My Deepest Apologies!

I know I have been terribly remiss about the whole blogging thing... I don't really have a good excuse, other than that I have been reading lately. I absolutely LOVE to read. The problem is, when I start reading a book, it practically becomes an obsession, and every spare moment is spent reading. Seriously, I take the book with me in the car and read at stop lights, every moment that I'm at home and not required to do something else, I read. Which means the house becomes a mess, I neglect my husband, and I totally forget about blogging! So, my deepest apologies, but here's a quick catch up on the last few weeks!

We invited Josh's Sunday School class (he teaches the college/career class) over for a Wii Game Night. It was... well, awesome! :) We played a few rounds of boxing, and then spent most of the night playing a game called Mario Party 8. It's like this giant board game, and you can play with a bunch of people by putting them on teams, and you get to play these different mini-games... it really is perfect for a big group of people... definitely on our Christmas list this year!! We ended up having 15 or 16 people, which was pretty awesome. Several people invited friends, so it was a good time to meet some new people. Unfortunately, I missed a good portion of the party because I was getting sick, but I managed to have a good time, and I'm thankful everyone else did, even if I wasn't a good hostess! But, being that I was sick, I didn't get many pictures taken... so here are just a few!

The girls... boxing! They totally got into it, but it's hard not to with the boxing game. It's quite the work out! After this I totally dominated Josh... and then I puked... what a fun night! :)

James and Corey REAAALLLY got into this game... they turned the remotes sideways and had to act like they were in a mine racing in those rail carts that you have to push up and down on the lever to move... given that they weren't ACTUALLY pushing up and down on a lever, just flailing about with little plastic wiimotes, it was pretty hilarious!

The next day, we had a youth service day. We almost always spend a Saturday in November raking leaves as a service project, but we decided to twist it a little this year, and turned it into Leaf Pile '08! We took all of the leaves out to my mom & dad's place and made a giant leaf pile to jump in. It was pretty awesome... again, due to the sickness, I didn't make it, but from the pictures, it looks like it's a definite repeat event!

This is the group with HALF of the pile. Isn't that amazing?!

My husband... he's kind of an idiot, because sometimes he forgets that he's 27!! Needless to say, he was a little sore the next day...


...but they did look pretty cool! This one has pretty good form!

And these pictures are for my friend Julie, in Japan! Elena finally fits into the Japanese onesies that you got her! The funniest thing about them is that they are actually kind of shorts at the bottom, so they go partway down her legs. She spent a good part of the day running around the house with no pants, and it looked pretty hilarious!

A close up of the front... gotta love the Engrish... :)

Well, sorry for the delay, but you can tell there hasn't been gobs going on! Elena continues to grow, she is a total maniac now, racing everywhere! She has also become quite the jabbermouth, and she LOOOVES to read. Now, that could be because she's been watching me read a lot lately, but she just keeps bringing books to us to read to her. Some of them are getting rather old (Brown Bear, Brown Bear had to go into hiding for awhile). She is also starting to talk more coherently, she says a few words- mostly "Uh-huh" (yes), and the occasional Dada and Mama. She has certainly started developing some stubborness and attitude, so life has been getting interesting. She is becoming quite the climber, mostly she just likes standing in her rocking chair and looking to see what I'm going to do because she knows she's not supposed to. There was much screaming one night when I took the chair and put it in the kitchen (on the other side of the baby gate) after 3 warnings. Ahhh, life is going to be so interesting for the next couple of years!!

The daycare issues have eased off, she has transitioned into the toddler room, and I am getting to know those teachers. I am still keeping my eyes open, but for now I think we will stay there. She is happy to get there in the morning, and happy when I pick her up, and that's about all I can ask for. No daycare is perfect!

Josh and I are off this weekend on our annual trip to Springfield to start our Christmas shopping. This is a weekend that we take for us, to go to Springfield and Branson and shop and just hang out together. It is a much needed break, and we are so excited to be going! I will try really hard to post pictures soon after we get back!!

