Life as We Now Know It

Our life has sure been full of changes in the last year and a half. We were enjoying life in Orem as new homeowners and parents of a fun toddler, when things began to change. Brad had someone encourage him to apply with the Davis County Sheriff's Office to be a deputy paramedic.  He put together his application and we drove up to Farmington to turn it in, not expecting to hear anything for a long time. I was focused on my last semester at BYU and we were settling into our newly purchased home in Orem. All of the sudden, the application process took off and before we knew it, he was hired.  He started with the sheriff's office in November and began the police academy in January.  We decided to put our house in Orem up for sale in February because the long commute from Orem to Farmington wasn't worth it. Luckily after only 11 months of owning that house, we were able to sell and find another house to buy in Davis County. We were able to move in in the middle of April, on Brad's birthday which happened to be the day he graduated from the police academy. It was a stressful day, but it was filled with wonderful things! 

A week after Brad graduated from the academy, I attended my graduation from BYU.  We were starting to get settled in our house while Brad was getting used to his new career. We were lucky to have a lot of help with cleaning and painting our house while Brad was busy at work the first few weeks. We loved this house, but boy did it need some TLC! The paint colors were quite interesting and previous owners hadn't deep cleaned anything in a very long time. It's been exciting to see the progress we have made since April. We have painted all of the bedrooms grey and the rest of the house is a lighter shade of the same grey. It was nice to get rid of the sea foam green (2 shades in the family room separated by unfinished decorative chair rail that wasn't installed correctly), maroon, purple, yellow, and brown. I'm very lucky to have such great in laws that have spent SO many hours painting over all of the ugly walls! I'm also lucky Brad is such a handyman because he has done so many projects around the house including fixing the swamp cooler (hopefully to become air conditioning before next summer), installing fans in the family room, master bedroom, and Sarah's bedroom, and fixing drywall issues. It has been wonderful moving from a small house with only one living area to a home with a family room, living room, and a basement. 

After only two weeks of living in Layton, we found out that I was pregnant. Once I knew I was expecting, my help in painting and moving furniture was drastically reduced. I was really sick and felt pretty useless! It's been a hard adjustment to move far away from our family and friends, with a husband who is busy at a new job and a energetic toddler as well as being pregnant and sick. We've been learning to rely on neighbors more and Sarah and I have been lucky to be able to spend time in Orem when I need extra help for a few days while Brad works.  I'm now almost 34 weeks pregnant and we are so excited for December to come so we can meet this new little girl! 

Sarah has been so fun and we love the joy she brings into our home.  She is so excited to meet her baby sister. She has the biggest imagination and is always making us laugh with the funny things she comes up with.  Sarah comes up with new names for her little sister every day.  The most normal names that she has gone back and forth between over the last few months are Jane and Madison.  When shes in a silly mood she thinks its hilarious to name her Pumpkiny or Sheepy.  We began potty training her at the end of July and she has been pretty good with it.  She was night trained from the beginning, which I didn't expect at all. Occasionally she has a few days where she just can't seem to stay dry, but has always gotten better with some encouragement.  She absolutely loves her nursery class and loves to tell me everything she did when we get home from church each week.  We read the illustrated scripture stories at night and she always requests the Noah's ark story or the Nephi building the ship story. It's so cute to see her learn stories and songs and it's been amazing to me to see how good her memory is. She's such an amazing girl and we are so glad she's part of our family!

It's been a crazy year of changes and we have grown a lot from the trials and challenges we have gone through. The changes will never end, though. We are excited for the changes that are coming and can't wait to meet this little girl in December!