Well, we better start looking around for a trophy case. Because with performances like these, she'll be bringing home the trophies in no time...
Some holiday cheer:
Love how she grabs herself at the end- we made a race to the bathroom as soon as I stopped the camera!
And for all those Disney-lovers (and thanks to Aunt Jane for the card!):
To translate, at the end she says that her baby feels better because she sang to her. Pretty sweet, huh? Maybe she'll handle this Audrey Lou thing alright...
Long overdue and all that... I've misplaced my card reader, so I've had some trouble getting these pictures OFF of my camera! Plus, we've just been crazy busy, and this has been the first (and last) weekend home for a long time!
On our busy weekends, we've mostly been traveling! We went to Springfield for our annual beginning of Christmas shopping trip. We also went to Illinois to celebrate Thanksgiving with my grandparents. But, we forgot to take pictures in Illinois, so I'll have to get some from Ruth! Meanwhile, here are pics from SDC and Springfield!
This trip is one Josh and I look forward to all year long, because our weekends are so full with youth stuff and family events, and this trip is a weekend just for us. We love visiting family while we're there, but we mostly want to go and hang out with each other for an entire day (we leave Laney with Grandma & Grandpa Looten). This year we had dinner with Grandma De & Grandpa Don on Friday night, which was fun. Always enjoy visiting with them, and love when we have a longer weekend so that we can!
Saturday Josh and I headed out early and hit CPO, the mall, and then headed to Branson for The Landing and SDC. All some of our favorite places, and we love to get our Christmas shopping started early! Josh's mom & dad met us at SDC with Laney, so that she could watch the tree lighting, which is amazing there! To see a video, check out this post from last year. Or, just get the general idea from this picture from this year:
Prett amazing, huh? Laney was totally enraptured by it... and, even though she'd seen it last year, she didn't seem to mind! That's the great thing about toddlers-- not much memory!! ;) She spent a lot of the time on Daddy's shoulders, just staring. She loves lights and music, so this was perfect for her!
After the tree lighting, we wandered around and shopped for awhile, until the light parade started. Always lots to buy there, especially at Christmas time because there are TONS of ornaments!! :)
Laney with the snowmen outside the Christmas Shop!
And, of course, during the shopping we found time for some yummy snacks! I tell you what, it's hard to be diabetic at Silver Dollar City during the Christmas Festival! Though, I must say, I did indulge a little... Laney & Grandma & Grandpa shared this apple dumpling, while I shared one with Daddy!
Ahh, there are no words...
The required self portrait... harder to do in the dark! :)
Sunday we went to church with Josh's family, and then headed back to their house for lunch. Jess, Luke, & Leila came over, too. It was fun to see the girls hang out with each other, Leila thinks Laney is hilarious, and I tihnk Laney might be a bit of a ringleader when they get older. Definitely going to have to watch out for that! :)
Laney loves to do Ring Around the Rosey with anyone who will spin around with her. Leila wasn't too sure what game they were playing, but Laney helped her... especially with the "fall down" part at the end... where Laney flings her to the ground! Thankfully, she missed the coffee table, and Leila got up laughing! Enjoy...
On the way home we swung through Krispy Kreme for a latte for Josh, and Laney decided that donuts from Krispy Kreme are AWESOME, and they have cool hats, too! :)
Anyway, it was a great weekend, and definitely the relaxing start we need for our Christmas season! Already looking forward to next year!
Well, it's that time of year, and last Saturday was full of LEAVES! We had our youth service day, in the form of the GREAT LEAF PILE '09! We've turned our typical leaf raking service day into a really fun event that includes service... we bring all of the leaves out to Mom & Dad's and dump them all in one giant pile. Then, it's all about the gymnastics and flips and dives and practically swimming in leaves!! Last year I didn't get to go, so I was pretty amazed at all of the leaves this year!
We started off small, though, with just Josh raking our own leaves, so we could bag them up and add them to the pile! Before Josh bagged them, though, we decided to let Laney play in her first real leaf pile! The first introduction... well, she wasn't so pleased!