Frustrated

Well... I am feeling rather like Laney in this picture right now... I'm really frustrated with our daycare. I absolutely love them, and they have taken excellent care of Elena thus far. But in the last month, there have been some issues that I haven't been too pleased with. The first was the resignation of the director. See, there is one lady who owns the daycare, and then she hires a director. Well, I absolutely loved the director, she was always in the classrooms lending an extra hand (especially in the infant and toddler rooms, where extra hands are MUCH appreciated), she always had a smile for me, and she really loved Elena. Well, a couple of months ago, her father died, and while she was gone to take care of that, something happened between the staff and the director, and Nolanda resigned shortly after she got back. On the same day, one of Elena's teachers resigned. So, I don't know if those were connected, but I assume they probably were. But Elena's other teacher, who happened to also be Nolanda's daughter, stayed because she liked the kids she was taking care of so much. Well, today I dropped Elena off like normal, and Chas was the one who was there to take her. But when I picked her back up, one of the teachers gave me a note, and said that Chas had been let go that day.

So Chas was my favorite teacher of Elena's, and I don't know why she was let go, but it's not like she quit- they fired her. And she was an amazing teacher who really cared about the kids she was taking care of. I actually got to spend quite a bit of time with Elena's teachers because I nursed her at lunch for so long, and I got to watch Chas with the kids. She was great, and she really had a soft spot for Elena- she didn't want her to transition over to the toddler side at all.

Anyway, I'm just a little frustrated with how it was all handled, and the fact that no one told me- the note I got from the other teacher was not from the director or the owner, but from Chas, and she talked about how she'd like to see all the kids one more time to say bye. So they didn't even let her say goodbye to the kids. I just don't get it.

And I'm not sure what to do... when Nolanda left, she kind of joked about her and Chas setting up an in-home daycare. If they did that, I would totally move Elena there. But the non-emotional side of me says that there are two sides to every story, and I don't know the reasons they had for firing her. But I find it hard to swallow that they wouldn't let her say goodbye to the kids she took care of for 6 hours a day (and more, because she'd stay after she was off the clock and rock a cranky baby to sleep, etc), and that neither the director nor the owner had the courtesy to let the parents know.

Anyway, I guess my plan for the moment is to see if the owner is there tomorrow, and ask her about it. And I'll probably call Chas, and talk to her to see what happened. And go from there. Any better ideas???

Halloween!

Wow, was this a busy Halloween! It didn't make much sense to walk Laney around our neighborhood trick-or-treating, because she wouldn't really get it yet. So, instead, we went to see all the people we know... which is A LOT of people in Columbia!
We started off at my work, stopped by Grandma Price's office, then headed to Daddy's work to see all the people who listen to endless stories about Laney!

Chowing down on some candy corn at Daddy's office... she LOVES candy corn, well, and everything else sweet!

After we left the bank, we headed to D&H to see Aunt Ruthie, and all the people I used to work with. It was really pretty fun there, they were all dressed up like crayons (really, pretty easy/creative costumes, Josh and I are thinking that we should steal them next year!) and they had CUPCAKES! Which, of course, Laney loved!

From D&H, we actually got to go home for a couple of minutes, then we headed to Great-Grandma Looten's house. That was the only house where we really got to walk up to the doorway and actually trick-or-treat, mostly because that was the only time I remembered to bring the pumpkin bag!

But Grandma Looten's treats wouldn't fit in the bag! She got Elena a giant cookie shaped/iced like Truman the Tiger. We gave Laney just a little taste, then just gave her one of the little tiny sugar cookes Grandma got for her.

We hung out at Grandma's house for awhile, and Laney discovered the ORGAN! She was absolutely loving it, as you can imagine!

This was a pose we saw most of the night... shoveling in more sweets!

Eventually, we left Grandma Looten's, and head out to Grandma & Grandpa Price's house. Elena loves Grandma & Grandpa Price's because of the doggies that are just her size! And, something about her in that sheep costume running after the dogs and shrieking was just hilarious!

Grandma & Grandpa didn't give Laney candy, they gave her OREOs! And Elena promptly scraped off all of the creme and ate it!

While we were there, Elena thought she'd just check out the dog bed. This really disturbed Bob, who couldn't figure out why she was in his spot!

Our last stop of the night was at Aunt Ellen's house! We didn't make Elena stay in her costume for long after we got there, but she sure loved hanging out on the couch with her cousin Sam!

Just for fun, on Saturday we strapped Elena into her chair and let her have a go at the Truman the Tiger cookie from Grandma Looten. It was pretty funny!! :)

It was a really fun Halloween, but, MAN, was it exhausting! Next year we're just gonna throw a party at our house and everyone can come HERE instead of us driving all over Columbia!!

In other Laney news, I put the new car seat in the van, so now Elena sits facing foward, and not in a carrier!! She's so big!!

And, at the same time, she's so little still! One morning she totally passed out AFTER I got her dressed. Just thought this picture was too cute!