September Highlights

September has proven to be one of the busiest months this year. We spent the first half of the month packing up our rental in Osceola, IA. We closed on our house in Chariton, IA on September 14th. We moved Saturday the 17th. We have been working tirelessly making this new house our home (pics to follow later today). In between all of that many major milestones were reached. And we managed to squeeze some fun in there as well. Enjoy this reel of highlights!

You know how animals pick up on when major changes are ensuing? Well, all month long Amos saw us packing and watched the boxes piling up in our rental. He knew something was up but was doing a good job rolling with it. That was until one night he snapped. We had closed on the house and were gone most of the day/evening for that. That night we were packing up the first load of stuff we were going to bring over to the new house the next day. Mike was in and out loading the car and Amos was tagging along. At one point he jumped up into his seat in the car and absolutely would not come out. He must have been nervous we were leaving and not taking him with us. He wouldn't even budge for deli ham (one of his favorite treats). It literally took us a half hour to convince him to get out of the car. We made good on our promise when he got to go to the house the all the next day with me while I painted. It didn't take him long to approve of the house & yard!

Our moving crew! We had 9 strapping men, a 24' horse trailer, and very large farm truck help us move. It took 2 loads and about 6 hours to get the job done. We are so grateful for our friends from church who have not only willingly, but happily helped us out with such a big job. We love our new friends in Iowa!

Now that we have a big house to fill we have fallen in love with Goodwill and second-hand stores. We've acquired 3 'new' chairs, 4 'new' lamps, 5 'new' mirrors, tons of completely unique knick-knacky things, countless toys, books, and dvds for Evelyn, and many-many other things for just a fraction of their retail price. I have always loved taking something that is "eh" and turning into something that is "Oooooo!" It's safe to say that I have enough projects & re-dos to keep me busy for literally months. It's totally worth it though. I live for this! It's just that we can't pass a thrift shop now with out going in.

Earlier this month Evelyn started pulling herself up on things. Momma was quick to get the camera and capture the first time. We were washing her new toys from goodwill & she was checking on the progress.

Mike's 30th birthday almost got lost in the shuffle of all that has been going on this month. Luckily I had a reminder set up in my phone. Although I would have LOVED to throw him a surprise party, we ended up having a special, low-key celebration. Evelyn and I surprised him at work with a new plant for his office and some ridiculously colorful and festive balloons. Then I cooked him a scrumptious dinner. Which we enjoyed by candle-light in our new dining room. We ended the night with banana creme pie (one of his faves). It turned out to be a really great birthday.

One of the best parts of our new home is that it is only 6 blocks from Mike's work. He now has a 2 minute commute rather than a 30 minute commute! He has been able to walk to work on these beautiful fall days. He comes home for lunch every afternoon. And Evelyn and I get to pop in and say hi from time to time. Everyone at the office absolutely adores her...she's going to be so spoiled! (but in a good way, I hope). Daddy keeps mini tootsie pops on his desk--as you can see Ev loves them.

Evelyn had her first play-date this past Friday. Corbin came to play for the day. Can you believe by looking at them that he is only a month older than Evelyn (she's almost 10 mos, he's almost 11). He is HUGE and she is tiny. She wears size 1 shoes...he's in a size 6(!!!). She's in 9 month size clothes...he's in 18 mos to 2T! He runs around the house and she trails behind crawling as fast as she can. They were so cute together. We can't wait for him to come again tomorrow!

This past Saturday we ventured up to an apple orchard in Des Moines. To be honest, it was quite a disappointment. The advertisement we saw in the paper promised 'family fun'. That wasn't the case at all. But we did get some good pictures & honey crisp apples (that weren't ripe yet). So it was worth it in the end. The best part was that there was a brand new goodwill down the road! We hit that up.

There you have it. We have had both a very busy & very fun month. We hope you're enjoying this beautiful fall. And we can't wait for you to come visit. We've got plenty of room!

P.S. We'll send out an email with our new contact info. Sorry it's taken so long : (