YAY! :)

We finally got our new appliances today!  We always save money all year to do a project during the summer.  This year, our project was new carpet (not here yet) and a couple new appliances for the kitchen.  Our fridge was fine, but I’m pretty sure our dishwasher was original to the house, as was the stove!  The spring on the dishwasher door had broken, so it weighed about 40 pounds, it made a lovely grinding noise every time we started it up, and, best of all, it didn’t actually clean the dishes.  Last week it stopped draining water out of the bottom, so that was definitely the last straw!  Our stove worked alright, it was just pretty old, and the oven light didn’t work anymore.  And, I really, really, REALLY wanted a glass top.  So, once the dishwasher finally bit the dust, we headed to Downtown Appliance and picked out a new dishwasher and range.  And, they came to deliver today!

So, just so you know… here’s what we started with:

Truman was QUITE interested in the whole process, although he was not thrilled with the strange guys going in and out of the house! 

P.S. I was HORRIFIED at what the floors looked like underneath the old appliances.  While they were getting the new ones out of the truck I was frantically scrubbing the floors!  Gross!

And, here we are halfway done.  When they brought the range through the door, the oven door just shattered in our entryway.  Not sure if he hit the door with it, or if there was already a crack in the door and when it went over the threshold it was just too much for it, or if it was just a random thing, but it was quite the noise!   Thankfully, they had a spare door at the store, so they ran back, grabbed it, and put it on…

And here we are, all finished! 

I am way past excited about them, as most girls can imagine! :)  We haven’t used the dishwasher yet, but we cooked dinner on the stove, and I cannot explain how awesome it was to just wipe off the top when I was done!  Can’t wait to hear how quiet the dishwasher is!

Happy Birthday, Dad L.!

A couple of weeks late, but better late than never! :)  A few weeks ago we headed to Springfield to celebrate Dad L.’s birthday.  We had birthday dinner and cake & ice cream Friday night, headed to SDC on Saturday, and everyone went to church together on Sunday.  It was a nice long, relaxing weekend for us! 

We did a lot of this (sitting around the table, telling stories and laughing):

Mallorye and Tim came, too, obviously, and Laney was fascinated by Mallorye’s make up.  Obviously she has a lot cooler brushes and such than I do! :)

On Saturday, Josh, Laney, Audrey & I headed to SDC earlier then the rest of the crew, so we could let Laney do some playing before everyone else got there.  She really loves it at “Silver Sollar Dity.”  Unfortunately, for breakfast Saturday morning, she had cinnamon sugar biscuits, a krispy kreme donut, a banana, and some orange juice.  Put that in a 2 year old stomach and then shake it up in a car going up and down on a road through the Ozarks... recipe for disaster!  So, poor Laney ended up getting sick in the car, right before we got to SDC.  We pulled over at a gas station and cleaned up the car seat (thank you, Josh), and changed her clothes.  So she actually spent the day in her emergency clothes from her diaper bag, including some shorts that were a little too big and required a shoe string “belt” purchased at the gas station!  She didn’t have any more trouble with her stomach, though, so I guess it was definitely better than it could have been! :)  We made it to the City eventually!

We had to start off the day at Geyser Gulch, where there are lots of balls to play with, and the water mats!  Lucky Daddy always gets to be the one who runs through the water with her! :)

Love the expression on this one… talk about timing! :)

And, lest you think otherwise, Mommy got plenty wet, too! We went to this part of Geyser Gulch that let’s you shoot water cannons at targets.  What we learned (after we hit the first target) is that hitting the target causes another cannon to shoot at you!  Laney was short enough to hide behind the fence.  I was not!  Oh well, it was 80s and sunny, so being wet felt pretty good!

My big girl, riding rides all by herself!

Lunch at the BBQ place!  This is how Grandma likes it- surrounded by as many of her grandkids as she can manage! :)

The Lost River wound around the BBQ place and the girls loved watching the boats go by with the people screaming and getting wet in them!  They cracked up every time one went by.

Entertainment was not lacking at lunch… this squirrel was very interested in our leftovers!  Dad L. almost got it to come right up to him, but it just wouldn’t do it.  Got pretty close, though!

