"Pal"

One of the greatest men that I have ever had the blessing to know, returned to live with our Father in Heaven today. My Grandpa Passey, also known as "Pal". While I am completely heart broken, I am incredibly grateful for the time that I've had with him. He was able to meet all of my children. I actually started this blog for him, so he could stay up to date on what we were doing. Just a week and a half ago we were on the phone with eachother while he was looking at the new pictures I posted...

This is my favorite picture of the two of us. It was taken back in 2003. I believe he was leaving to go back home to Utah, when I asked him to tell me the story of "Rindecella". He used to tell it to me when I was little. It is Cinderella with mixed up letters... The moral of "Rindecella" was something about "If you want to Lall in fove with a Pransome Hince, don't forget to Slop your Dripper" So upon my request, he just put his arms around me and started into the story... I loved it just as much then as I did when I was little.

Another picture of him that I love... I'm so grateful that he was able to attend my sealing to Joseph, as well as me going through the Temple for my own endowments. What a great experience to have my parents and grandparents at the Temple with me on the most important day of my life...


"Pal" and Maddy. This was taken in May of 2007.
For some reason, I don't have pictures of Sarah and Ben with him, or any recent pictures with Maddy! I'm hoping that my mom or sister might... My kids loved when he came to visit. Mostly because that meant we were going swimming at the hotel they were staying at!

Grandpa's are very special to their granddaughters.
I loved having him come visit... I loved our phone calls... and I will miss him terribly. I will cherish every memory I have.

I love you "Pal"...

Flooring and Trim

My in-laws drove by our house today to see the cabinets. They let us know that the vinyl had been put down in the kitchen, laundry room and bathrooms. Naturally we had to go see it too, so we drove out there to discover that not only was the vinyl in, they had put all the interior doors in, as well as the trim!

living room

Hall Bath


The closet doors in the girls room! I thought they were going to be sliding doors, so I was very excited to see that they weren't!

Kitchen

Vinyl Floor

Laundry Room

interior doors and trim

Master Bath

The next step is to caulk and paint. . .

Cabinets!

I knew the cabinets were being installed on friday, so I loaded up the kids and headed out to the house to check it out. Maddy and Sarah were excited to see the cabinets in their bathroom. Right away they were picking which drawer they each wanted.

Joseph was busy helping to put on the hardware

One side of the kitchen... The large opening is for the refrigerator, and further down is where the range and microwave will go.

Same side from a different view

The best cabinet installer ever -RON- busy doing his thing!

This is my most favorite side of the kitchen. Why? Because the space between these cabinets is for a DISHWASHER. I can't wait for the luxury of a dishwasher! We are missing a wall cabinet as you can see. It wasn't shipped for some reason, so it will go in next week. So there will be a large wall cabinet on the other side of the window.

Master Bath- Yay for two sinks!! Sunday mornings are going to go a LOT smoother when Joseph and I aren't trying to share one sink and one mirror!

Putting on more hardware...

The interior doors are stacked in the garage, so they will be going in soon!

Birthday Girl!

Our little Sarah turned 2 on wednesday! I can't believe she is already 2...

Recently, she has become very attached to Dora the Explorer, so we had a Dora themed party for her. We invited family over for cake and ice cream.
Before the festivities, we went to storytime and brought cup cakes to share with all of Sarah's little friends. She loved it! Of course, when they sang her Happy Birthday, she glared at them.. ( no surprise there! )





After story time we headed over to Mama and Papa's house. Mama had a neat present for Sarah, a little computer that teaches shapes, colors, and... SPANISH!! Now Sarah can be even more like Dora!

I made her a Dora cake, I think it turned out alright! It looks better than it tastes. The frosting is vanilla, and then it's tinted various colors to make it look like Dora. Brown frosting should be chocolate... at least in my mind. So when I ate a piece of Dora's hair... it just tasted weird! But Sarah was so happy when she saw that she had a Dora cake. Too bad she spent most of her little party glaring at anyone who dared to say Happy Birthday...

At least she got to spend a little time with her favorite person on the planet. Aunt Erynn. She LOVES her Aunt Erynn! She couldn't stay long though, so the smiles didn't stay long either.

We are so glad that Sarah joined our family two years ago. She is such a smart and funny little girl. I look forward to this next year, and seeing her personality blossom. We love you Sarah!

Here are some random pictures from the last few weeks. All the pictures that I have posted have been of the house, so I thought I'd put a few of the kids up...

Ben is sitting up on his own, so I figured with Maddy's help he could join them in the tub. It makes my life so much easier to bathe all three of them at the same time, and they enjoy it too!

Ben LOVES being in the tub with his sisters!

Sarah climbed into the drivers seat when Uncle Ryan came to visit. We were checking up on the progress of the house. She didn't want to get out of that seat! Sorry Sarah, you still have 14 years before I'm ready for that, and even then, I probably won't be ready!


Now for the weekly update on the house.... except it is from last week! oops!

They have started to put on the siding. I'm loving the color... it's a soft yellow, and I was worried that it would be to bright, but it's perfect.

The original plan for this house has a solid door going into the breakfast nook area. Since we shortened the windows in order to put in a desk, the builder didn't think we had enough light. So he put in a french door, at no extra cost to us... YAY! I am SO happy about that door....

As for the interior, it is now taped and mudded. Next they have to sand and prime, and then the cabinets and counter tops will be installed!

family room/dining room

dining room/kitchen

kitchen/nook

nook

Master bedroom

Hopefully they will move our closing date up a week. We won't know for sure for another 7-10 days. I can't wait!

Do they ever rest?

The realtor on site emailed us these pictures last night. They were taken yesterday, March 9, 2011

The drywall is up! This is the kids bathroom

View from the hallway into the kitchen


This is a view from the front door into the living and dining rom. We have a neat plant shelf that runs along one side of the room.



Master bedroom - I LOVE the tray ceiling!!

This is another view of the master bedroom, the walk in closet is on the left, and the bathroom is on the right.

Master bath going into the bedroom

Maddy and Sarah's room

Benjamin's room

Garage

Garage from laundry room doorway

Coat closet that is in between the laundry room (left) and Ben's room (on right)

Laundry room

Joseph stopped by on Monday while the crew was putting in the insulation. They recommended that he add some additional insulation before the drywall was put up, so he and Aaron Brock went and got some, and started insulating the kids bathroom that shares a wall with the dining room. He had to get back to work, so I went with him that evening to insulate between Ben's room and the laundry room and between the kitchen and the master bath. The idea is not to hear the toilets flush when eating... and in the case of Ben's room, not to hear the washing machine or dryer as much from his room. It was fun, until we ran out of daylight! We had to finish though, because the drywall was going up the next day, after the inspection. So since we were almost done, we decided that I could just pull our van up and shine the lights into the house. It was great, until 10 minutes later the battery died! I know, I know, I should have had the car running, but I never thought it would die in 10 minutes! So there we were in the dark, on a Monday evening... stranded. But then we realized that we actually knew someone in our new neighborhood who could help us! We probably interrupted their family home evening, but Russ Hall was more than willing to come and jump the van for us. THANK GOODNESS!! I think I'm really going to like having a member of our ward living so close to us. (That's just not that common here!) I'm sure that won't be the last time they come to our rescue, and hopefully we can return the favor in the future.

As far as the house goes, today they are supposed to be mudding and sanding. They may start painting tomorrow, or wait until monday. Either way, the cabinets are being delivered next Thursday and installed on Friday!! (the 18th) At the rate they're going, I think we'll be in before April 15th.