Pulled Up

 7 months pulled up on her own. 

Today: December 16

She's napping. I'm feeling all kinds of down and out. 25 days til the move. 

I had a BAD day, on the day it was 47 days left. Lots of crying, lots of feeling isolated and alone, lots of just sad stuff... for seemingly no reason. (Hormones are possible, I suppose.)

One of the things I told myself to get myself through the blues was, "It's okay to feel this way. 47 is an awful number. SO close to 50. SO far from 40. You won't keep feeling this way past 30 days. Past 30 days and you'll be in the home stretch."

So here we are. 25 days out. And I'm feeling like it's more like a 25 year jail sentence. I was told to suck it up buttercup and focus on the positives. 

SO

I'll just use my time to fill in the blanks of the last few months. Writing should be cathartic, right?

I went back to the last time I wrote- sometime near the ending of April and pulled up the pictures and videos from then. I'm glad I did. This little video of the first time Iyla pulled up put the biggest grin on my face.  

Look how proud of herself she is.

This was kind of a big "motherhood moment" for me. I was washing the dishes the first time she pulled up. I turned around to find that she was already pretty much standing up. I felt so disheartened that I had missed such a huge thing, for something as silly as the dishes. 

I have the best job in the world, watching this angel grow... and I'm missing things because I'm worried about the dishes- about the house being clean. 

It was just the wake up call I needed to play more, clean less, and focus more on holding tight to the small moments.

Band practice. 

7 months and Easter

Easter was slow as far as Easters go. Ryan was sick for a few days, he couldn't even eat the dinner I made. We are gonna be having the remnants of Easter dinner until next Easter. 12 lbs of meat is in the freezer, ready to be reheated at any moment. :)

I've tried to introduce the little girl to bubbles on several occasions, however, it appears that she doesn't trust them. We will continue to try. She cracks me up with her sense of what is "okay" and what is "totally not okay".

She grows so quickly, her personality is starting to peek through. It's a pretty exciting time. My only wish is that we had people around that could share that excitement.

29 Weeks and Around Our Towns

 I may be slightly obsessed with this little girl....

 She is growing faster than this Momma knows what to do with. She's sitting up on her own now, for the most part. She pays attention to EVERYTHING. Maybe even too much? Sleeping is not her favorite thing in the world, I bet she just doesn't want to miss anything. But 15-20 minute naps are just not enough for me to get much done though, so I would really like to see some longer naps outta this girl.

We have been seeing a lot of Southern Iowa. We are getting ready for you visitors! We want to show you guys a good time so we are researching our area for fun things to do and see, along with checking out the best places to eat. If you were THINKING about coming out this year... STOP THINKING. Come on out. We miss our people and we would love the company. :)

This was the National Balloon Museum - it was ... a museum. 

For those of you who Iowa just doesn't do it for... here's a taste of our towns. Since "our town" Lineville, only has a gas station, a shady restaurant  and a suspicious number of fire works work shops - we go to the surrounding towns quite a bit, so they are "ours" as well. The below is Corydon. Locals say it core-dun. 

ROW 1: The library and dollar store, the movie theater (open only Fri, Sat and Sunday- each day for only one showing at 6:30)

ROW 2: Scenes from around town, I'm not sure about that sign that claims this was the spot of a Jesse James robbery... I'll have to investigate further and report back later.
ROW 3: CLIO. Clio is the town closest to us, we live in Lineville, but Clio is closest. Clio has one business open on it's Main Street, (see the bottom right photo) the Hardware store. Home of very expensive dog food and dusty tools. Just outside of town is the red church shown below. We went last Sunday and liked it well enough, so we plan on attending this church. There were about 35 people there according to the sunday school attendance board and about 60 people call this their home church.

28.5 Weeks and the Perils of Living on the corner of No and Where

But really though, how excited does she look to be in the drivers seat of that tractor?

Looking for dog food in this town proved to be a fools errand. There is indeed dog food at the hardware store in town, but it's $39 and they don't take debit/credit cards -- and it's not BEAVERDAM-- so it's not worth the paper bag it's stored in. (Am I right Trivits clan?!) 

