Well, we have been moved into our new house for about a month now! I love it! I love having somewhere to call home, I love having something that is ours, I love being able to do what we want to it and I love that we are across the street from target .
It seems like everytime we start a project it turns into a way bigger project than we thought it would be. Fun, but expensive and time consuming. Justin is currently tiling the guest bathroom shower and is preparing to replace the plumbing throughout the house.

Justin graduated with his bachelor's in nursing last month (with straight A's throughout the ENTIRE bachelor program). Since then he has been applying to different hospitals for the intensive care unit (ICU) to gain experience to get into anesthesia school in a few years.
With Ava being such a hard baby and being so far from family we have been dying to live closer to home! With justin working nights and sleeping days I sometimes feel as if i am a single mom. Which is not at all bad! I have learned so much and gained so much patience and more strength than I ever thought I could have. It has been a true test for me but God gives us nothing that we can't handle! We went to the temple and prayed about what to do and I just had a strong feeling that I should support my husband and let him guide us in the direction that he felt best fit our family. So, he took a job in the ICU here in Twin Falls! At first I was bummed that we wouldn't be closer to home but it is what it is and i know this will benefit us in the long run! In a year justin will start applying for grad schools to become a nurse anesthesiologist. We could go anywhere in the country!
On a side note, Ava turned 5 months old and time is flying. She has improved quite a bit since birth with her acid reflux. She is still pretty grouchy a lot of the time and is fussy a lot. But when she's not refluxing, SHE IS SO MUCH FUN! Her smiles and coos and yells are the best. I don't remember what life was like without her. Oh wait, I do. It was quiet. And pretty boring! She brings joy and a sweet spirit into our home. She has started reaching for things recently and she loves to grab faces, hair, and the dogs! Oh my lanta she LOVES dogs. All of them. She especially likes to grab their ears and shove them in her mouth. Maizie really doesn't love her yet but little does she know that sweet blue eyes girl will be playing fetch with her soon enough and they will be best friends!

She is OBSESSED with the wiener dogs!

Welp, I'm officially the worst blogger in the world. It's a whole lot easier to update our lives on social media than here, so I apologize If you've missed my blog updates recently ..
  As most of you know, our sweet Ava Louise Heyrend was born on December 31, 2014 weighing 6 pounds 7 ounces and 21 inches long. My birth was the easiest thing I had gone through my whole pregnancy. I would take that and the recovering process over the kidney pains I experienced during pregnancy!
  I went in for a checkup the morning before her arrival with contractions 5 minutes apart. The doctor told me to go walk around for an hour and if they got any closer to check In to labor and delivery.. as soon as we got to target to do some last minute shopping, they were 2 minutes apart. I checked in to the hospital, the nurse told me to bounce on an exercise ball for an hour and when she came back to check me it was go time! The doc came in and broke my water, I got my epidural and we patiently waited.. a few hours later with 45 minutes of pushing, she was here!
  About 30 minutes after ava arrived and got checked out and cleaned up, the nurses put her on my chest for some mommy cuddles. All of a sudden her little body went limp and her breathes were shallow. I called for the nurse, she listened to her heart, took her out of my arms faster than I could blink and rushed her to the NICU with my husband and step dad. My mom stayed in the hospital room with me for hours before anyone could tell us what was going on and if Ava would be okay.
   Finally our doctor stepped in and let us know that she had to be recessitated with a few pumps of air and that she was doing okay and being tested for anything that could have caused her apnea episode. While justin worked most nights, I spent most of my time in ava's NICU room, waiting for her to be discharged. She had a few more times where her heart rate would get really low or she would stop breathing. It was the most traumatic experience for me to go through as a first time mom, always expecting the worst.. $41,000 in NICU bills (thank goodness for great insurance right?!) and 9 days later, she was FINALLY sent home with us attached to a heart monitor. It would go off anytime her heart rate would drop or get too high. It was as loud as a home smoke alarm to make sure we always knew if something was wrong. Luckily she only had to wear it for 2 weeks as she grew out of her apnea.
  The doctors assume she quit breathing because of acid reflux. As newborns are still adjusting to the outside world, they don't always know how to react to certain situations (like having acid reflux).
  She sees a doctor about every other week for her reflux. He has tried switching her from breastmilk to different types of formula. She takes medicine 3 times a day still. We are taking her to a chiropractor to see if an adjustment will help and her doctor wants to send her to a pediatric gastroenterologist for further testing.
  This little one keeps us on our toes at all times but we wouldn't have it any other way. We love her so much and are so grateful she's here with us. I know heavenly father has a plan for all of us and this is just one of those trials we are trying to get past. I have learned to have so much more patience than I am used to and I am thankful for the things I learn everyday with her. ❤

It all started friday morning, with little sleep and waking up too early from excitement, we were about to find out the gender of our baby! We drove to the hospital and my mom, mother in law and sister in law met us there. We patiently waited in the waiting room to be called in for almost an hour.. I'm telling you, patience and lots of it. We finally got called back and told the ultrasound tech that we DID NOT want to know the gender and to only let our moms and sister in-law know. So she put the cold wand on my belly and there was baby! So cute and little but so well developed. Baby covered it's face with its hands almost the whole time so it was hard to see details! She did lots of measuring for about 10 minutes and then told justin and I to look away and she was going to type the gender on the screen for everyone else to see. It took so long for her to find babies gender parts I was getting nervous! Finally she found them and out the door our moms went to plan a gender reveal party! They had absolutely no expression on their face when they left so I was really nervous that they were unhappy with the sex of the baby. (If anyone knows my mom they know that she ONLY wanted a granddaughter). After they left, the doctor came in and said baby is looking great, no birth defects, perfect measurements and weighs a whopping 13 ounces. Almost a whole pound! Justin and i went and picked up a few pizzas to kill some time while our moms decorated. We got back to the house and there was a table full of cake, balloons and girl or boy party plates and napkins. It was adorable. Along with a box taped shut and 2 cans of silly string. We went outside with our cameras, silly string and box full of balloons and awaited the suspense. Once everyone had their cameras ready we opened the box and sprayed eachother with PINK silly string while PINK balloons flew through the air! I screamed with excitement and cried for the next ten minutes with happiness!  We were so excited to get out little girl that we both had secretely been hoping for! We cut open our pink cake and ate pizza and went straight to the mall afterwards! Our moms bought us almost every baby girl outfit we could find and stocked up her closet for us. They are the best mom's in the while world and we really appreciate all the work they put into that special day for us! I wish every day could be just as exciting! Since then I have been making lots and lots of baby clothes and accessories and am now selling some on my etsy shop. If anyone would like a special order of anything let me know and I can pretty much make anything. Here are some pictures! Hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

random picture of our adventure to the falls last weekend :)

i forgot to blog about our trip to the coast, so here is a picture of us on the beach :)