Pumpkin Fun

Josh and I never make too big of a deal out of Halloween, but we still always carve a jack o' lantern. So, Monday night we sat down and carved one. We let Laney play with the gunk,


but she wasn't too interested in it:

She was way more interested in drawing on things with the marker that came with our carving kit. Speaking of which, if you haven't gotten a pumpkin carving kit, you are missing out! I bought our's for $2.99 at Hyvee, and it was AWESOME. Plus, I found this fun site for printing off templates for pumpkins, so Josh and I went with the "Surprise" face. I think it turned out pretty good... though I can't take any credit for it, because Josh did it all!



Don't know why this picture came out so funny, guess I moved the camera a little. But still a good picture of Laney and her daddy.

In other news... I'd really like to thank Jessica for buying this card for Elena:

She loves it, but all I have to say is... payback is coming!! :)

A Weekend at Home

Well, this weekend was a much needed respite from the normal go-go-go of our lives, and we DEFINITELY enjoyed it! We set out on Saturday to have the perfect Saturday, and we did! We started off by sleeping in as long as Miss Elena would let us... which was about 9:00 (after getting up to feed her once). Then we headed to breakfast at Little General, and Laney decided she LOVES chocolate chip pancakes and mangoes! After breakfast, we wandered around Walmart for awhile (who doesn't love to do that?!) and learned the funniest thing- Laney also LOVES Christmas stuff! Walmart has all of its Christmas stuff out (just a TOUCH early, if you ask me), so of course we had to go up and down the aisles. She was just enamored by all of the shiny, jingly, fun Christmas ornaments and decorations. She is going to be a maniac once we get our tree up!!

After Walmart, it had been such an exhausting day, that we went home and took a nap! There is something so awesome about all 3 of us passed out in the bed together, taking a good afternoon nap. It is priceless family time, even if we are all sleeping! After our nap, we played with Isabelle, and took her for a walk. If there is one family member who really suffers when we are busy, it's Isabelle, so I'm glad it was nice enough to head out with her. We just strolled around the neighborhood and admired the leaves.

By that time, it was 5:30, and time for the game to start! So we headed to our favorite place to watch the game, Kostaki's! We like it there because they have great pizza (and even better cheese bread), big flat screen TVs, and not a huge crowd. And they're really nice about letting us stay and just sit and watch the game after we're done eating. Anyway, Ruth came and joined us there as we watched the Tigers STOMP Colorado, 58 to NOTHING!

Aunt Ruthie and her favorite (only) neice, supporting the Tigers! Notice that's the same shirt Elena has worn every other game day this fall... 'cause she's only got one MU shirt! :)

Don't know why I took this picture... but something about that penguin sticking out of Josh's hood struck me as funny...

Speaking of funny... guess now we'll know what happened when someone charges us with child abuse after Laney ends up with shaken baby syndrome!!

So, that was pretty much the perfect Saturday!! :)

On Sunday, we got to celebrate Uncle Charlie's 22nd birthday!! Laney thinks Grandma & Grandpa's house is LOTS of fun because there are doggies there that are JUST her size! Not sure what the doggies think, but Laney sure enjoys herself!

Check out the cute dress Liz made!

Since lunch wasn't going to be ready for awhile after church, and Laney's not the happiest when she doesn't get fed on time, I thought it would be best to distract her with some exploring! So Aunt Ruthie, Laney, and I headed down to our old house to look at my favorite fall tree.

Riding on Mommy's shoulders... check out that awesome blue sky! The weather was so perfect for fall!

Laney thought the leaves were pretty cool... for about 10 seconds. And then she was way more interested in Bob the dog!

Sitting IN the tree was cool for about another 10 seconds! Guess Laney just doesn't quite get fall yet... maybe next year!
So, instead we decided to take her down to the creek! Every Price girl (and Laney is half-Price!) loves a good tromp through the creek! And Laney was no exception...

