Why

can't everyone everywhere just be happy all the time? I'm a fixer, and I want to fix it. But I can't fix one without hurting another. stupid.

Maggie is amazing. She talks all the time. She repeats back to me everything that I say and tries to tell me things. Too bad I have no idea what baba she is referring too. bottle? baby? bobby? bubble? baseball? I don't know, but I'm having fun figuring it out!

It's fun to have Brandon home, even if it's driving him crazy.

too much

I love my family. Both old and new. I would be lost without my in laws, they are a big part of my life now. I am so sad that we may be moving just as the semester starts with Alecia, Michelle, and Neil all here. I just want to be able to spend time with them. Alecia and Michelle especially though, need to spend time at school. It's their first year, and they need to spend time with their roommates and make new friends and experience the college life.

Why do people have to make their own mistakes? Why can't we all just learn from what the experienced people say and not touch the hot stove. I want to take away the pain for those that I love that continue to make bad choices. I want to yell at them and make them understand that they need to change or they will continue to be unhappy.

I love primary songs. I love that I have something to sing to my daughter that reminds me and teaches her that we are children of God, that we have a place we belong and a purpose in life. I love being reminded that my Heavenly Father loves me. It's very comforting, and I think especially so because it is sad in such a simple innocent way.

It is strange to me that sometimes when I have a move coming my way I am super excited and ready for a new adventure, for change and a new way to do things and look at things. Other times, like this one, I am not ready. I feel left in a void this time. I am very thankful to the Wildings for letting us live in their basement, but I don't know what my future holds. I am very uncomfortable with that.

I wish I didn't go in cycles of what crafts I like to do. It makes it hard to finish a project when I am suddenly no longer interested in it. It leaves me with a lot of mostly done things. I am proud to be learning so much though. Every new project teaches me something else. I love to teach other people to do those simple craft things that they thought were so hard, but in reality only take a couple hours at most.

I want to be more creative. I am in some ways, but so lacking in others. I guess that's why everyone is different. We are all supposed to help each other.

I want to write a lullaby for Maggie. I can't come up with the right words though. I feel like the music will come once I have something to put it to.

I am so sick of some of Maggie's toys. I want to take all the batteries out, but she's learning how to press buttons and cause and effect, and they are teaching her things as she listens to the dumb little songs.

Making friends is a lot harder now that I'm older. I wish it was as simple as when I was 5 and unafraid of anything. I wouldn't get rejected or feel ridiculous or inadequate. I would have friends to play with because we all had things in common, who cares that it was loving to swing and play hide and seek.

I never want to get so old that it's inappropriate for me to tuck my leg up while sitting.

I love hot chocolate. and caramel. and cinnamon. Together or separate, whichever.

I am excited for my friends to get married. I want to be more involved in their weddings, but I feel like I'm intruding if not invited to help out, even though I'm sure they could use the help.

I want to live in New York City, or Seattle or some other big city. I want to be a part of that big city craziness, but I think I've already passed the time in my life where that would be possible or even a good idea. Sigh.

Brandon has applied to at least 25 different jobs all over the country. I want to go to all of them. Maybe not Texas, that's too hot, but all the rest just sound like a big adventure! I don't think they recommend switching jobs every year or two though, just because your wife wants to move somewhere different. Luckily, moving furniture around or painting the house helps me to see enough change that I don't need to move every year.

I am scared to live in one place the rest of my life.

Maggie is amazing! She blesses my life every day with her happiness and excitement at the simple things. She is turning into such a funny girl. She laughs at some of the silliest and simplest things. Example: Bobby. Every time we say his name she just giggles. She's so dang cute! I love having conversations with her. She can say b, d, m, n, s, g, k and is pretty close on a couple other consonants. She mostly sticks with a vowels, but it's adorable no matter how much she knows. She picks the sounds that she knows out of the words I say and repeats them back to me. So when I start talking about getting in the car, she says ca! ca! or ball, ba! ba! or something like game she'll say ma ma! or we ask if she's a good girl and she says ga! ga! and keys are a kkkkk sound in the back of her throat. So cute! I love this kid. Though I do wish we were both sleeping right now - she's been awake since 5.

I need to pack.

Sister Jeffery, July 4th, Washington, Canada, Beaches, Birthdays, and Moving.

Yea, It's obviously been a crazy couple months. So warning, it's going to be a long one. I could split it up, but then I'll never get it done. So we start with the week my sister left on her mission. They came to visit us on their way to take her to the MTC. Really, we all just hung out and played games and such. I'm glad I got to see her some more before she left. My family came out for the weekend of the 4th of July and we had a great time! We celebrated Alex's 7th birthday, saw The Last Airbender, walked the street fair on the greenbelt, went to a Chukar's game, where the kids got to run the bases, then walked down to the waterfront and watched the best fireworks show west of the Mississippi. All in all a good and busy day.


