Home at last

Well, my computer is being crazy, so these five pictures are out of order. After you see them, you'll be able to tell where this post was supposed to start :)

Kitchen
Master bedroom

Dining room

I finally found the charger for my camera... So here are the long awaited pictures of our finished house!

The girls love the table and rocking chairs in our backyard



Here are some pictures of the interior... I would have taken them when the house was empty, but with the charger being lost until yesterday, we'll just have to live with these! Just don't laugh at my attempts to decorate, or at my old furniture. It was either new furniture, or a house... I went for the house!

Family Room/ Great Room

Opposite wall, with plant shelf above the hallway

You can get a better feel for the room in this picture...

Front of the house...

Kitchen with office nook. We have our old desk in there.. It is at the top of the list for replacement! We just haven't found one we like. I can't wait until we do find one so my window isn't blocked! Oh well for now..

More kitchen, you can see the girls table stashed by the door that goes out from the nook. I make them eat in there so they don't get food on our carpet.

Check out our DISHWASHER! We are LOVING it. We don't argue about who has to load or unload... I think we are both excited to do it. Wonder how long that will last?

I still can't believe I've lived without one with three kids...

Ben's Room

ALL boy, well, all CUBS. It is SO nice to have him in his own room! I don't know how I managed to have all three in one room before...

Hall bath
I love these adult height counters... I forgot to take a picture of the master bath, but I guess I've posted pictures of that before. A bathroom's a bathroom

Maddy and Sarah's room

Maddy's side... I haven't framed the painting of the hundred acre woods yet, and it is going to go somewhere on that wall.

Sarah's side. I have the girls blessing dresses hung up. Maddy was blessed in the one on the left, and Sarah was blessed in the one on the right. Which also happens to be the one that I was blessed in. I would have had Maddy blessed in it, but it was packed in a storage unit in Albuquerque! Luckily I was able to have it by the time Sarah came along.

Shout out to Aunt Stephanie! She gave me the picture of the sister's hugging (over Sarah's bed) YEARS ago... I had to hang it in the girls room

I'm still in love with their closet doors. They swing all the way open! Plus there is a light, even though it isn't even a walk in closet! Ben's room is the same way. LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!
We have most of the kids toys stored in the large linen closet in the hall. It works out really well, all the toys are out of sight, out of mind after they go to bed!


We have lived here for just over a month now, and are loving every minute of it! The girls love playing in the yard, and going on walks. (on sidewalks!!) They get so excited when they get to talk to a neighbor! (did I keep them that sheltered?) Closing on the house was drama filled, and we actually moved in 10 days before we closed. We just had some unexpected delays that were no fault of our own, nor the builder... the house was done in time. (too stressful to think about it) Since Joseph has a great relationship with our builder, they allowed us early occupancy (which I was grateful for) but we couldn't get comfortable in our new house until we knew it was "ours" I refused to hang up any pictures until we actually closed... just in case! We are pretty much moved in now, we just have a row of boxes in our garage to deal with. But hey, we have a one car garage, and our van is parked inside, so it can't be too many boxes!!

We get to go visit Andrew and his beautiful family, so hopefully I will have some cute pics to post later...

Seven Years already??

Yesterday Joseph and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary! I can't believe it has been 7 years already, but then in some ways it seems like it should be longer... Meaning, that I can't remember life without him! We have been through a lot in the last 7 years, and I know we have much more to experience together... I look forward to many, MANY more years to come, and the adventures they will bring!

A few pictures from our wedding... just for fun.

May 15, 2004

Our first appearance as husband and wife!

Albuquerque, NM Temple
(it was so windy!)

I just love this picture...

We now have three beautiful children and we just bought our first home. I wonder what the next 7 years have in store...

"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!