So It Begins...

I walked into the living room and caught Evelyn red-handed. That's right...fists full of cords...pushing buttons...and elbow deep in baby mischief. For months she's been playing on the floor and never bothered the electronics right within reach. No more, my friends. She's all about it now.

My sweet little stinker

Oh, and I don't think I've mentioned that she's always up on her hands and knees now. She rocks back and forth like it's going out of style. No crawling yet. But I don't think it will be long. I'll admit that I can wait for her to be independently mobile.

Here she is making her best grumpy face. I love that furrowed brow!

Hope you're having a good day! Hugs all around.

Lunch Time Fun

We were curious to see how Evelyn would handle finger foods. We bought some Gerber Puffs and she loved them. The pictures above are of her first time eating them. It was SO entertaining. I've never seen such perfect sour faces. She did this for the first several times eating them. I don't know if they actually taste sour or if it's a texture thing. Either way it was fun to watch (are we cruel?).

Later that same day I fed her some prunes. She does not like prunes. She kept spitting mouthfuls out and smearing it all over before I had a chance to wipe it. I eventually just gave up on trying to keep it clean and let her have some fun with it. Needless to say, she got a bath that afternoon.

The House

We finally bought a house! Well, we haven't technically 'bought' it yet. We close in mid-September. But all the purchase agreement papers are signed so it's practically a done deal. These photos were taken when we first saw it in April, just before we moved to Iowa. We saw it again last week and it's beautiful with bright flowers. Anyway, enjoy the pictures!

Here it is! Of course we have all sorts of things we'd eventually like to do to improve the curb appeal. Shutters, glass storm doors, re-finish the deck, window flower boxes, and landscaping to name several. We aren't going to delude ourselves into thinking it's all going to happen immediately, but down the road, when we're done with it, it will exude charm.

Dining room and Kitchen. We are looking forward to painting. And changing out the carpet in the dining room. I won't bore you with the colors we've picked out. But I will tell you it will look very different. Consider all of these pictures to be the 'before' shots : ) We love all the cupboard/counter space in the kitchen. And the appliances are decent. Some other huge pluses, all the windows and the roof were replaced in 2006. It's an older home so it's nice we won't have to worry about that.

We really like the layout of the house. The living room is right off the kitchen and down the hall is a full bath and a bedroom (which will be my jewelry studio). There is new carpet throughout the main level and the current owners keep the house very clean. We like the banister too, it's classic.

The house has a bathroom on every level. The basement has a 3/4 bath, the main level has a full bath (I love the claw-foot tub), and the 2nd level has a half bath. They are all in great shape and very clean. And they have tons of built in storage. That makes me so happy!

There are 4 bedrooms. The top-left is downstairs and will be my studio. The others are all on the 2nd level. They have really deep closets and some have built in storage (in the closets). The current owners built a laundry closet upstairs so it has living-level laundry as well. We LOVE that! Oh, and we also scored their high-efficiency front load washer/dryer out of the deal. Which means we can sell ours. Anyone need a washer/dryer?

The basement is finished and the water issues have been resolved. This is a huge deal. While looking for homes we learned that just about every house in Iowa has water problems in the basement. Even in new homes. I'm not sure why, I guess it's just really wet in Iowa? Basements usually aren't finished for this reason. I'm so glad we don't have to worry about that. There is an office/storage room (we worked the standing freezer into the deal too, yay!); a huge family room; a bathroom; and foyer area that has a wood furnace to supplement the hot water heat. The owners installed the wood furnace because Iowa is also known for ice storms and losing power due to them. We'll be toasty warm though (as long as we have wood, that is).

There you have it. That's our house. I have lots more pictures of closets and such, but those are really only exciting to us. Now we are just praying the rest of the process goes as smoothly as it has so far. If all continues to go well, we'll be moving in less than 60 days. This couldn't have worked out better because our 6 month lease ends right around then.

Seven Months

Evelyn is finally feeling better after a rough week of teething. She is happy and smiling again so here are the pictures I promised.