Laney did eventually warm to the fun of a leaf pile, and happily jumped in... as long as she was jumping herself in! Not so much on the being tossed!
Always fun if Daddy's hanging out with you!
Such a big girl!!
Buried in the leaves...
After we got all of our leaves raked, bagged, and loaded into the van (and by "we" I mean Josh...) it was time to head to church to meet the youth! We had a good turnout, and split up into three separate groups to go and rake leaves. Our group was full of really good workers, and we got our house raked and bagged pretty quick!
Here's our group with all the bags! We ended up with 20 bags or so... amazing how fast those bags fill up!
Josh, mid back-flip!
Laney was not so sure about the giant leaf pile. But eventually Papa tossed her in it, and she loved it! Then we couldn't keep her OUT of it!
Playing in the leaves with her friend Clara!
And, by the end of the night she didn't want to go home! But she clearly needed a bath!!
It really was a lot of fun, and a great chance for us to help out some members of the Midway community! And, to leave you with a smile... Laney's rendition of "Twinkle, Twinkle." It's her new favorite song to sing, and is actually hilarious because she does it similar to "The Song That Never Ends." After every chorus, she just starts right back with the second line. Pretty hilarious, and pretty off tune... but fun anyway!! :)
Ok, well, I hope you have tissues nearby, because this is hilarious... and may actually be funnier for those of us who saw it, but I still think it's pretty funny regardless!
Laney's daycare participates in the Gymnastics Express. It's this pretty neat opportunity- these people took an old school bus and converted it into a mobile gym. They drive around to different daycares, and the kids do trampolines, tumbling, rope climbing, etc. etc. right on the bus. Laney absolutely loves it, and the best way to get her to go to daycare on Wednesdays is because she knows it's "Gym Bus day!"
Twice a year, the gym bus people set up a "performance" where the kids all get to go to an actual gym and do some of their "routines" for the parents. Picture this: 40-50 kids, 2-4 years old rotating around the gym doing rope swings, somersaults, trampolines, parachutes and cartwheels! Yeah... it was that funny! And, well, a picture's worth a thousand words...
Somersaults on the incline... Laney has no problem with these!
Climbing the rope... which was hilarious, because obviously the guy is helping them. Well, some kids actually looked like they were pulling a little weight. Not so with Laney... notice her hands are below her head! She was pretty much along for the ride!
After every "event," they tried to get the kids to stop and put their hands up... not so much on the stopping, but the hands are up!
The cartwheel was hilarious... not so much a cartwheel as putting her hands on the ground and flailing around like a fish out of water... I'm pretty sure this is as high off the ground as her feet got!
The trampoline, however, she LOVED! Still not so coordinated (hey, she is my daughter), but lots of enthusiasm for this event... and she NAILED the jump up and sit down (I think they call those seat drops).
One thing that totally amazed us all was how well she sat, listened, and waited her turn (not things she's well known for doing on a normal basis). When the lady told her it was time to get off the trampoline, she just hopped off, sat on the side, and happily watched the next kid go. Utter amazement...
The parachute was probably the funniest event. She was not very enthusiastic about waving the parachute. Partway through, he started throwing balls onto it. So, since everyone else was waving much more vigorously than she was, the balls constantly rolled off on her side. So she ran off to chase them, threw them on, and then repeated the whole thing... pretty funny! But, hey, she knew the colors of every ball he asked them about!
And at the end they all got medals. Pretty adorable! We were amazed at how big and little she looked at the same time. Big because she was out there walking around, following directions, and oblivious to the fact that there were people watching. But she's so petite, and still younger than most of the kids, so she looked tiny next to them.
And, well, since you can't fully appreciate the feeling of the whole event in the pictures, I created a montage of video clips from each event. Quality isn't great (using my digital camera, and pretty far away), but you'll get the idea. And, then imagine it repeated around the gym with the rest of the 40-50 kids... kids were just wandering aimlessly around from event to event, other kids were even less coordinated than Elena (hard to imagine)... and the commentary from Josh was hysterical! :) Thus, the camera is pretty shaky sometimes, mostly from me laughing while filming! Enjoy...