{Delawareans: go buy BEAVERDAM PET FOOD}
{Iowans: Sorry, the best dog food ever isn't available here, yet.} 
[Jenny: tell skip to ship me some dog food or my dog is going to die]

Had to drive to the town over, which only had 4-5 lb bags of dog food- which I hope won't cause the Huck any internal damage due to the shady nature of the $4 food. :/ 

Ryan was spreading the manure again today. He had to drive by the house to load his tractor up every 20-35 mins, he honked every time he passed. After the 5th+ time, Iyla and I gave in and had him stop to pick us up. We did a ride along with him for an hour or so. I'm not sure who was happier, him or her. She LOVVVVVED it. Our girl is a tractor fan, for sure. 

We had dinner in Ravanna, MO at a place called the PUMP HOUSE. The town has a water pump in the middle of the road and that's the restaurant's name sake. I think we found a favorite place to eat; excellent food, delicious dessert, and it's within a 30 min drive of our house (The largest factor). Downside? It's only open Thursday, Friday and Saturday - and Sunday for brunch.

I felt ultra aware of our many blessings today. Such a good, good day. 

Love to you all, 
r, M and I

Shout out to SW who made me smile today. <3 

28 Weeks- Iyla

New News:

The new chickens and ducklings are a favorite. Little arms and legs start flapping when poultry gets in her line of vision. She loves to sit with Momma or Daddy in the rocking chair while watching them waddle around in their box. We can stand her up next to the bird box and she likes to look in at them as well. We let her hold a biddy when we first got them. That was cute for .5 seconds. We forgot that she's got a grip like a pro arm wrestler. She almost ripped poor Margret Thatcher's head off. We never speak of the incident because Ryan had to pinch her to let go;  he is now scarred for life because he pinched his precious baby girl. He will deney it if pressed for an admission.

An investigation into thievery and tomfoolery to follow the suspicion of some breed of sock monster in the Collins residence. If that's not it, can somebody please explain why only ONE sock EVER stays on this child's feet? It's an epidemic. 

We do walks every day or so, depending on the weather. We enjoy visits to Dad in the shop or on the field.

She's getting the whole "giggle if it's funny thing", funny faces are something to giggle over (finally, I thought I was just so boring she would never laugh with me). 

We are settling into life on the farm quite nicely. Plants, poultry and baby are all growing well with the warming weather.

love to you all, 

m r and i

And on his farm he had a... duck... E I E I O

Talk about prayers answered with this GLORIOUS weather! Windy for sure, but as I recall, last year we were still neck high in fluffy white poison. No wonder we were just about clinical last year! We both keep commenting on how much lighter we feel here. I guess the sun does make the world of difference. (That and we didn't have our pile of instant "happy", baby girl.)














So, if you keep up with the facebooks, you know that we have adopted 3 chicks. "Joan" (of Arc), "Margaret" (Thatcher), and "Mary Queen of Scots". Ryan wanted to name them for "Great Women in Leadership" :D

Yesterday, we took a family day trip to Des Moines to enjoy the weather and expand our family further. We picked up the three darlings above, Virginia "Wolff", "Mary" Shelly, and "Jane" Austen. (Hey, there are other great women, besides in leadership.) 

We were able to pick up a few plants for my herb garden and GASP! ...
You will find this hard to believe, but, we were able to find time to stop at a few sportsmen stores as well. ;)

My vegetables are coming along well! I'm so glad that we will have lots of space for a great garden this year. 

Over and out, love. 

r,. m and i

Weird things on the outside of the house....

My favorite part of our kitchen is the clear titles above our counter tops. They look kind of strange on the exterior of the house, but inside, they are the main source of light in the kitchen during the day. They are the perfect backdrop to my tea collection.

There are more drawers and shelves than I have purpose for, also a bonus.

Note that my new favorite thing in the world is on display (and in use) prominently in the room. :D

27 Weeks- Iyla

We went to Webster City for the weekend. We were so glad to be able to spend time with our friends. Ryan went to a mens retreat with some guys from church, while Iyla and I spent the weekend with Christa. We enjoyed good company, good times and a great worship on Sunday. When we came home, Miss Iyla was hamming it up for the camera, so I figured I'd share some of the cuteness with you all. Love, R, M and I