This was moments before a sopping wet Rachel-Dog came bounding by about six inches from us! But the picture came out pretty cute, anyway! Many thanks to Aunt Ruthie for braving the stepping stones in the middle of the water to take the picture!

Nothin' beats splashing in the creek with a stick!

FINALLY, it was time to eat! But Grandma Price's lasagna was well worth the wait!

And the birthday boy! Hard to believe that there are that many candles on my baby brother's cake! He turned 22 years old!! I always especially love Charlie's birthday party because he loves lemon cake with lemon icing, just like me! And, apparently, just like Elena! She hoovered like half a slice! And then was promptly on a massive sugar high!

In the middle of the sugar high... making all kinds of noises at the dogs outside! Check out the belly... this will be a torture-her-with-it-later picture, for sure! Kind of like the one of me sitting at the picnic table in our backyard totally naked at age 4 or so!

Absolutely SHRIEKING at Joy on Grandpa Price's lap. Grandpa Price couldn't pick her up since he just had surgery on his neck, but we just sat her on his lap and she loved every minute of it!


Apparently, October is Pastor Appreciation Month, and the youth kids surprised Josh with a Superman ice cream cake and brownies! It was pretty fun! And the cake was right up Josh's alley... as a side note, I had a much better picture of the cake that's taken at a cool angle, etc... yeah, but blogger insists on putting it on sideways, so here's the plain ol' boring picture instead!

Here's Laney playing in the nursery later... check out the icing ALL OVER HER FACE! Uncle Charlie was feeding her cake during the songs and, well, it's dark then, so his aim was a little off. It's tough to hit a moving target, you know!

In random Laney news, she has discovered the joy of climbing... GREAT! But, as my typical bad-mommy self, I grabbed the camera before I grabbed the baby! :) She's actually pretty good at balancing, so I wasn't really too worried about her!


And funny story from today... the daycare calls me at like 1:30 and says that Elena just woke up and is just arching her back and screaming like she's in pain. We tossed around some ideas, and decided to give it a little bit. So they call back at 1:45 and say that nothing is working, and it would probably be best if I came to get her. So, I gather all of my stuff, drive home with a SCREAMING baby in the backseat, and within 10 minutes of walking in the door, she looks like this:

Happily banging toys on the cedar chest, grinning like nobody's business... GREAT!! Oh well, it got me out of work early, I'll take it! :) But that's sure not gonna fly when she's older!

Worlds of Fun

Well, to continue the absolute madness that has been our lives for this fall, we took the youth group to Worlds of Fun this past weekend! They won the trip by selling $1000 in raffle tickets for the Fish Fry, so it was totally a for-fun event. And we did have fun... I hadn't been to Worlds of Fun in a long time, probably close to 10 years. The very sad news I got when we got there, was that the Orient Express had closed!! That was the very first roller coaster I ever rode, and it was on a youth trip! I was very sad about that. But I did get to ride the Patriot, which was one of those rides where your feet just hang loose, like the Batman ride at Six Flags. It was really fun, I love those rides! I only rode that and the Mamba, which is that really HUUUUGE roller coaster, because it's pretty hard to ride many rides with a one year old tagging along! Anyway, it was a pretty easy day, because we only stayed until 7:00. During October, Worlds of Fun does a Fright Fest thing, where they make it really spooky and scary at 7, so that was a darn good excuse to head out early! Anyway, I didn't take many pictures, because I was trying to corral Elena most of the day, but here are a few! :)

In a bad move by Mommy, Laney wore khaki's and her camo jacket... so she got called a boy the WHOLE day! :) Not sure the dog on her head helped, but it was awful cute. Sam actually won that and gave it to her. The big pink dog was Andrea's, and she was nice enough to let Elena borrow it... and didn't even mind when Elena slimed its nose! :)

The carousel isn't just for little girls! Ruth, Jordyn, and Heather rode, too!