Definitely going to do this next year... and might try to find a nicer camera so I can zoom in on all of the action!! ;)
Well, Halloween came last Saturday, and it was time for Snow White to make her debut! Like last year, we didn't so much wander around the neighborhood trick-or-treating, we went to different houses of people we knew instead. Which, it was fun to see everyone, but it was exhausting! 2 and a half hours of trick-or-treating, and we made 4 houses!! :) Oh well... made for some good pictures...
Daddy (dressed as a Rams football player, obviously) and Laney, knocking on our first door- Uncle Tim's house!
Working on a box of Harry Potter Fudge Flies at Uncle Tim's!
Our second stop of the night: Grandma Jo's house!
Learning how to work the flashlight that Grandma Jo gave her... it makes screaming or howling noises when you push certain buttons. Thanks, Grandma Jo... Funny thing is, whenever she pushes the screaming button, she tells it to stop screaming!
Yeah, so Snow White was a little tired (we had Uncle Charlie's birthday party that day, so she didn't get a great nap), so trick-or-treating was a little hard on her! Can't remember what we told her no about, but clearly it was something Earth-shattering...
And stop number 3, Ellen's house! Thankfull, Mom & Ruth met us there, so we didn't have to drive all the way out to Mom & Dad's.
And a tired Snow White on the way home, after stopping at Uncle Charlie's house for the giant tootsie pop she had to immediately open!
And later in the week, enjoying the purple ghost cookie that Grandma Jo gave her... we weren't brave enough to give it to her with the costume on!
Anyway, fun Halloween, but exhausting! I think next year we're going to go with the trick-or-treating in our neighborhood plan! Everyone can come see us and hang out at our house if they want to see us! Two kids in and out of the car just seems like a lot of work!! Funny story, now that Halloween is over, Laney has been wearing her "princess shoes" around the house. They're just black shoes that we bought to wear with dresses all winter, but she's convinced they're her princess shoes! At least she'll be happy to wear them to church!!
We don't do major things with Halloween, but we always like to carve pumpkins, especially with Laney around now! Last year, she was not so interested in helping with the pumpkins (see these pictures). And in looking at that post, I realized I started it off almost exactly the same as I started this one off... guess I'm going to have to get more creative!! :)
Anyway, on to the jack o' lantern carving pics...
She didn't like it much last year, so I had the camera ready to go this year when we started taking out the pumpkin go! She looked at it funny...
And then went back in for more! She actually really liked digging around in there. Guess she's a little more open to textures now that she's a little older!
She even demanded her own spoon to help dig out one of the pumpkins!
(As a side note... she's not wearing anything but panties because halfway through the cleaning she decided she was going to "take a shower." So she stripped off all of her clothes, and went behind the curtains hanging in front of our sliding glass doors, and started yelling "I taking a shower!" Anyway, I got her underwear back on, but she wouldn't put pants on.)
After they were all cleaned out, Laney "helped" Daddy carve his pumpkin into a baby face!
And the final project! Gotta love the tripod-self-timer shots!
In the dark...
And Miss Laney... by the way, she picked out the design for the one on the left- she decided on triangle eyes and nose and two teeth.
Absolutely LOVE this picture of her with the pumpkins on the front porch. And now every time we walk in or out of the door we hear something about "Daddy's pumpkin is a baby and my pumpkin is a siley (smiley) face." She loves them!
Anyway, so there's pumpkin carving at the Looten house... and coming up this weekend, Miss Laney turns into Snow White! :)
One of the sad things about not being greek in college, is that I didn't really DO Homecoming when I was in school. So, this year Josh and I decided to get tickets to the game and really do all of the fun stuff that goes along with it- the parade, House Decs, etc. etc. And we had a blast!
