Grandma Darley

My amazing grandma aka Grandma Darley aka Grandma Great passed away on May 20, 2014. About 6 months before we found out she developed multiple myeloma (cancer of your plasma cells). Her health slowly started declining. My mom would give me weekly updates over the phone as to how Grandma was doing in her final months of life. My mom and her sisters took such great care of Grandma. She was able to stay in her home and my aunt Brenda, who lived next door, came down every morning to check on her and help her. During the last few months they decided to hire a hospice because things were getting worse and Brenda couldn't be there all the time. It sounds like they took such great care of her as well.
What a special lady my grandma is! Here is her obituary that was printed in the Herald Journal.

She was such a warm and caring person. She was always there to greet me with a big hug and a kiss on my cheek, which always left a mark from her lipstick. She loved everyone! She loved being outside and walking. Grandma loved to walk everywhere. She always had so much energy and was so full of life. And so young at heart. She was always up for an adventure and always had a smile on her face. I will always remember this little sticky note she had posted on her bathroom mirror for years and years that read "I intend to be happy". She chose to be happy, and she really was.
She was always so stylish and loved to go shopping! I like to think I inherited my love for shopping from her. My mom tells me it skipped a generation because she doesn't enjoy it very much.:) She loved going to St. George every winter. I loved going down there to visit her and go hiking and shopping with her.
I really love that she was such a big Jazz fan. If there was a Jazz game on, she was watching it. My parents and Aunt Nan and Uncle Scott would take her to Jazz games sometimes and she would get into it. One time the Jazz Bear came over to her, picked her up, and carried her over to an empty chair right next to Larry Miller's son on the front row! Best day of her life! How cute is that!
Grandma loved flowers. She also loved birds. I always think of her as I sit with my girls and watch the birds gather at our bird feeder in the backyard. She always loved gardening and felt happy out in her yard digging in the dirt. I feel the same way.

Grandma loved her mountains. Her and Archie lived in the same house their whole life together!! That is amazing! Trey and I haven't even been married 8 years yet and we've lived in 5 different places already. I have so many sweet memories of family gatherings, Easter egg hunts, Thanksgivings, Christmases, Memorial Days, and Labor Day festivities in that sweet pink little house on the corner.

 

 

 

 

It's strange to say she was my last living grandparent. I no longer have a grandma's house to go visit when I go to Cache Valley and that makes me sad. I always looked forward to our visits. She always made every person who walked through her front door feel special and loved. No judgements whatsoever. She loved when I brought Trey over to meet her for the first time. His hair was long and curly then and she was in love with it! She just gushed and gushed over it and Trey thought it was great. He said she immediately made him feel welcome and accepted, even if he wasn't the most clean cut boy in the world.

One of my favorite things grandma would always say is "We are so blessed." She would say that multiple times at gatherings as she would stop and look at all her kids and grandkids and great-grandkids, her greatest blessings and treasures.

I could go on and go about all this woman's wonderful qualities. What a inspiring example of charity. She loved people and she loved life. You could tell that she knew the Savior by the way she lived her life. And I know the reunion of her and Grandpa Archie was so sweet and special. When I envision that joyous reunion it's hard not to be happy for her that she is free from her old body and earthly cares and reunited with her sweetheart.
I love you Grandma. I miss you. Wellsville will never quite be the same without you. I rejoice in the fact that I know I get to see you and be with you again and you'll be waiting for me with open arms to give me a great big hug and a kiss.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Goodbye Preschool!

Lucy just finished her 2nd year of preschool! Next stop, Kindergarten! Ahhhh!! I'm totally freaking out about this, hopefully by the end of the summer I'll be more okay with sending her away to ALL DAY Kindergarten! That's a pretty big jump for us folks. I bet Lucy will do great and I'll be the one having a hard time.
Anyway...back to the day. Lucy did great at the Jeopardy game they played and got all her answers right! Smart cookie right there.
Here are a few pics I snapped on my regular camera. Everything else is on my phone, as per usual.

 Of course we had to get a few silly poses in.

 Ruby wanted in.

 Here is her little class of 6 and Miss Jen, her teacher. She had such a great year and was always so excited to go. She loves learning and playing with friends. :)

Good job Lucy girl! We're proud of you.

Ruby is 2!!

Me: "Ruby, how old are you?"
Ruby: "I twoooooo!" (in the most excited voice possible)

Oh my goodness, I could just eat this girl up. She is just too cute for her own good. She turned two on May 22! Can you believe it?! Yeah, me neither!! My baby is not so much of a baby anymore. I love this age so much. She is too funny with all the little things she says these days. Her favorite things to say lately are "I did it!!!", "Need help!", "Watch!" (and then she'll do something funny), "(insert food item here) too?" (when Lucy is eating something Ruby wants). She'll also say "I happy!" several times a day, so sweet. Today when I was getting her out of her car seat for church she wiggled her legs and said "I excited!" Trey also does this thing with her where he says "Guess what...chicken butt!" So now she's learned, he'll say "Guess what?" and she'll say "Chicken pie" or "Chicken tie (meaning thigh)" or basically "chicken" and then anything she feels like saying. Then it turns into a game with everyone.