Mommy & Laney on the carousel. She was not convinced that she liked it. Kind of like the frogs the weekend before, it took a lot of convincing!
Random... but Elena kept sticking the head of this turtle in her head... never mind that it's a bath toy, she was loving it! :)

In other news, Elena had her first bout with spaghetti at home, and it was definitely an event that merited breaking out the camera!! Not much to be said about these pictures, just enjoy them! :)

WOW... onery, much???

Life with a one year old continues to be really interesting. We've developed some new fun tricks, like barking when someone asks what a dog says, and she's really close to using Mama and Dada purposefully. She's got more, please, and all done down pat in the sign language department. But, there have been some not-so-fun tricks, too... like pinching, which she got from her mommy, unfortunately. It seems like it is a frustration thing, when she doesn't get what she wants or she's having trouble letting us know what she wants, she'll just grab whatever's close (arm, face, chest, whatever) and pinch with her whole hand. Sometimes, if you tell her no, she'll grab herself- hair, ear, hands, even face- and pinch herself. It's pretty frustrating for everyone, but we're working on it. The last couple of days she has been very, very fussy. We're guessing it's teething, but it sure isn't much fun!

But nothing beats a Sunday afternoon nap with everybody in the same bed!! Last weekend, we took a good, long one, and Laney woke up with some SERIOUS hair... check out the spike!! :)

This picture is just for Aunt Jane and Jess! Does this look familiar?? Laney kept walking around doing that (honestly, her ear probably did hurt) and it was cracking Ruth and I up. And it made me think of Florida... and Disneyworld... and ol' Jess with the swimmer's ear... :)

SDC Weekend

Well, it's become a tradition on Columbus Day to head to Silver Dollar City to hang out with Josh's family from Texas, because they always drive up for the 3 day weekend. We went last year when Elena was just a tiny baby, only 4 weeks old, and had a great time. This year was even more fun!


Josh and I decided to go ahead and stay until Sunday evening so that we could relax a little more and have a bit of a vacation. The family from Texas is Shawn and Cara, and their boys, Collin and Aaron, plus Stacy and her daughter, Katie.


Friday night we had dinner at Mom & Dad's house, and celebrated Luke's birthday with Jess, Luke, and Leila. It was fun wathing Leila and Elena play together now that they are both old enough to actually interact. Laney did a pretty good job sharing her toys, too, which is nice! I think having her at a daycare definitely has some benefits. But, then again, she's not really to the age where they get really possessive yet, so I'm sure we'll have more trouble in the future! We stayed up late Friday night just telling stories and playing with the girls before we headed to bed to get some sleep before a long day at the park!

Miss Leila eating her dinner...

Playing with the bow from Luke's present... and her laptop! Leila loved the little piano, too. It was fun to watch them play, if not actually together, at least next to each other! :)

We spent all day Saturday at the park. Usually when we head to the park it's all grown ups, other than the babies. This time there were kids, and it's a totally different experience! The boys absolutely love the park, and having them around made us all feel like kids!

Two peas in a pod... the two in the middle AND the two in the front!! We all jammed in our minivan, the boys in the front, the little girls in the middle, and the big girls in the back! It was nice to have a vehicle we could put two car seats and 5 grown ups in!

Laney LOVED the park... because she got to eat and drink LOTS. Thanks to Aunt Jessica for teacher her how to drink out of a straw, now she goes crazy every time she sees a straw. But she was lovin' some peach smoothie in this picture!

And eating something else... lumberjack chips covered in cheese, I think... borrowed from Collin!

There are no words...

After we left the park, we went to this really neat place for dinner. It's called Dana's, and they're known for their burgers and shakes. They even have a burger called the Fat Burger that has a fried egg on it... heart attack on a plate, anyone? Anyway, it was a really fun place to go for dinner, and the burgers and shakes were awesome!!


After dinner on Saturday, we headed back to Springfield to watch the Tigers play OSU. We had Tivo-ed it so that we wouldn't miss any of it... though by the time we were done watching it at midnight, I kind of wished we'd missed it all!