I have been waiting for months to take tutu pics of Evelyn. First of all, I needed to make her a tutu. And she needed to be old/strong enough to sit up on her own. Well, now I need to wait for her to understand that a tutu is a cute, frilly thing to wear and smile in...not devour.

There were too many cute pictures to choose from.

Tutu Toes!

4th of July Fun!

Evelyn and I ready for some 4th of July parade action.

I don't know about you, but we had a SUPER fun 4th of July. One thing is for sure--these Southern Iowans really know how to whoop it up for this holiday. It seems like every town has a huge carnival, parades, and tons of activities for days. We were pumped and ready to celebrate.

We started our day with the parade in Chariton, IA. Mike had the privilege of walking in the parade and handing out festive bead necklaces for the bank. I've gotta say, it was a darn good parade. Even though there were no marching bands (my favorite part of any parade), I didn't get any pamphlets (our last Prescott Daze parade we counted something like 35 pamphlets...ugh). So it balances out.

We were so excited to see daddy! It doesn't look like it, but there were 9 employees in the parade. And they had a golf cart. To be honest, the Midwest Heritage Bank 'float' left something to be desired. Mike and I were brainstorming afterwards about all the ways they could be the COOLEST part of the parade for next year. I've (un)officially made myself the float designer for the bank (I wonder if it pays well...?).

This one's for you, Betty. The class of 1961 had a float in the parade. For those of you who don't know, that's the year that Betty graduated (Betty is Mike's mom...for those of you who really don't know). Anyway. Upon closer inspection of the picture I was astonished to see that somehow Betty was indeed on that float. Ok, so it wasn't really her--she was 5 hours away celebrating in Minnesota. But could there possibly be anyone who looks more like her? I think she even has those same white capri pants! And the fact that it was her same graduating year...now that's what you call ironic.

On our way to Chariton we got stuck behind a tractor. As we were driving 30mph down the highway (and already running late, of course), Mike said, "I wonder how many tractors will be in the parade?" Well, the answer is 12. Here they are in all their glory! All 12 of them. (did I mention we live in southern iowa?)

This one's for you, Dad. My grandpa made his living at Minneapolis Moline. I remember when my dad was telling me about that. Seeing this made me made me miss my dad way too much.

Amen!

You know how usually in parades people drive their finest cars?

Like this one...

Or, this one...

Well you can imagine why I was confused when this one came rolling down the street! Someone has a sense of humor.

After the parade we ventured off to the carnival in the town square. Our #1 goal was to find hand-dipped corn dogs. I don't have a picture, but we succeeded! And we had some amazing homemade apple pie (does it get more American that that?) as well as some fresh-squeezed lemonade. There were TONS of people there so the atmosphere was great. We enjoyed watching an arm wrestling competition as well as a parent-child look-alike contest. Too bad we didn't know about that one, Mike and Evelyn would have won for sure.

This picture sums up the first half of our day.

The second half of our day was just as much fun. We went to a gathering with some church friends. They live on a cute little farm. The adults relaxed in the shade. The little ones swam in the "pool" (really, it is the water trough for the horses...but it makes a nice pool too). And the teenagers blew stuff up. We grilled burgers, ate corn on the cob, and they finished the evening with an outdoor movie projected on the side of the barn (which we couldn't stay for...Evelyn needed to go nuh-night).

Our blonde haired, blue-eyed, All-American sweetheart.

It's not often that I get to hold Ev while she's napping anymore...it was heaven.

All in all, it was a fantastically festive day. Of course, we missed family terribly. But we heard ya'll had a good time too. So that's good. Love and miss you all!

P.S. Evelyn is 7 months old today. And is in the depths of teething. One came through Saturday and the other will be here any day now. She is currently screaming in the living room with daddy while I am shut in our bedroom trying not to hear it. 3 full days of it and I'm about to lose my ever-lovin' mind. The poor thing. Anyway, I will take some cute pics as soon as I can get a smile out of her.