Random...

Well, I don't even know if this is true or it's all a big hoax... but I'm kind of a word nut anyway, so I think it's fun to see if I know what the words mean. So, enjoy...

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Thanksgiving

We headed to Illinois for Thanksgiving last weekend. We actually took off Wednesday evening right after work, and didn't have to be back until Saturday afternoon, so it was a nice, long trip. We spent it like most Thanksgivings are spent...

Eating...


Sleeping...
Being tortured by aunts and uncles... nice to know some things never change, since I have vivid memories of being tortured by Jane & David when I was that age... memories of being teased mercilessly, held upside down over a toilet, and scared half to death with stories... and loving every minute of it (well, except maybe the toilet incident)! :)


And, since there was a new baby and lots of dogs (Mom & Dad brought Joy and Bob, in addition to Grandpa's dog, Jack), everyone also....

Held the baby...
and played with the dogs...

And held the baby...

And played with the dogs...
And held the... wait a minute...

Anyway, it was a great weekend of hanging out with family and just relaxing. We ate ourselves sick on Thursday and visited with the whole family. Everyone loved Elena, of course! :) Friday morning some of us hit the Black Friday sales. Ellen and Ruth and I left at 5:30 to hit the sales... We dropped Ellen off at Joann's Fabrics (that place is the worst EVER on Black Friday), then Ruth and I headed to the mall across the street. We shopped 'til we dropped, then headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's. That afternoon we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa Hook. It was really neat to have five generations together. And it was fun to visit with Grandma and Grandpa, it had been too long since we'd seen them.
Saturday we hung out all morning then headed home around noon so we could be back in time for the MU/KU game (WHICH WAS AWESOME). All in all, it was a great, relaxing Thanksgiving weekend spent hanging out with family, eating lots of great food, and watching a SPECTACULAR football game (MU won, in case you haven't figured that out yet). And now it is OFFICIALLY THE CHRISTMAS SEASON!

SDC Christmas!

This is a late post, but life has been crazy around here! But Josh and I made our annual trek to Springfield to start our Christmas shopping the weekend before Thanksgiving. We both took half days on Friday, and headed straight to Battlefield mall. Which is what we normally do. Except that this year we had Elena with us, so before we headed in to start shopping, I had to nurse her and pump in the car... so, if you've never had that experience, it's quite lovely, let me tell you. Anyway, to top it all of, Elena then peed on me. So we finally headed inside to start shopping, and stopped to change Elena... at which point she pooped all over her blanket. SO, we did learn that shopping with a 9 week old is never easy! But we managed to get some good shopping in, then headed to Hemmingway's for all you can eat crab legs... which were awesome!

Saturday we left Elena with her Grandma Looten, and Josh and I headed to The Landing in Branson. It was pretty fun to be out and about without Elena. The Landing has some neat stores, so we had a good time running around, though we didn't have much luck shopping until we made it to the Belk department store. We cleaned up there, and had to ride the trolley back! The Landing is a neat place to wander around because it's all decorated and has tons of fountains. One guy was nice enough to take our picture in front of one of the fountains (we were goofing off, taking a picture of ourselves, and he offered, so we couldn't say no).

After The Landing, we headed to SDC. The first thing you see when you get into the city is the giant tree, which is just awesome.

There were still several hours of daylight left, so we spent the first bit of time shopping. We made good use of the "Send to front" option (so we didn't have to carry our purchases around) and bought LOTS of presents (so many of you will recognize your gifts as SDC products). Then, when it was getting dark, we headed up front for the tree lighting. It's a great show, where they animate the tree while they're playing music that goes along with it, very cool. So several times I just set my camera on continuous and held the shutter button down. I got tons of pictures, but here are my favorites...

After the tree was lit, the fun really began. They lit up the rest of the park, too, and they have millions and millions of lights... everything is lit up! It's amazing to walk around because there aren't many big lights, so we were walking all over the park lit only by Christmas lights. So we went to ride all of the rides... first up was the barn swing. The barn itself looked cool lit up, but the swing was the best! It felt like flying, and every time we got up high, we could see the lights of the park spread out in front of us.

We also rode the roller coasters, which was so much fun because it's been a year since I've gotten to ride any of them... our trip for Christmas shopping last year, when I wasn't pregnant, but desperately wanted to be. We rode Wildfire, which would have been really neat, except that it had been like 8 hours since I'd nursed Elena and/or pumped, and the shoulder harness was less than comfortable. But we rode Powder Keg, and spent the extra time to sit in the front car. Let me tell you what... Powder Keg, in the dark, in the front row (where there's nothing in front of you) is FREAKING AWESOME!! It feels like you're just flying through the air, because there isn't anything in front of you. That was definitely worth the extra wait for the front seat! After the rides, we headed home, exhausted and ready to see our sweet baby Elena again!