She was so cute on her birthday. I hung up a bunch of decorations, balloons, streamers, and happy birthday signs the night before so when she woke up it would be a surprise. She was so happy! She kept saying "My birthday!" and jump up and down excitedly. :)

Here is a list of her current favorites:

Food: yogurt n berries (only blueberries for Rubes)

Color: purple

Movie: Curious George

TV show: Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood

Song: "Top of the World (Hey!)" by Imagine Dragons and "Happy" by Pharrell Williams

Book: Milo's Special Words and anything by Sandra Boynton

Place: This girl loves going to ALDI, it's kind of funny. Also loves the library, to visit the fishies.

Things to do: riding her strider bike (she's rocking it!), playing pretend with Lucy, dancing, singing in the karaoke machine, painting, playing with playdoh, playing outside in the yard, helping mom with anything, finding "pollies" (potato bugs), say hi to the neighborhood dogs and cats, painting toenails, and the list goes on.

This girl can count to 10 and recognizes all the numbers, although 6 and 9 confuse her sometimes. She recognizes quite a few of her letters. She loves to give kisses and hugs to me throughout the day. It melts me every time. She loves to play and be silly. She gets so excited about everything, it makes me smile. She loves to wrestle with Lucy and puts up with a lot. She almost always has a cute little smile on her face. She is definitely more mischievous than Lucy ever was. It's really hard to say no to her with those big blue eyes of hers, and she knows it. Little stinker! I'm still sticking with my puppy analogy with her because it is pretty spot on. She is such a little puppy (and Lucy is definitely our cat).

She brings us so much joy everyday. I'm so thankful I get to be her mama. I seriously don't know how we got so lucky so have 2 such special little girls in our family. Being their mom is an honor, even though sometimes they drive me bonkers. :) The happy moments always melt away all of the bad ones.

Here are a few of my favorites of Ruby over the past year...

Trying out her birthday scooter from Gma Robbie and Gpa Chuck

This girl always has the most glorious and voluminous bed head!

 Using sissy's camera

 She always has that special little sparkle in her eye

 Love this girl in some piggies. Posing by our thankful tree this past year.

Crazy dress up time with Lucy aka "fashion show"

 And of course some sister wrestling matches are a must.

 Rompers are my favorite on this girl.

 

 This is the oldest one, not too soon after we moved to Cleveland. Her hair has grown a lot!

Happy 2nd birthday Miss Ruby!!!

Goodbye ugly bathroom (still in progress)

As soon as we got back from Baltimore (like the day after) Trey's uncle Rick came out to stay with us for 2 weeks while he worked on our bathroom for us. The demo took a few days...

 Goodbye hideous shower tile! I don't miss you, not even one little bit!

 And goodbye shower, wall and cabinet! It's so much more open now, we love it!

 Then Trey and I put up waterproofing sludge and installed the insulation while Rick went back home for the weekend.

Then the drywall went up...

Then the bath/shower tile. We decided to go with small white subway tiles and dark grout.

 Grout time!!

We bought a Bagster at Home Depot and threw all the junk in there. Then you call Waste Management and they come pick it up and take it away and it's gone. Easy peasy! It was fun to watch them lift our bathroom up off our front lawn and throw it away.

 Next the floor tile went in...

 

We put in light grey grout for the floors. I like to see the pattern of the grout.

So there she is!

  We like it a whole lot.

 Then the bead board was put up.

 And the toilet was put back into place of course. Can't forget that!

Rick had to leave a little quicker than he thought for personal reasons so he left us with more things left to do than we hoped. Trey was on a rough rotation this past month so he didn't have a whole lot of free time to devote to the bathroom and it required more expert hands for some things. It was a little frustrating. But we've now called a plumber and fixed the shower issue and called a friend of a friend to help fix some problems with the drywall. We should be ready to paint this week and get this moving along! We're so excited to get this thing finished and have a fully functioning bathroom again. Hooray! Hopefully by the beginning of July we'll have it all done.

Trey has the dresser-turned-vanity almost all ready to go. It is looking awesome. Here are a few pictures of him stripping the old stain off of it and painting it.

 Don't worry, it's not this bright blue color anymore. Trey distressed it and then put some black stain on it and wiped it off and it changed it to a dusty blue, I love, love, love it! This has been Trey's baby. He said when we move he's taking it with him. Lots of blood, sweat, and tears have gone into that old thing. :) We'll post pictures of it when it's all finished.

 

Another thing that happened as soon as we got home from our trip was we moved Ruby into Lucy's room. It was a little tricky that first night but we've figured out a schedule where Ruby goes to bed first and then after she falls asleep we sneak Lucy in. It's amazing having those 2 together because Lucy always had to have her closet light on all night but now she doesn't. I think she feels safer with Ruby in there with her. They just have the little Tinkerbell night light plugged in and it works great. A few nights Ruby has woke up crying but every time as soon as the crying started Lucy woke up and immediately started singing primary songs to calm Ruby down. And every time Ruby stops crying and then Lucy finishes her song and then all goes quiet again. It really is so sweet. What a great big sister Lucy can be. :)