Saying good-bye

We just got home from Sweetwater, TX where we said good-bye to a very special lady yesterday.  My great-grandmother, Gran, passed away Wednesday afternoon.  She was just about 28 days short of her 95th birthday.  She was a life long member of the Church and was such a wonderful woman and quite an example to strive after.  I wish I had got to spend more time with her before she got too sick, or appreciated that time I had while she was still getting around really well.  i was too young to appreciate her and her life experiences.  i loved her so much, she was truly a good woman and someone I want to be just like.  I know she was not perfect because she was human, but she was as close as it gets as far as I was concerned or knew.  What was even more special was that she got to meet my kids, her great-great-grandkids.  How special is that?  I really hope that my kids remember her, but I am sure they won't.  Maybe Gracie might, but its so hard to tell since she is still so young.  I wanted to share a couple picture of her that are special to me.

This picture was taken in 2006, the first reunion after Grace was born.  She was 6 months old. We had 5 generation pictures taken that weekend also, so glad we did that.

Last May when I graduated Grandma and Grandpa and Gran came out and this is her and Claire, 5 months old, sharing a special moment.  That smile on her face could light up a room and showed the pure joy she had from the inside.

Claire was loving the special time as well.

Then Grace climbed up next to her and wanted her to read her a story.  Gran loved every minute, and so did Grace.

Then Andrew had to jump up there and join in on the second reading.  They wanted her to read it again, but she was tired after that, but made it so special that they loved her story reading.

This was in March, this year.  We went out to Albuquerque for a quick trip to get our house plans and my grandma caught this picture.  Gran was walking through the kitchen that morning and Claire came up behind her and wanted to hold her hand, and of course Gran couldn't resist.  You can't see her face but you can tell she is smiling all over.

She is definitely what you would consider a P31 and that is exactly the woman I strive to be everyday but fall short all to often.

We love you and miss you Gran, but we know you are happy in the arms of Jesus and we plan to see you when that time comes.

Good news!

We do not HAVE to have a vent for an electric stove so we are changing the kitchen around!  Yay!  I'm so excited!  Mark had some great ideas, Loy had some great ideas.  We are to think about options and Mark is going to do the same and we are going to get back together on Monday evening to talk about what we want and can do.  I am so happy about that.  The kitchen is the room I just wanted 'just-so' and it was nothing how I thought it was going to be when it was actually in.  Thankfully we are doing a custom house and he said it is very normal for things to be changed like this, which was a relief to me as well.  As I type this right now Loy is working on a 3-D model of the new kitchen on the computer.  I am very excited about it right now.  Maybe it will become the kitchen I wanted the whole time.  Mark even said he didn't like the way we had it on the plan, I just didn't know how else to make it better.  It is such a relieve to me that this can be done.

Oh he also told us that the siding will be in next week and as soon as it gets here it will go up.  We need to go pick out brick color and Trex for our porch.  He said the railing and post for the porches are in and as soon as everything else is ordered and in, it all goes up!  Then it will really look like a real house and will be torture to watch it sit there while they work to get the inside done.

Let there be light.

So in about 30 minutes we are going to be walking through with our contractor to go over all the electrical stuff.  What kind of lights we want, where we want outlets and light switches, and all the other stuff like that. We are hoping to also talk to him about changing the kitchen around.  It will all depend on the down draft for the stove.  Not sure if we HAVE to have one, but if we do there could be an option, it would be tight on one side, but an option.  If we don't have to have it then there is a whole lot more options.  Does anyone know if we have to have a vent for the stove, even an electric stove?  I did a quick google search and from what I read it is not a requirement, but nice to have to get smells out.

Life.

Well, I mentioned in my caption to my blog that this is about us building our house while we live our lives in between and so far all I have blogged is the house part and not so much about life.  Well 'life' is the reason these house posts are so far apart, 'life' is busy and gets in the way of blogging.  So here is a sample of a day in the life of the Smith's.