Sunday we headed back to the park for a day of hard-core riding! There's a new part of the park that is full of "family friendly" rides. We spent a lot of time there, and Laney even got to ride on her first ride!! She rode the frog ride, and wasn't quite sure she liked it... I spent a lot of time bent over the seat talking in her ear telling her she was having a good time!

Mommy is clearly having fun... except that I was jammed in there and couldn't even get my knees under the bar, then I had to bend all the way forward to whisper in her ear that she was actually having a good time! She mostly liked it, except for one part that was a pretty big up and down, and she got freaked out every time. Oh well, it'll grow on her!

Now this was much more her style! Grandpa Looten won this basketball, gave it to Josh, and then Laney stole it! She and her cousin Aaron had lots of fun playing with it.

Since it was so nice for October, the water rides were a MUST! Even I rode the Lazy River, which is my favorite water ride. I did opt out of the American Plunge, because I really don't like the straight downhill rides, and the boat was PLENTY full with Grandpa Looten, Josh, Shawn, Katie, Aaron, AND Collin! So I stayed on camera duty and videoed while they rode. The line was so short (it wasn't that warm!) that they just stayed in the boat and rode it twice! They made quite the splash...

And looked like quite the drowned rats afterwards!! But they sure had fun!

While everyone else rode the American Plunge, Laney found her own water ride to play in: the water tree! This "tree" just kind of sprays out water, and she loved it! Notice the totally blurred hand!

Mmmm... water from a tree is delicious!
And, since I was videoing, I figured I might as well catch some adorable giggles!

Well, it was a great weekend, and pretty relaxing all around! It really is fun to go to SDC with kids, I can't wait until Elena is old enough to really ride rides and run around. I hope that she enjoys going there as much as Josh and I do! I guess if she grows up with it, she probably will...

Uncle Tim's Birthday

Well, this year for Uncle Tim's birthday, the city of Columbia and the bank decided they would throw him a big ol' party, so they scheduled the Roots, Blues, and BBQ festival right around his birthday!! Everybody from Springfield came up for the party, and we had a really good time! For those of you not in Columbia, the Roots, Blue and BBQ is a huge festival that's all about, well, Blues and BBQ... and roots, I suppose! It started off last year as a celebration for Boone County National Bank's 150th anniversary. This year, the city and different sponsors took part in it, too, though the bank was still one of the sponsors. They invite all of these blues and bluegrass artists to come in, shut down half of downtown and set up stages, plus gobs of food vendors (mostly BBQ, obviously) and the whole place is just crawling with people. It really is an amazing event!

We did have one UGLY event! Apparently it was time for Laney's nap and she couldn't relax in the huge crowd, so she SCREAMED for like 10 minutes straight. We strapped her into the stroller and tried to walk to make her stop, but that didn't work. Eventually Josh rocked her and sang to her until she fell asleep and she napped for a long time. She was happy as a clam when she woke up, but, wow, was she ticked! Liz H., I'm feeling your pain!

Laney, pre-meltdown. Poor Aunt Ruthie was taking care of her when the meltdown started... she definitely wished she was wearing her "I'm the Aunt, NOT the Mom" shirt!

And post meltdown... passed totally out! We discovered that her umbrella stroller is not good for napping because of the metal pole on the side... so we had to make a pillow of sorts for her because she kept waking up and screaming again. Man, was that not fun! :)

Uncle Luke, Leila, and Grandma Looten...

Josh and Danny hanging out and listening to the music. Danny just started going to MU this fall, and it's a lot of fun to have him around (he moved here from Quincy, IL).

I wish the sun wasn't so bright in this picture, but it's still an awful cute one of Laney with her Uncle Tim!
Doesn't get much cuter than this!
Hanging out with Grandma Looten... she's kind of a goofball!

A cute picture of Leila... she's a very smiley baby now!

Sunday everyone came to church with us because Josh was preaching. After church, we went to TGIFridays for lunch, then headed back to Grandma Looten's house for strawberry cake and homemade ice cream. It was awesome! Here's the birthday boy, blowing out the candles!
Happy birthday, Uncle Tim!! We had a blast!