I'm Back!

I know, I know... it has been a ridiculously long time since I've posted. I can't even begin to describe how crazy life has been lately! I know no one is surprised, but it seems like this holiday season was even crazier than any before!

Lots of stuff has been going on, but one major event was my little brother, Charlie, graduated from college with his degree in engineering. We are VERY proud of him, and all went to see him, armed with lots of "orange mints" (tic tacs) and suckers for Laney! Graduation- not so interesting to a 2 year old! It was freezing, but we stopped just long enough for some pictures in front of the columns...

Proud parents...

And us with Uncle Charlie!

Being the holiday season, we obviously also put up our Christmas tree. I usually take lots of pictures, but this year we had a 2 year old "helping," so there wasn't much time for taking pictures! I did manage to catch this one of Laney as we were waiting on Daddy to bring all of the stuff in. She's actually wearing our tree skirt! She looked so cute in the hat, and I pulled the tree skirt out and just wrapped it around her. Spontaneous, but ended up on our Christmas cards! :)

Speaking of Christmas cards, we had to have a photo shoot (thanks, Ruthie!) to send out our annual Christmas cards. We got several good pics (these are the two we used, in addition to the one of Laney in the tree skirt).

But the real fun of a photo shoot are the outtakes! :) Somehow a picture of her picking her nose just didn't seem to fit on a Christmas card. Although, it'd be a pretty accurate picture! She's got the worst habit of that now, we are constantly on her about it. Guess it's a 2 year old thing...


And these shades were just too cute!

And on to the fun stuff-- Christmas morning!! This was really the first year that Laney actually GOT Christmas presents and Santa Claus. We even left out carrots for the reindeer and cookies for Santa (and Mrs. Claus). Since Laney is finally big enough to understand, or at least be excited about, Santa, it was time for us to nail down our traditions! In my family, Santa brought ALL of the presents, and none of them showed up until Christmas morning. They all came wrapped! In Josh's family, his parents brought some presents, and those were wrapped and under the tree early. Then, Santa brought more presents on Christmas morning, and left them unwrapped. We decided to compromise, and had some presents from Mommy & Daddy and some from Santa, but they were all wrapped! It was really fun to play Santa, and even more fun to watch how excited she was in the morning! What a fun age for Christmas... although we did have to wake her up, so she's not quite to the "get up as soon as it's technically morning" phase yet!

Stockings and Santa presents, all laid out Christmas morning:

Laney started with her stocking... I'm thinking we could have just stopped with her stocking, as excited as she was about what she found in there! Check out the pure joy over a multi-pack of ponytail holders and barrettes!

What happened to the carrots and the cookies? In Laney's own words... before she gets distracted by the sticker book Santa put in her stocking!

And it wouldn't be a Looten family Christmas without a way-too-early-use-the-timer-still-in-our-pjs family photo! We have one from every year since Laney was born, and I'm hoping to keep up the tradition! Just think, next year there will be another little girl in pjs!

After opening presents at our house, we headed out to Grandma & Grandpa Price's house! I don't have many pics from here, because Jess was there with her camera, so she took most of the pictures! I may add more pics when I get her cd in the mail! But, until then, I did take a few with my FABULOUS new camera from Jess & Mike, but they were mostly just random shots like these...

The snowflake ornament in the window... with gobs of snow behind it! We definitely had a white Christmas!

And Mom & Dad's Christmas tree. I love having a fake tree because I can leave it up longer without stressing about it drying out and/or making a mess. But, there is something so sweet about a real tree covered in family ornaments (Waldo and his girlfriend included- can you find them?). Guess I get the best of both worlds- fake at home, and real at Mom & Dad's!

And, just to continue the Christmas day marathon, after opening presents at the Price's, we headed for the Looten's in Springfield! We got there early afternoon (after driving through the snow, it was a little tricky!). The Wilsons got there a little while after us, and Laney and Leila wasted no time hanging out and getting to know each other again. They were both loving the snow outside:

We also got to meet the newest member of the Wilson clan, Kael! It was funny to see such a little baby again, and remember how little they start! And realize that we're headed that way again!

Everybody took a turn with Kael, even if it meant sacrificing some present opening!!

The girls and their daddies, exploring their new toys!

Laney and Grandpa Looten!

We finished off Christmas day with dinner and presents at Grandma De & Grandpa Don's house with that side of the family, but I managed to come home with ZERO pictures from there... so, I'll have to post some more when I get the cd from Jess. I'll just say that it was great to see that whole side of the family, we're not all together often enough! We had a great dinner, and lots of fun talking and catching up with all of the cousins. A great end to a long (but fun) Christmas day!

We stayed in Springfield until Saturday night, and then drove home. On Sunday, we took some much needed time to just RELAX! Laney broke out one of her new presents- a Disney Princess dress up box that Aunt Ruthie found for her on Black Friday. We've been in and out of princess dresses more than I care to admit in the last few weeks!

All decked out- Sleeping Beauty top and skirt, earrings, rings- she had the whole deal going! She's actually wearing her new princess shoes from Bob & Robyn, too, so she was TOTALLY princess! And loving every minute of it...

This pic is actually NOT one of the dresses from the trunk- it's her Halloween costume. But it fits right in, and it was so cute with the pigtails!

P.S. See the weird plastic thing in the foreground- those are pieces from Laney's kitchen. Grandma & Grandpa Looten got her a kitchen, and it was NOT fun to put together- it took me over 3 hours! But she loves it...

Anyway, so that's a brief hit on what happened in our house over Christmas! We did lots more, and have lots more pictures, so I'll post some more when I get the good cd full from Jess!! :) It really was a fun holiday! I'm so glad we got to spend it with both of our families!

Besides graduation and Christmas, the other really cool thing we got to do this month was go to Stacey's wedding on New Year's Eve. Stacey was my best friend all through growing up, and the maid of honor at my wedding. We're not as close as we used to be, because she's been living in KC for the past 5 or 6 years (and now lives in North Carolina with her HUSBAND), but I absolutely could not miss her wedding! The ceremony was very pretty, and very Stacey. The music was all not the traditional wedding music, but still fit really well. And the sanctuary was beautiful. And we even managed to keep Laney quiet most of the time (thank goodness for suckers and Starburst). They ended the ceremony with having everyone in the room light candles, instead of just the two of them lighting a unity candle. And everything was very pretty! After the ceremony, they had a brief cake/punch reception at the church, then we headed to the MU Alumni Center for the reception. It was very cool to see her and catch up with her a little. The bummer was that we had to leave early(ish) because we had our Watch Night Serivce at church. So we left at 11:00, before the party part really started. But it was lots of fun anyway! However, I did not get my camera out one single time. So, I stole these two pics from facebook!

Beautiful, right? Elena was absolutely TAKEN by Stacey in her pretty dress. She spent the entire evening saying "Can we go see Stacey? Can we go see Stacey?" And she still lists Stacey when she's listing off her princesses, and says "Stacey got married. She had a pretty dress." I thought that was pretty hilarious!

So, obviously a busy month for us, and I'm only hitting the highlights!! Phew, I hope things slow down in the next couple months, before Miss Audrey joins us, or we're not going to be ready for her! :) Although, nesting has hit me pretty hard this time, and I've been cleaning out closets and organizing in my spare time (SOOO not normal for me). We'll be ready, one way or another! :)