Despite Laney being sick this week, she was a real trooper! We started off the festivities with House Decorations on Friday night. I'd heard lots about them, but never been (sad, I know- I graduated from MU for goodness sake!). Anyway, we had a pretty good time, despite some nasty weather (40s and rainy) and a slightly cranky daughter! We met up with Bob and Robyn, who were in town for homecoming, and wandered around with them for awhile, which is always fun! The theme this year was fairy tales/nursery rhymes, so we saw lots of fun stuff for Laney! And, of course, took the camera along...
Laney's favorite moment of the night: SHEEP! One of the houses did their's on Little Bo Peep, and had real, live sheep there. Laney had a blast petting them!
The view is always better from Daddy's shoulders!
The characters in the AgSig show... the Truman looked pretty cool, but the rest of them looked a little, well, rushed. Check out Blaine Gabbert the hunchback...
So, Laney saw a kid with a balloon, so much of our evening was spent trying to find which house was giving out the balloons (a la Roots, Blues & BBQ). We did eventually find it, and it actually turned out to be the best house decs we saw. They did the Little Engine that Could, and their pomping was AWESOME, they even pomped their characters! So it was worth the balloon hunt!
The Homecoming festivities continued bright and early the next morning, when we met Grandma & Grandpa Looten and Grandma Jo at the Rec Center for the pancake breakfast. Laney managed to con one of the workers out of a couple of balloons, and we all enjoyed the breakfast!!
Laney riding around with Grandma Jo... and the balloons, of course!
Headed out with Grandma Looten for the start of the parade! With balloons, OF COURSE! :)
After the breakfast, we just headed down the sidewalk to Rollins to watch the parade! Laney hadn't ever been to a parade before, so it was a new experience! She wasn't too sure about the candy at first, but pretty soon she was racing out into the street (oh, great) to grab smarties and suckers! It was so funny, because she ate suckers the ENTIRE time. So as soon as she would finish one, she would dig in the bag for another one. By the end of the parade she was surrounded by sucker sticks (because she didn't pick them up, of course- although we did afterwards). Laney loved the bands and the floats and the music, and the candy, of course! By the end of the parade she had a massive bag of candy, plus 3 balloons, and was one tired little girl!!
Sucker in one hand... balloon in another. Hard to imagine a happier 2 year old!
This was the float for the house we saw the night before that had the really neat Little Engine that Could house decs. Their float was also cool!
This truck just cracked us up... it's front end was practically pointing to the sky! Probably wouldn't have been so bad if there wasn't a load of people in the back...
Laney's friends the sheep from the night before. Yes, they painted one of them yellow!
After the parade, digging through her "haul." Yes, we collected in a recycling bag, it was all Grandma Jo had and I didn't think far enough ahead to pack a bag!
After the parade, and some serious napping, we got dressed up again and headed to the game itself! We were afraid it was going to be freezing, but it actually ended up really nice. 50's and not too windy. The game itself, not so good. But we had fun at the Zimmer Radio tailgate before hand, and just hanging out with Grandma & Grandpa Looten!
Laney and Grandma, headed to the tailgate!
Totally Josh's daughter... look at her going after that hot dog!
Listening to the radio during the game...
Grandma, Grandpa, and Laney towards the end of the game (note the empty seats!)
So my first all out Homecoming was absolutely a blast! We had fun with old friends, and with Grandma & Grandpa Looten & Grandma Jo! And Laney did great through the whole thing (only a few fits, but she wasn't feeling so good).
On another note... two posts so close together, amazing, right? Well, I figured out (thanks to a tip from Jess) that I could email my pictures from Picasa to my post and not have to deal with uploading them 5 at a time and in the wrong order, etc. etc. All you do is set it up (directions here), then from Picasa "hold" the pictures you want in your tray, then email them to the address you set up. It's pretty sweet! And way faster than fighting with the uploading!
As far as Laney goes, she was sick on Thursday with a 102 temp, but Friday she was a-ok. She kind of fought a low grade temp (around 100) some of the weekend. But then today she was sick again, so we kept her home and took her to the doctor. Yep, her flu test came back faintly positive... which means she is probably just getting over it. Whoops... so I feel bad that we exposed who knows how many people to it. But, oh well... guess it was a pretty mild case, and we seem to be on the upside of it!
