Primary

In January I got released from my gig as a ward missionary and called to be the 2nd counselor in the primary presidency. So far I love it and enjoy being on this side of things as opposed to just being a primary teacher. Sharing Time however still stresses me out quite a bit but I'm trying to prepare more and stress less, each time it gets better. A few weeks ago I did a sharing time about Christ's Resurrection and brought my handy dandy 'Time Machine' with me to primary where we had some visitors pass through and give us an account of their testimony/experience of when Christ was Resurrected. This particular sharing time assignment came to me on short notice and I was stressed to the max about teaching such an important topic to the little ones in our ward. All in all it went better than I expected, or did it? I can honestly not remember, I'm just glad it's over! However, after both sharing times were done and I sat done and took a huge sigh of relief I looked over and saw that my Time Machine actually said MACHINE TIME. I burst out in laughter and had to remove myself from the primary room entirely after not being able to contain myself. I said to Jeff on our way home, "You know you are stressed about sharing time when you can get through two lessons and not even notice that you completely screwed up you sign!" Ah, sharing time..

Bench Re-do

We got this ugly cute bench with our bedroom set but it didn't quite fit in our room with everything else, so I stole it for the guest bedroom and spent a saturday re-doing it to match.

I unscrewed the top from bottom, I was lucky this bench was so easy to take apart

I saw this spray paint on Pinterest and decided to give it a try, the blogger says you don't need to sand the furniture first but I did a real quick (half-fast) sand job and wiped the legs down just to be safe

I bought my fabric and foam at Joanns. I used a 1.5" foam board but you could go as thick or thin as you wanted. I chose to do a smaller foam pad because I was just going to be adding to the cushion already on the bench. I wrapped it tight and used my new staple gun to secure it and then did the same

with the fabric. 

Wallah! Just like new. 

Rhabdo

We had been planning on having the scouts in our ward come over starting wednesday evening and again on saturday to pour concrete pads in our backyard last week. What we didn't plan on was a 4 day hospital stay during the same week. Jeffrey gave us quite a scare, he had been sick for 6 full days, hardly eating and drinking anything because he couldn't keep anything down. At first we thought it was food poisoning but after 2-3 days we called it the flu and tried to ride it out. Early thursday morning around 03:30 I woke up to find him in the kitchen cutting our costco frozen chicken breast packages apart and using them as ice packs on his belly. Thursday morning we got in to see a GI doc who sent us the ED for a gallbladder work-up and dehydration. We learned there that his gallbladder was fine but his labs were off the charts, he was in acute kidney failure due to rhabdomyolysis and may need dialysis. We were shocked and terrified to say the least and quite upset after the long week he had already had. They admitted us to the hospital where we stayed for four days while they pumped him full of 24/7 fluids and monitored his labs each day. Thankfully and due to, no doubt in my mind our family fast, blessings from our home teachers and the love, support and prayers of our family and friends, Jeff's levels slowly dropped and his kidneys were able to start healing themselves and flush the toxins out of his body without having to do dialysis. On sunday evening Jeff sweet talked his way out of the hospital and we got to go home. Today, (3/20) we followed up with the kidney team and things are still looking good and his levels are continuing to improve. It will be a couple of weeks before he (and his kidneys) are back to 100% but because he is otherwise young and healthy he should have no residual effects and be able to return to normal physical activity as well as competitive sports.

We can't begin to express our gratitude to all those who called, text, dropped off packages, came to visit, gave blessings, offered meals and help with Scout and anything and everything else that was thoughtful, kind and willing to help in any way. Even though we tried to keep it out of the public the response from family and friends was overwhelming in the most amazing way and I am so grateful for each and every person who thought of us during this time. To see and feel all those who love and support us was such a strength and blessing and meant so much to us. We are truly blessed and grateful to our Heavenly Father to have such a great support group to fall back on. The gospel is true, my mother-in-law said something in conversation that I will never forget, she said that miracles happen everyday and while some may be small, some big, we don't always recognize them as miracles. I know that the health and strength of my husband today was and is a miracle. There were many many things that transpired over the course of the 2 weeks that led up to his hospital stay and also those that happened while we were in the hospital that changed the course of his treatment and disease and had those things happened differently or not at all, we would be facing and entirely different and more serious, scary, lengthy etc. situation. So for fear of repeating myself again and again, I will only say it once more, THANK YOU. Thank you to everyone who prayed and fasted along side of us and to those who took care of Jeff (and me), thank you to our Heavenly Father for seeing it fit to heal my husbands kidneys and to let him continue to live an active, healthy and happy life. Thank you to the scouts and leaders, especially Bro. Neff the young men's president (and concrete man) for taking care of our yard, watching over our house and leaving two new shiny pads of concrete in our backyard that seemed to magically appear when we came home from the hospital.

