Count Your Many Blessings

Our family has truly been blessed during the last month.  We are happy to announce that Craig is the new associate at Eagle Vision One in Eagle, Idaho.  He officially signed the contract yesterday, April 13, 2015.  Craig has worked very hard over the last 4 years not only in his school work but also networking with people in the Boise area.  We knew that the Boise area was very saturated with all kinds of health professionals, but knowing this would be our number one place to get a job, Craig started early.  He was constantly emailing different doctors or if we were in town he would stop by a few offices.  At the end of January we had gone back to Boise so that Craig could interview at several different places, he was offered a lot of part time work, but nothing full time.  All of the sudden a few weeks ago Craig was offered 3 different full time positions, one in Yakima, one in Nampa, and the other in Eagle.  After some negotiating and a lot of prayer and fasting he finally made the decision to become a part of Eagle Vision One.

The other blessing that we got was selling our house here in Memphis.  Our neighbor had recently sold their home to an investment group so we decided to give them a call.  They made us an offer and then sent a contractor out to see if they needed to take any amount off that offer because of repairs.  Luckily they kept their initial offer and we accepted it.  The process could not have been any easier.  We really lucked out.  Although we might have been able to get a few thousand more had we sold it traditionally, it was not worth it to have the stress of showing the home and wondering if it would sell before we moved.  We close on the house on May 11th and head out that same day. We feel so truly blessed right now and could not be any more excited about this next chapter of our lives.  As much as we have loved our time here in Memphis, we can't wait to get back to Boise and to our families.  I am so proud of Craig and know that he is going to be an amazing optometrist. Eagle Vision One is lucky to have him.  We know that the Lord has had His hand in all of this and hope to do our part to look for opportunities to bless others.

Happy Easter

Since General Conference was over Easter weekend our ward did their Easter program the Sunday before.  The choir did a great job and Brooklyn loved it.  I have never seen her sit so still during sacrament meeting, even with very noise kids behind us.  She was totally zoned in.  I forgot to get a picture of her in her Easter dress, but she was super cute.  One of these years I will get her a hat to go with her Easter dress like I used to wear back in the day.  The following Thursday, April 2nd, our ward had their Easter egg hunt.  They did a short program before they let the kids hunt for eggs and the whole time Brooklyn just kept saying, "egg hunt, egg hunt"  Everyone luckily just thought it was cute.  After the program they let the kids loose in the grass behind the church building.  Brooklyn was super excited and was a little picky with what color of eggs she wanted.  She would walk right passed an egg if she didn't like the color of it.  She especially loved the candy inside of the eggs.  We had to give the plastic eggs back, but we might have kept one, Brooklyn was obsessed with opening and closing it and it wasn't worth the tantrum that would have come had I taken it from her.

Craig had to go out of town Saturday night and was gone for a few days, so it was just me and Brooklyn for actual Easter.  Brooklyn wasn't feeling super great and was pretty grumpy so we didn't have the best of days, so needless to say I will be reading all of the conference talks in the near future.  Some friends from the ward invited us to join them for Easter dinner and it was nice to get out of the house.  I wish I could have watched more of conference, but what I did catch was fantastic.  I am looking forward to reading/watching/listening to all of the talks.  Even though I didn't hear much of conference I was still able to fill the spirit and hope that Brooklyn did too.  I am so grateful for the opportunity that we have to listen to our living prophet, apostles, and other church leaders.  I am also so grateful for the Savior and His gift of the atonement and the chance it gives us to live with Him again!

Brooklyn's First Haircut

Brooklyn finally got her first real haircut.  I had trimmed her hair a few times, but I decided it was finally time to take her to get it cut by someone who does that for a living.  She just needed a trim and i was hoping that by getting it trimmed everywhere will help the front of her hair grow a little longer so that she doesn't forever have a baby mullet.  So I took her to get it cut on April 1st.  She did an awesome job holding still.  She just stared in the mirror watching the lady cut it.  I came totally prepared with toys, treats, and kindle, but didn't have to use any of them.  It only took like 5 minutes, but still cost me $15...oh well, what can you do?  You can't tell a big difference, but it does look healthier for sure.

Before

After

happy girl after her treat for holding still

March Madness

I love this time of year, spring is finally here and watching a lot of basketball. Good thing Brooklyn likes to watch sports. We have had a fun month.  The weather has been crazy. We've had ice storms and snow storms and then 80 degree weather.  Sadly I left Brooklyn's winter coat in Boise since I thought she wouldn't need it here, so she didn't get to play in the snow a whole lot, but she still had fun.  We have been trying to enjoy time outside whenever the sunshine has been out.  We have been to the zoo a few times, sadly our membership ran up so we won't be getting there anymore before we leave.  We go to the park as much as possible.  Brooklyn loves to "swing high".  We also spent a morning at the Botanic Gardens and go on walks around the neighborhood. We are just trying to get outside as much as possible before all of the spring showers hit us.

Brooklyn is still doing well with her potty training.  She is getting more comfortable with pooping on the potty, it only happens every 3 or 4 days, but at least she will sit on the potty for longer than 30 seconds and will try to poop instead of waiting until she has poop hanging out of her bum. She is doing really well with keeping her pull-ups dry when she sleeps.  She is dry about 99% of the time when she wakes up from her naps and is dry about 75% of the time when she wakes up in the morning.  She really wants to stay in her minnie undies when she sleeps and I am about to give into it for nap time.  I guess I will just have to be prepared to do a little bit more laundry. She keeps talking more and more.  She repeats everything we say and loves to try new words.  She loves to count and try to do her ABC's.  The cutest thing she says right now is "love you mommy" and "love you daddy". When she wakes up in the morning and from her naps I will walk into her room and she will go "hi mommy, baby awake"  She still loves to play with her golf clubs, she is getting really good, she has an awesome follow through. She loves all of her puzzles and watching Disney Movies.  She is obsessed with "Anna Elsa" aka Frozen.  We borrowed it from friends and she just wanted to keep watching it. After we returned the movie to them we started watching Lion King and she gets so sad when Mofasa dies.  She will just keep saying "Daddy wake up".  She is so dang cute and I love her to pieces.

Showing off her new shoes

Using her diaper pail as a drum

She had to stop to pet the "doggy" at Old Navy

She had to stop to smell the roses