6:00-7:00- Kids wake up anytime in between these times.
7:00-7:30-  Daddy goes to work/ Mommy catches up on Facebook and other favorite sites/ Kids breakfast and watch TV.
8:00 (now)- Take Gracie to school (Pre-K)
8:30- (M,W,F) Home/ workout/ laundry/dishes/ story time, play time, movie with other kids.  (T, Th now) Smaller kids to Mother's Day Out.
10:30- (M, W, F) Pick up Gracie from school
11:00- Home, eat lunch
12:00- Nap time.  If workout didn't happen earlier, workout for Mommy or laundry or watch a movie, or more computer time, or nap time for Mommy too (especially if I have to work or worked the night before).
2:00-3:00- Wake up, snack, play-time or movie- time.
3:15(T, TH)- Pick up kids from Mothers Day Out
5:00- Start dinner
6:00- Daddy home, dinner
6:15- Mommy leaves for work 3 nights a week
6:30- 7:30- Clean-up, bath-time, get ready for bed time
8:00- Bed time for kiddos and relaxing time for Mommy and Daddy
10:00-11:00- Bed time for Mommy and Daddy
On nights I go to work I get home about 7:30 in the morning and our day starts over again.

Somewhere in all of that we get groceries, get shopping done, some days we go play with our play group.  This is just the things that normally happen there are a whole lot of other things that come up here and there all the time.  Now that school has started we will probably have a little bit more of a routine to our lives and I can get shopping, both grocery and house stuff done while they are at school.  Trying to find the time to get these things when all three kids are happy, not tired and not hungry is VERY difficult.  I'll attach a few pictures of 'Life'

Here is Gracie on her first day of school.  She looks so big.

All three kids getting ready to take Gracie to school on her first day.

Pretty girl!  Getting so big and that curly hair.  (yes, that is my mom back there)

What little boy doesn't fall asleep with his cap on? And a Kool-Aide mustache.

Such a mess...

She is getting so big.  What a pretty smile.

Super hero.

So there is a little view into what our busy life entails.  Hopefully it won't be so busy that I can't update this blog more.  And I will insert more 'life' into it.

Windows and tour upstairs.

Windows went in last week.  Pretty plain windows, but they are making it look more like a real house.  They are Low-E windows, filled with Argon gas.  Suppose to be better for energy efficiency, some how.

This was suppose to be a garden window, not a box window.  Hopefully its not too expensive to change it out, and I am really hoping we don't have to pay for their mistake.  This was very plain on the plans and he did it this way, we didn't decide to change it afterwards.

The chimney, which I actually thought was going to be taller, but oh well.

The back of the house.

Now lets go upstairs...

This is Grace and Claire's room.  It is in the back.  It is the best picture I could get, but it is much bigger than it looks in this picture.  Their closed is huge too.  I'm sure once they are teens it will not be big enough, but nothing probably will be.

Andrew's room.  Opposite the girls' rooms, so it is in the front of the house.

The kids bathroom.  It is a 'Jack-and -Jill' bath.  Not huge, but it is good size.

The play room.  To the left is an office and a storage room.  This area is above the garage.

This area is, well, our shower.  We took the tub out of the original plan and just made the shower bigger and ummm, its big.  In fact it is huge!  It is the size of the kids full bathroom in our trailer now.  As our friend Tami likes to call it, it is a 'Party Shower'.  It is probably 2 times as big as I thought it was going to be but it will be good.

This is the best shot of our room.  In the corner is a small fireplace.

Then of course the kids had to play in the big pile of sand out front.  We enjoyed watching them from out front porch.  

It was getting late and Claire was more than ready to get home and go to bed.  Sally accompanied her most of the way home since she decided to go by herself.

Going up...

We have been having upward progress lately!  Yay!  I am about 2 weeks behind in my blogging so this might be quite a long post with several pictures.

The beginnings of our second story.  Looks like two stacked boxes with a few holes in the sides.

The from of the house.  Front door, one upstairs one downstairs.

The kids checking things out upstairs.  They love going into their 'rooms' and imagining what it will be like.

Good times playing at the house.

Back of the house.  Looks kinda funny right now.  Looks just like two plain boxes.  It does get better...

Taking a little break to look out the windows and take in the view.  Actually that is probably not what they were enjoying, but it sounds nice, like they appreciate it.

Cheese!

The porches are starting to form, along with the roof.

The front of the house...

Where I will spend many hours, top or bottom, it doesn't really matter.

The new stairwell.  This is the view just as you walk in the front door.

When I wake up in the mornings (or evenings depending on my work schedule for the day), this will be what I see.

Closer view.  Where we plan to have a little sitting area in our room so on cold days we can still enjoy the beauty God has blessed us with.

Where did this curly-headed cutie come from?

The new cats follow us up to the house and they even enjoy it.  Too bad they won't be allowed in once it is finished.

Right now they are working on putting the decking on the roof.  Whats next?  Shingles, siding, windows and doors.  Looking forward to that because then it will look more like a real house than just a wood box.