Lisa, Gracie, Anna and Tim

Lisa and I have each had separate, unrelated thumb injuries. That's right, thumb injuries. Lisa discovered that a pocketknife is great for cutting open boxes as well as thumbnails. I decided to see if a small jewelers drill bit would penetrate the thumbnail. It does. A tetanus shot later and we are able to empathize with each other very well.

We've been busy around the house. We've had a couple of small plumbing issues I've been chasing down. I've still got a washing machine leak to figure out and then I'm going to attempt to repair our irrigation system.

Lisa and I planted our vegetable garden yesterday. We decided to try something called square foot gardening which we're hoping yields a lot of crops in our little yard. It's really simple and was a lot easier to do than having to tear up our yard and add a bunch of nutrients to the soil. We just built big boxes to hold our plants and a special mix of vermiculite, compost and peat moss. We found out about it at http://www.squarefootgardening.com/ .

Gracie is learning more and more everyday, including lots of new sign language. She is able to tell us when she wants to eat or have a drink of milk or water. She also tells us when she's tired (not that it was tough to figure out before) and when she needs help or when she wants more of something. The best though is when she wants something really bad she'll sign "please" over and over again. She's teething again which has made for some rough nights.

I'll end the post here because I know everybody just wants to see pictures, and Lisa tells me the house isn't quite ready yet.

We closed on our townhouse on Tuesday! We've now entered the exciting and expensive world of home ownership. We've been doing a bunch of projects over there to get it ready before we move in. We painted, installed an over-the-range microwave, cleaned, and lots of other little projects. I'll put some pictures up here as soon as we are done painting. Also, we plan to send out "we've moved cards" so you'll all have our new address. This may devolve into "we've moved emails" as the mother's day holiday is a busy one at the store.

Gracie was cute in the dress given to her by Gramma Robison (Thanks mom!). She's doing a lot more walking on her own lately, so we're in for trouble.

April 09 Family Picture, originally uploaded by eyenology.

Happy Easter, we decided to commemorate today with a family picture. Thanks Grandma Sunderland for the beautiful (made with love) dress!

In the last few weeks she has started going up and down stairs, doing some sign language, standing on her own and now walking (with a little help)

A couple of weeks ago Gracie gave us a scare when she stopped breathing and turned blue. We rushed her to the local hospital where they sent us, by ambulance, over to the Primary Children's hospital in Salt Lake City. That day, she saw 5 doctors, an EMT and who know how many nurses. The final verdict? She's ok. The neurologist (who we were scheduled to see that day for similar episodes in the past) said that it is fairly common condition that young children go through and is something that she will go out of around age 3. He said that she will always regain her breath on her own (which she has) but that we have to stay calm to have the confidence that she will be ok.

Since then she hasn't had any more episodes, and is doing just great. Thanks to everybody for all their prayers and phone calls of support.

She enjoyed the xray room.

Hooked up to the EKG machine.

Gracie's ambulance ride, originally uploaded by eyenology.

I'm waiting for Lisa to get home to post more pictures from Gracie's experience in the hospital(s), but I just remembered I took this one with my cell phone. Lisa is with Gracie in the ambulance on the way to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake.

Gracie and Lisa are in Washington still, and Gracie is doing just fine now, but she did give us a good scare.

***I changed the permissions so that anybody can comment without logging in. So go for it***

I was messing around in Lightroom and came across some photos over the past 6 months featuring Gracie, thought I'd share.

Lisa and Gracie are in Washington and seem to be having a great time. They've been shopping and hanging out a lot with Lisa's parents and sister. Expect some photos next week when she returns.

I've been trying to be a little more creative with how I run things at the store, and while I'm not sure it's more effective, it certainly is more fun. We're redesigning all of our cases and trying to make things run a little more smoothly. My crew is great, and really pitched in while Lisa and I had to make an emergency trip to Salt Lake with Gracie. (She's ok)

I'm busy as ever with the store, but help is on the way, I'll finally have an assistant manager. She's transferring to our store from Pocatello, Id. Can't wait until she starts next month.

Lisa serves in the young women's program and I am a counselor in the elder's quorum in our ward, which keeps us pretty busy. We're getting to know more and more people in the ward and really enjoying it. We are also checking into the possibility of moving in May when this contract is up. The tax credit that is being offered in the Obaminators stimulus package is making it a little more tempting to try to buy a home this year. We shall see.