*the only picture I dared to snap of my poor guy. This was our first night at the hospital and about 10pm he turned the tv on to help him fall asleep. I blinked once and found him like this upon opening my eyes.

**For those curious to know just how "off the charts" Jeff's labs were, a normal creatnine is anywhere from .2-1, usually they start dialyzing patients at about 4-5. When Jeff arrived at the hospital he was at 13.8, I still think it's crazy they didn't start him on dialysis as soon as we got there but I know it was another "small" miracle given to us because he didn't end up needing it at all. 

Scout slipped right through my feet as I went out the back door to drop off some thank you treats to the boys before heading to the hospital for day. He was dirty up to his knees? (do dogs have knees?) It was pretty hilarious, especially watching the guys try to catch him in the yard afterward so I could clean him up. It's like trying to catch a greased pig!

What We've Been Up To

We finally bought a bedroom set and upgraded to a king size bed. We LOVE it. I'm still shopping however for a comforter set and decor.. too many projects, not enough time!

Again, too many projects. I have about 3-5 started and unfinished projects in house, I hate admitting that. I get too antsy to get things done and end up with a house full of unfinished projects. Makes absolutely no sense and drives me crazy.

Painted the guest bedroom one saturday while Jeff was laid up in bed

literally ran out with this much of the wall unpainted

 
I was going to cover the bench (from the master bedroom) in the pillow fabric but of course I changed my mind and am shopping around for diff fabric. Stay tuned..

 Scout loves to ride shotgun

Valentines dinner complete with homemade cards from War and Lollie, even Scout got one :)

This sassy little girl turned 3!

Hottest ward talent show MC alive!

Scout is so vain

 took the boys hiking and jack's face kills me

To my Valentine

Dear Husband,

Today is Valentines Day. We have celebrated 5 Valentine's together, including the one you pretended to send me flowers (when we weren't dating) you player you. Although we have already made it clear that we don't need to celebrate Valentines to remember and/or prove our love for one another I just wanted to take a moment to say that I am crazy in love with you. Everyone else is probably doing it with grand gestures and expensive nights out, I just simply want to tell you from the bottom of my heart that you are the best thing that I never imagined could happen to me. I love you more everyday and even as life has changed and taken us from here to there and made us so busy, I look forward to just coming home to you each evening. You are my constant, my comfortable, my happy and my sidekick through this ever changing, incredible journey we call life. Thank you for choosing me. (Thank you for willingly being stuck with me for all of eternity.) I love you. Happy Valentines Day.

Cass

January '13

 Our January was busy, full and exciting. We had more than one set of visitors, spoke in sacrament in our new ward, I taught my first discussion as a ward missionary, I got released as a ward missionary and called as the 2nd counselor in the Primary Presidency. The boys and I went on some fun dates and we got to play house with the sweetest baby girl for a weekend.

- We got to enjoy not one but 2 sets of visitors
- Spoke in Sacrament meeting in our (new) ward
- I taught my first missionary discussion as a ward missionary
- I was released as a ward missionary and called as the 2nd counselor in the Primary Presidency

-Froyo dates with friends

Mini Golf with the boys

Went to the church cannery for the first time and canned our wards' orders

 Scout got his glamour shots done, this one is my fave. That's a joke, but seriously he's cute.

After coming home from the holidays we always miss our families a lot. This is a pic taken of our (nephew) Warner. His Pre-school teacher snapped it at school and sent it to Abbie. Isn't he a lover?

Jeff installed our new cabinet handles!

I took the boys to the Springs Preserve (My first time there)

Played house with this sweet baby girl for a weekend. Scout was her personal watchdog.

When I look back on 2012, I can't believe how blessed we truly are. We are so thankful to be in our beautiful and new home, we love our new ward and feel like it is exactly where we need to be at this point in our lives. Jeff and I both got new jobs that we absolutely love and we are happy and healthy along with our families. I am thankful to my Heavenly Father for blessing us so immensely and I am looking forward to 2013, as it is already shaping up to be another incredible year!

House Projects

Over Christmas/New Years we took full advantage of the time we had off and got some projects done around the house. We painted our kitchen island, our bedroom, bought two new accent pieces of furniture and bought handles for our cabinets which we are in the process of hanging. We love working on the house and each small thing we do makes it feel that much more homey and get's us excited to do the rest of the things on our list. Now if our bank account would only catch up with our wish list $$$ being a homeowner is awesome but expensive

we started with a much smaller project and painted our kitchen island. 

Global Green

Then we decided to tackle our master bedroom

It took about 1.5 days of work to get it all done, all the while Scout slept on the bed

The color is Whale Gray and it turned out every bit of gorgeous I was hoping for

I got the inspiration for the color from these 2 beautiful rooms I found on Pinterest of course

 Now all we need is to find a beautiful bedroom set and put it all together. Like I said $$$ but worth it