Things That Make Us Happy

Remember the problem of Kellyn climbing out of her crib?  Her crib design provides her with an unfair advantage because she can use the bar across the front to boost herself over.

When we were on vacation she was climbing out of her pack and play, too.  I wanted to rip my hair out in frustration.  It made for some very long nights when she decided she also didn't want to sleep a whole night through for a week and a half.  During one of those nights I had an epiphany.  Why not turn her crib around backwards?  So I did...

...and it works!  Ryan said she was attempting to climb out last night when she was unhappy about going to bed. Thus far she hasn't been able to figure out how to get out.  I pray that this is the case for quite awhile.  She's still not mature enough to be moved into a toddler bed.  Or maybe I'm not the one who is mature enough...

Since I moved to Kansas almost 10 years ago, it has been Ryan's dream to buy a 1/4 of a cow.  He has been close many times to achieving his dream, but then something always happened and the deal fell through.  This year his dream was fulfilled and our freezer currently looks like this:

The whiteboard next to it looks like this:

It is nice to have a stocked freezer and we're looking forward to some fabulous grilled meals this summer.  Neither one of us is sure what a tenderized round is and we've never tried a porterhouse steak before, but we're both pretty excited to try them.

This is currently the view of our entryway:

On Monday this will change.  I have tile installers scheduled to install tile that will match our kitchen.  I'm going to change things a little in the entryway and I'm pretty excited to see what the finished result looks like.

After moving this winter, we tried to move our cat, Gobbles, with us.  He has lived outside at the farm for the past three years and did not transition well to being a house cat again.  He was unhappy, losing weight, using Ryan's duffel bags as his litter box, and generally just annoying everyone.  We looked for somewhere for him to go, and even talked about having him put to sleep.  We just couldn't allow him to roam free where we live, especially without a fenced in backyard.  We finally found some family friends who have a barn and no barn cat.  They agreed to take him, but made no promises.  We understood that it might be temporary and thought we would give it a try.

We saw Gobbles when we picked up our 1/4 cow.  He was happy and healthier looking.  We could tell he genuinely was enjoying life out on the farm again and we're happy that he has a good place to live.