Kael, trying on Laney’s sunglasses… looks pretty cool! :)

Like father like daughter… sword fighting with Daddy!

Just thought this was cute…

Love that my little girl can sleep anytime, anywhere… gets that from the Banwarts! :)

Our annual picture by the Lost River measuring stick… big enough to ride now!

Hard to believe this was just a year ago!  Amazing how fast she changes!!

And, well, since she was tall enough to ride the Lost River, and she loved watching the boats so much at lunch, we made it our last ride of the day!  I was a little worried, because even though she likes the American Plunge, on the Lost River she isn’t sitting on someone’s lap- she’s strapped into a seat all by herself.  But, she loved it!  Grinned like a maniac the whole time!  Guess we got a little dare devil! :) 

Anyway, it really was a fun trip to SDC, and it was so nice not to have to pack up and leave Saturday night.  We all went to church together on Sunday, then had burgers for lunch.  It’s always fun to get to just hang around and tell stories!

Happy birthday, Dad L.!  

Jess Visits & Fourth Fun!

Wow, we had a busy first week of July! (And we continue to be busy, which is why this post about the 4th is being posted on the 14th!)  When we got back from the family reunion at the end of June, Jess was here to visit!  We always have such a good time, and I love when she visits in the summer, because I’m usually off to get to hang out with her.  And hang out we did!  We spent a lot of time at my house, just hanging out with the girls.  We took Laney to see Toy Story 3 (at the “movie feater,” as she says it), did a little shopping, went to the park with April, Ella & Noah, drank coffee, surfed the web, talked and, of course, took lots of pictures!  A great visit… and it was hard to narrow down just a few pics…

We tried a little photo shoot with Audrey, and got some really cute pictures of her.  But, one of my favorites was this one.  This is my life, and I love it…

Another day, another photo shoot… couldn’t resist getting a pic of these two in their matching polka dots!  Looks pretty cute, but as soon as the camera clicked Laney said “Now can you take her?”  Ahh, sisterly love…

Ella and Laney after the park… love the sweaty red faces!  And it was great to catch up with April, and meet her new little man, Noah!

After the park we had about an hour and a half to squeeze in a nap before we all went to get pedicures.  Laney fought going to sleep (who wants to sleep when Aunt Jessie is here?!).  I went in to wake her up, and she wasn’t in her bed, and I couldn’t see her anywhere.  Talk about panic, my heart dropped to my stomach.  But then I turned around the dresser, and saw this:

She was totally passed out, IN THE CLOSET!  No idea what made her go in the closet to sleep, but she was definitely out- I took her old toenail polish off and she never even moved. 

Despite the tired little girl, pedicures were fun.  Laney actually got her own toes done, she picked out the color (highlighter green) herself and everything.  She was very interested in the process.  Unfortunately, with her affinity for chewing on her toes (GROSS), the polish didn’t last very long!

The color choice… not my fave, but kind of cute on little girl toes!

 

And, just to prove that the girls aren’t the only subjects for photo shoots, here’s poor, abused Truman:

Pretty good lookin’ kitty!

Most of the weekend was spent hanging out at Mom & Dad’s house.  There was lots of good food, lots of family, fireworks, gardens, bbqing, pets… everything that is so wonderful about their house!  I can’t really tell what happened on what day, so I’m just lumping all of the pictures together! 

Aunt Ruthie bought a blow-up pool and put it in the backyard.  Despite the fact that the water was about 50 degrees, Laney was in!  She is definitely a water baby…

Wrapped up nice & toasty with Aunt Jess!

Daddy, grillin’ brats & burgers… YUM! :)

Laney is fascinated with Grandpa’s garden.  Anytime she was outside (when she wasn’t in the pool) she would head for the garden.  Unfortunately, she doesn’t really know what to pick when… but Grandpa is very patient about losing a few flowers and some squash due to premature picking! :)

On Saturday Mike drove in from KC to hang with us, too.  Josh, Charlie, Mike, & James hit the Perche Creek golf course Saturday afternoon, and then we all headed back out to the Price Ponderosa for more fun!

