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!

I guess it's time

Since everyone else is doing it... I figured I would find a place to put pictures and such. I'm super bad at updating stuff like this, so we'll see how it goes. We are currently living in Rexburg, Idaho, having just moved into a newer, bigger, nicer, all around better apartment. We are still trying to unpack those last couple boxes fullof the random stuff that you don't really have a place for, but everything else is moved in and it feels great. When Brandon got home today he made the observation that it's easier to keep this apartment clean. It's so true! It's nicer and very open, so you want to have it clean and welcoming. Which is a nice change because our old apartment was just cluttered, we're trying to keep this one in better shape.
Brandon is interning this summer for the Idaho Falls Chuckars (a minor league baseball team under the Kansas City Royals) He's really enjoying the work, learning the workings of the business and spending time with a sport he loves. I am taking 19 credits from BYU-Idaho, trying to get as much done as I can before the baby comes, and working part time at Artco.
We are having a baby! She is due August 4th and we are so SO excited! Our new apartment has another bedroom (yay! room for the baby!). And...yea. That's our lives. We're busy but loving it.