Later that week we flew to Seattle! Maggie's first airplane ride, and she did pretty well aside from choking on a goldfish and throwing up in the airport, then crying the whole descent. I don't feel bad about the crying though, because there were at least 10 other kids upset/crying/screaming on our flight of maybe 50 people. Yay! We spent the night packing up the trailer with camping stuff and left the next day for Canada! Almost all of Ruth's (my mother-in-law) family was there! We stayed at Camp Linley- a boy scout camp near a nice lake. We had s'mores and hot chocolate every night, made movies, played family feud, went to the lake, and had an all-around wonderful time. I am so glad that I decided I wanted to go. And just in the nick of time too, I barely had time to get my passport renewed. I loved spending time with my new family! Camping is also one of my favorite activities, so it combined to be a very wonderful weekend. We even got some pictures with four generations! We all look a little grubby from camping, but it was so much fun, who cares what we looked like? We got back to Washington Saturday night and Steve and Kathy and family came over for dinner on Sunday. Little Katelyn is not so little any more, and she loved playing with cousin Michelle and the bubbles, while the boys played basketball.

Brandon went back to Idaho to work on Monday, and Maggie and I were able to stay until Thursday! Michelle loved to play with Maggie, just making her smile and giggle! Her four little teeth made it all so much cuter! Michelle and Neil and I got to hang out some. We all went to the beach with Twix too. Maggie wasn't super excited about the water, but she wanted to play in the ocean more than just sit in the sand. Neil taught me a bit of how to skim board. Michelle and I made some skirts too! Well, we only finished one, but we got fabric for 3 each. I just finished one of mine last week. It's super fun for me to think up and design these. I decided I love it so much, I'm going to start making baby dresses like this to sell at craft fairs and farmer's market's, etc. Back to vacation. Whenever possible Grandma would put aside work for a while and play with Maggie. When Grandpa got home from work Maggie would run her fingers through his beard. She had lots of fun getting to know her family better.

Maggie and I stayed at my family's house when we flew back through Boise until Friday night, then we all came back to Idaho Falls for the weekend. A couple days later I went up to Rexburg and picked up Alecia and all her stuff, because she finished her first semester of college!! She'll be going back in the fall, along with Neil and Michelle - Brandon's siblings.

A couple weeks later we celebrated both Maggie's first birthday and Brandon's 25^th! There was an air show starring the blue angels that Brandon worked at on Maggie's actual birthday, so we celebrated the next day. We had a little party for her with some of our friends, sadly only a couple of kids could come, but she doesn't really play with other kids yet anyway, so no biggy. She wore a pretty light up butterfly crown

and played with her new toys. She didn't much care for her butterfly cake (don't look too closely, it was my first attempt and has many imperfections), she ate barely a few crumbs, but the rest of us liked it. She got lots of new cute clothes and some fun new toys. Her favorites were her owl jammies (ok those are my favorite-they are SO dang cute!) and a new crawl and play ball. It has lots of fun buttons to push and it sings her fun songs. Brandon's birthday was much less ideal. He was at work all day, so I brought in 2 banana cream pies to work for him and everyone else in the office. Then Maggie and I came later that night to the game. Of course it started raining and he got to help put out and take down the tarp on the infield, then help dry it all out. The game was only an hour and a half delayed…which meant that Maggie and I were there for about 1 inning before we headed back home. He was very tired when he got home that night, but he got a good night sleep after a labor intensive day.

All in all July has been a great month for us! We're heading into the last couple weeks of games and then things will be much more calm. I started working at Melaluca Field during the games, waitressing the suites. Maggie gets to be one of those kids that's parents both work at the park, so she just hangs out with the people that are there all the time. The girls at the gift shop, some of the season ticket holders, and a couple of the ushers have been watching her most. Fun times, but it's nice to have a bit of extra cash, since Brandon is still technically an intern – evidenced by his salary, and there's 0nly 10 games left. Hallelujah! Life works out amazingly, giving you your little needed perks and small cash bonuses when things start getting tight.

Oh and news for August … Just this past week, the house we've been renting while for sale, has now sold. We have a month to find a new place, even though we don't know how much longer we're going to be here. Brandon is applying for other jobs right now, and we are praying that we find the perfect thing. We have a couple options but haven't found the ideal. We're still searching, and in the mean time finding a place to live. Got to love the possibilities opened up when you have no idea where you are going to be in a month. However, we are happy and healthy (Maggie must be teething again though, because she's not been sleeping very well.) We are grateful for family and friends that love and support us.

I count my blessings, and they are many.

Adventures in Mountain Home

We have to start with recently bathed baby toes, because their so cute and wrinkly. Also it's a new found pleasure that Maggie loves to take baths! She just loves to splash, mostly with her legs. She can be in the bath for more than an hour, as long as I switch out the water so it stays warm, without getting bored! It's a nice relaxing time that I can sit next to the tub and read while she just splashes and giggles to herself.

