so so happy that these kiddos could go and spend some quality time with their Daddy.  

Mark said it was a perfect morning and they loved their time together.  These kiddos have a pretty great Dad.  

Also, I am assured that Sarah was there too.  However, she was not pictured - tisk tisk!

Sarah's Hearing

This has been quite the journey for our sweet, little Sarah.  For those that have followed the blog you'll remember the ride we have been on with Sarah and her hearing.  If not, you can catch up here, here and here.  

Ever since we moved to Utah in December of 2014 we were planning on getting Sarah checked out with her hearing.  But 2015 was definitely not an easy year for our family and we were never able to get her seen due to insurance issues.  

Now that we are finally settled in Idaho Falls we have been doing all sorts of doctor and dental visits and we finally were able to get Sarah into an audiologist today.  

I wasn't really sure how the appointment was going to go.  In the past they were very long (usually three hours) and Sarah needed to be sleeping or at least "at rest".  Sarah is a very active little girl and I wasn't sure how they were going to perform the tests.  She did amazingly well.  Mark is in town and so we were both able to go (and Jacob was able to go play with a friend which was so helpful!).  

Sarah is seriously the sweetest little thing.  I could gush about this little one all day.  We were so hoping and praying that after this appointment we could finally end all of this.  However, after performing all of the tests (which Sarah sat so patiently on Mark's lap the entire time!) we had some happy/sad conclusions.  

Sarah does have some mild hearing loss in both ears.  This was hard to hear for Mark and I.  The good news is that they believe it can be fixed and there doesn't appear to be anything structurally wrong with her ears that would indicate the need for hearing aids.  There is still quite a bit of fluid in both of her ears which the audiologist believes once removed (with tubes) should allow her to hear completely.  

So the next step is that we will be meeting with an ENT and, most likely, schedule a surgery for tubes to get put in her ears.  The thought of surgery really scares me (I've never had surgery of any kind before so it is just unknown territory for me) but I know it is very common.  We are so very grateful that there is a solution for her though.  It look like we will have to be on this hearing journey a little longer.  

We love you, sweet girl.  

Home Improvements

We've been trying to make our house a little bit more like our "home" lately and are loving it! 

A couple months ago I got (what I thought) was a brilliant idea to paint our main living space upstairs.  After living in stark white apartments I was definitely ready for some color.  The nice thing about our home is that it isn't white but all a very neutral beige color.  It is nice but I wanted something more.  I don't know where it came from but I just kept thinking BLUE!  When I first told Mark he was a little nervous but luckily he is so wonderfully supportive and jumped on board the painting train with me.  

Several big concerns came up once we got going but the first one was where to start and stop the paint.  Our main floor is pretty open (which I love) so we weren't sure where to stop and start the blue paint because we knew we didn't want it to be the entire color.  Once we had a game plan in mind we also decided that while we were painting the walls we also needed to paint the ceiling.  Everything (including the ceiling) was in that beige neutral color and we definitely didn't want to keep the ceiling that color when we were painting the walls blue. 

After getting all of the supplies we waited until Mark had a couple days off in a row and set to work.  So all together we were painting our kitchen (ahhh!), our family room and the entry hall blue.  And we foolishly thought we would be able to whip this out in three days.  It definitely started to feel like the project that would never end!  

We started with the kitchen (which I don't know if that was a good choice or not because that definitely proved to be the hardest) and that took us three days!  Sadly we had to put two coats up on the ceiling to cover the beige and so that took a lot of time.  We also decided to paint the inside of our windowsills white (as they were also the beige color rather than painting them blue) so all of that took time that we didn't plan on.  Plus, Mark and I are both perfectionist and so there was a lot of going back and forth when things weren't perfect - which all amounted to a lot of time!

After the kitchen it took us a good month and a half before we even started anything else!  Mark had to do some crazy things to get in high corners over our staircase but IT IS DONE!  We are loving it.  And no one was more surprised than me when we finally finished and Mark says, "well, now we just have to paint the whole house!"  I have changed him to a man in love with color and I love it!  I am so grateful that he was so willing to spend his rare days off to indulge me in this project.  It just feels like such a happier space to us and we love it.  We love the contrast between the blue and the white ceilings as well as the existing trim!

***Also, I just realized I never took pictures of it completely finished.  Finished pictures to come!***

Who knows how long we will be able to hold out before painting more!

We've also been trying to help our outside space a little more.  The outside of our home was definitely something we knew from the get-go needed some love.  So we have started to make some improvements and are excited to make more once the warm weather kicks in for good!  

We decided to paint the door yellow - insert added happiness here - and I am so obsessed with it!  Again, Mark is such a trooper and just goes along with all of my ideas!  It was such an easy quick afternoon project (which was a welcome relief from our master painting project inside) and has made such a difference.  We love it.  

We got some chairs that match to go on the porch and then cleaned out the existing flower bed.  We also cleaned out one of the beds that was just filled with gravel (I don't understand this trend here in Idaho) and filled it with bark dust.  SO MUCH BETTER!  My Mom and I (a couple weeks ago on her visit) dug down some of the curbing (is that what it's called?) around the trees because they were just laid on top before.  Mark also fixed our flooding problem and really built up the flower bed so we hopefully do not have any more flooding coming into our basement.  Overall, they were super cheap and easy improvements that made such a big difference.  

So that's some of what we have been up to in our "down time" lately.  We love having a home of our own!

These two need to be given some love for how patient they have been through these projects!  Jacob LOVED all of the painting!  He would just sit on the floor and watch Mark and I paint for hours!  It was great and weird that he was so content to literally watch paint dry but we love him for it!  Sarah was definitely more of a rascal during the paint project and just wanted to touch everything and climb up the ladder constantly but she wouldn't be our mischievous little girl if she acted any differently!  They were really both such troopers!

Then, of course, either of them (especially Sarah!) would spend their entire lives outside if we let them.  So the outside projects were a breeze and could have lasted forever.  They loved helping me scoop up the rock into a bucket and are such good little workers.  Jacob's not such a fan of getting dirty but is so willing to help though.  Sarah is the complete opposite and looks like she is raised in a barn half the time and loves getting dirty.  After one of these days outside I picked her up to take her in and felt all sorts of unknown substances inside her lower section.  It wasn't the culprit you might think!  I took off her pants and opened her onesie to NO LESS than twenty little rocks she had put down her shirt.  

We love these little rascals.  

Elder's Quorum Instructor

Mark was called to be an Elder's Quorum Instructor in our ward.  It's great that it gives him a little more to do with the ward!  He is excited for the opportunity!

Grammy Visit

Last week my Mom came up for a visit and it was so wonderful!  It was the first time we've had someone come visit us and stay at our home!  The kiddos were in heaven with Grammy here and enjoyed lots of playing.  

Mark and I had a bunch of home improvement projects planned before we knew she was coming so sadly we didn't get out of the house much but we were able to get a lot done around the house which was great!  

We loved having you here, Grammy!  We miss you!  Come again soon!

March Madness

Congrats have to go to Mark!  

He was our winner this year - enjoy your milkshake! ;)

1st Place:  MARK

2nd Place:  ELISE

3rd Place:  JACOB

4th Place:  SARAH

Choices

"It has been said that the door of history turns on small hinges, and so do people's lives.  The choices we make determine our destiny.  

May we choose to build up within ourselves a great and powerful faith which will be our most effective defense against the designs of the adversary - a real faith, the kind of faith which will sustain us and will bolster our desire to choose the right.

May we maintain the courage to defy the consensus.  May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.

As we contemplate the decisions we make in our lives each day...if we choose Christ, we will have made the correct choice."

Choices

By President Thomas S. Monson