Here are a few more pictures I took that I loved... the cool thing about SDC is that it's all about Christmas- not Happy Holidays or anything politically correct, it's about CHRIST and CHRISTMAS. That's what makes this weekend so awesome every year... and this year was no exception!

Random

I found this on an education/technology blog that I read. It's pretty fun!

http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/reading_level.aspx

It tests the readability of your blog or website. Just in case you were wondering, the readability of this blog is Elementary school (what does that say about me?!), the readability of the baby blog is high school, and my tech blog that I never post in is genius (apparently they appreciate brevity). I have no idea what the site actually checks, but it's kinda fun anyway! Happy checking! :)

Progress

So, yesterday I had an eMINTS training session on campus and we were learning about visual literacy for part of the time. Basically, that just means being able to "read" pictures- the stories, emotions, etc. that you can see in pictures. And being about to take/create those same kind of images. Anyway, one of the activities that we did was to walk around campus and we were supposed to take a picture, then come back and write an "essential question" about it that would spark discussion/other questions. Here was the picture we took...

It's from the 2nd floor of Jesse, looking across the quad towards downtown. If you look really close, you can see a couple of the columns at the courthouse on the other end of 8th street. If you didn't go to MU, our essential question might not make much sense, but we asked...

"What is the impact of progress?"

Anyway, since so many of the people who read this blog did go to MU, or are familiar with it, tell me what you think. What do you notice in this picture? Just curious! :)

Happy Birthday!

Well, with very little fanfare, my baby brother turned 21 a couple of weeks ago. I know I say it all the time, but it's hard to believe that my siblings are growing up as fast as they are. I'm proud of them both, and how they're growing up! Happy Birthday, Charlie!

Halloween Happenings!

Josh and I aren't huge Halloween people (we like Christmas- better message, and PRESENTS!), but we usually do a little something! This year, since Halloween was on a Wednesday, there was a small youth party at church. And, of course, we carved a pumpkin. Here we are with Elena and our pumpkin, not that you can really see us. And Elena is a bit blurry because she doesn't really get that whole sit still thing, and the exposure on this picture was loooong!


Before we went to the youth party, we dressed Elena up in her Halloween costume. She was (as you can see) thrilled!

At the youth party we ate some snacks, and Charlie had some great, classic games for us! And when I say us, I mean everyone else, because I took the pictures!
First was bobbing for apples... here's Sam, shoulder deep in the bucket... way to go all out, dude!
Not to be outdone, Josh followed Sam's lead and got SOAKED!
We also played the classic toilet paper mummy game... here is Sam as his team's mummy!
It was a simple Halloween, but it was a lot of fun. I didn't even dress up, but we still had fun at the youth party. And we learned one very important lesson... when it comes to Halloween games, the classics never die! :)

Wedding Weekend

Well, last weekend was Jessie's wedding, and all 3 of us were in it! It was a bit of a stressful weekend, but we still had a good time. The wedding was beautiful, and went off (mostly) without a hitch. Other than the shoes were rather uncomfortable, so most of the bridesmaids couldn't feel their feet by the end! But of all the problems to have, that one wasn't so bad! Jessie looked beautiful, and Elena was an adorable flower girl. I didn't get to take many pictures because Elena was cranky, so I had my hands full just getting the two of us ready. But here are some of the favorites I have (some I took, some from Josh's mom).

Decorating the reception hall. It was a really neat room, and looked even cooler with this whole wall of mirrors.

Grandma and Great-Grandma Looten hanging with the flower girl during the rehearsal.

The bride: post hair appointment, pre makeup and dress! :)

Make up session...

Shoes... discarded every chance we got! The flowers were beautiful, though!

At the end of the wedding, there was a sword detail. It was very cool. The Marines lowered the swords and made them kiss to pass. Then the last guy whacked Jessie and yelled "Welcome to the Marine Corps, ma'am!" She, of course, shrieked and jumped, which was funny.

The throw away bouquet... which hit Ruth right in the face, and she didn't catch it! Josh said that it must have been God telling her something! :) Josh's dad said it looked like she caught it and spiked it!

The Lootens were definitely the life of the party... and after the stress of planning, the mother of the bride DEFINITELY deserved to let loose a little!

The Looten boys... Danny, Josh, Tim, and Stevie

Jessie's favors were really neat... they put little chinese take out boxes on the tables, then had 6 trifle bowls full of sweets, so people could fill up their boxes with their favorite sweets. When we were setting up, I thought the M&Ms just looked cool.

So, Jessie's married... hard to believe, since I remember when she would pout when Josh and I weren't paying enough attention to her while we were dating in high school. It's still funny to see her all grown up and married.