Next was my mom's Mother's Day present - tickets for her and her girls to go see Celtic Woman in concert in Boise. My dad gave her two tickets on Mother's Day so she knew she was going. She didn't find out we all were until Alecia and I showed up a couple hours before the concert. It was a big surprise for her and we all had an incredible time!
Us all afterward with our tickets.
Mom was awesome enough to get us all t-shirts as well when we were there. It was such a great concert!
Trying and failing to do the graceful arm wavy thing the singers did during a couple songs.
Grandpa, Alex and Maggie got to all hang out while we were at the concert. Grandpa tries out his baby balancing act.

The next weekend Kendra gave her mission farewell talk, so we all ended up back in Mountain Home. Johan, Nancy and boys, Steve, Kelly and clan, Grandma and Grandpa, and our whole family were there. She gave an excellent talk (lasting more than a half hour) and we are all excited for her to head out to Philadelphia and help in the Lord's work. She heads to the MTC on June 16th. Good luck sweetie!
This was a jaw dropping moment. Uncle Johan (on the left) has had a very full beard for 28ish years. His kids and therefore I have never seen him without it. He got a new job that requires him to be clean shaven, and this is a comparison of brothers. His smile is exactly like my dads! Who knew? I sure didn't because I've never seen my uncle's mouth! He's lookin' good though and congrats on the new job.
This is everyone that was there, minus our grandparents who had already headed home. It was a great weekend full of s'more making and game playing. I love my family!

Idaho Falls welcomes the Ralphs

Here's some recent pictures of graduation and Maggie.

So last post a year ago, but now that I am one of those stay-at-home-mommy-types, I supposedly have the time to do this stuff, right? HA! We'll see if I can get to another post before next year. Maggie is obviously asleep or this would not be happening.

I just want everyone to know that I have the best life ever! I am so happy! Both Brandon and I graduated with our Bachelor's Degrees in April, his in Business Management and mine in Health Science. We've moved to a beautiful house in Idaho Falls so that Brandon can finish off a second internship for the Idaho Falls Chuckars (the baseball team). He loves doing the business side of sports. Wouldn't you rather be marketing for something you love than some random product? He'll hopefully be able to use this extra experience in the field to score a job with a major league team some time this December when he attends the baseball Winter Meetings in Orlando.

Our house is AMAZING! We're the second house on this site. 1215 Alayssa Dr. It's 2 years old, 3 stories, with 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a large office, and great room over the 2 car garage, two big playsets and a fenced off garden in the backyard. The kitchen is HUGE and the cupboards are absolutely beautiful reddish stained knotty wood. This is seriously close to my dream house. We round about found this place through Brandon's second cousin. The people who own the house got a new job in Washington and had to move immediately. They are still trying to sell this house, so we are living in it, keeping up the lawn and such while keeping the house clean at all times in case any potential buyers want to come look at the house. So we're here until the house sells, which you think would be bad and annoying, but there are 30 houses in our neighborhood for sale, so we're not too worried. And this is super good practice for me, because I get in the habit of walking through the house in the morning cleaning everything as I go, so that it's all done by 10ish and I can do whatever the rest of the day! I hope I'll be able to make a habit of it and have a clean house the rest of my life.

I have the incredible joy of spending all day with my beautiful baby Maggie! She fills my whole heart with cuteness and smiles. For those who don't know, she has Bilateral Optic Nerve Hypoplasia. AKA her optic nerves never formed all the way. Dr says they are about 1/10th the width they should be. This translates into her not being able to focus on much and being at least legally blind. We know that she can see some, but are not sure if it's specific colors, or just peripheral, or if it's light/dark related. However, we won't know the extent of what she can of cannot see until she is about 3 or 4 and old enough to explain to us what she can see. Her brain will continue to learn to make accommodations for what is lacking in the information she is receiving. So she'll technically improve her sight until about 2 years old when they brain has pretty much done all it can to figure out how to best use it's resources. After that, there is no cure. Stem cell research is being done on nerve regeneration, but it's still just research. We continue to pray for those miracles.

Until that happens we just live life and love it! Maggie is almost 10 months now! She is a bit small for her age, but she's growing steadily just slowing. It just means she fits in my arms for more convenient cuddling and is easier to carry around. She sits up on her own, and searches around her for anything with in reach. Once she has hold of anything it goes right to her mouth. She loves rattles and is great at eating her baby food while getting it all over me, her chair, and in her hair. Maggie rolls over all over the place, trying to get who knows where. She doesn't crawl yet, mostly because a baby starts to crawl to get to something it can see that's out of reach, and since she doesn't focus on things for very long or if they are far away from her, she's still just aimlessly rolling. She is an amazing baby! We are SO blessed to have her.

We've also been lucky enough to receive two different therapists for her through the Idaho School for the Deaf and Blind and the Infant Toddler Program of the State Health and Welfare Department. We've just started with these programs, but they have finished their evaluations and are starting with the therapy now. Maggie has gotten to borrow some toys that are very colorful and textured and make different noises to alert all of her senses as she plays. We have also received a book in braille, so when I read it to her I can just touch her fingers to the page and help her understand that she can feel a book to read it. I'm really excited to be able to continue with these programs.

So there's our beautiful and happy life! Hope yours is going as well as mine!