Mike and Josh… no, they didn’t call to coordinate! :)

Laney sure loves her Uncle Mike!  And is clearly still learning how to smile for the camera! :)

Mike brought a bunch of fireworks to shoot off.  We shot some off on Friday night, and Laney got her first burn- the glowing red end of a sparkler is just hard to resist!  So, she was a little gun-shy on Saturday, but ended up having fun with them again!

Bottle rockets with Uncle Mike!

And trying out a sparkler again!

We set off some bigger fireworks after it got a little darker.  They were really cool, but the funniest part was Elena’s running commentary.  See, she was watching Jungle Book, and we turned it off to go watch the fireworks.  So every time one went off she’d say “Oh, that was my favorite one in the whole world!” with a lot of feeling.  We would have believed her, except she immediately followed it with “Now can I go watch Jungle Book?”  To try to distract her, Jess talked about the movie we’d gone to see- Toy Story 3.  So she asked Laney “What does Woody say?” Well, then for the next 30 minutes, Laney kept saying “What does Woody say?” “There’s a SNAKE in my boots!” at varying decibels.  Ahh, the joys of having a two year old…

Sunday morning Jess & Mike headed back to KC, but Sunday afternoon Grandma Judy, Sarah, & Fred came in!  They were going on a road trip with Mom & Dad, so they came in a day early and celebrated the 4th with us.  We grilled ribs Sunday afternoon, and then we all headed to the church block party.  This was the first year we’d done a big block party as a church, and it was a pretty huge success.  We had somewhere around 130-150 people come for desserts & ice cream.  Definitely a repeat for next year!

Grandma Jo & Grandma Judy, hanging with Miss Audrey!

Laney sampling one of many popsicles!

Ruth, Laney, & Heather, ready for the fireworks!

And, what would the 4th be without some pictures of fireworks?  Thought this one turned out pretty cool…

And, just a random picture that I thought came out cool…

 

So, a crazy week for the family, but a really fun one!  Hope your 4th was as fun & as safe! :) 

Family Reunion 2010!

Well, last weekend we headed to Camp Windermere for the annual Sestak family reunion.  This is a reunion of Grandma Looten, her sisters, and all of their families.  This year Josh was in West Memphis, AR on a mission trip with the youth group, so he missed it.  But the girls and I loaded up the van and headed down anyway.  Friday night was mostly just everyone getting there sometime in the evening.  But Saturday the real fun started!  We spent most of the day swimming!  Laney is a total water baby, so she was excited.  And it was Audrey’s first time in a big pool, so I was excited to see how she’d like it.  It’s a lot of work getting two little girls ready for the pool, but we managed, and headed down!  Jess, Leila, Kael, Grandma Looten, and pretty much everybody else followed us down there to hang out and play!

Me and my girls!  Laney obviously was way more interested in getting in the pool than in taking a picture!

Leila, riding the dolphin (with some help).  We put Laney on it and when I let go it rolled her right under the water.  After that, she was pretty much not interested in the dolphin anymore!

Kael hanging out in his seahorse!

And Laney in another kind of seahorse!  They have this little toddler pool that is just a foot or two deep.  It was definitely the favorite place for the kids to play!

Audrey and Josh’s cousin, Katie.  It was great having them there, because then I wasn’t trying to wrestle two girls in the pool at the same time!

We did put the swim sweater on Laney and she spent some time in the big pool, hanging with Grandma!

Audrey and Kael, the newest members of the family, chillin’ during dinner time on Saturday night!

Grandma Looten couldn’t get enough of Miss A.!

Saturday night we had dinner (we put a bunch of roasts in the crock pot and made sandwiches… it was pretty delicious!) and then we played a bunch of games.  Aunt Amy looked up some of the Minute to Win It games online, and came prepared to play a few.  I’ve never watched the show before, but they were some pretty fun, random games!  A few examples…

Catching puffballs in a cup on top of your head…

We even let the girls try!  The hat was a little big for Leila, so eventually Laney just walked up, grabbed the bill of the hat, and dunked the ball in the cup.  It was pretty funny!

Another fun game- empty a kleenex box!  Four of us competed to yank out kleenexes only using one hand, until the box is empty.  Proud to say, I won! :)

Another game- wrap your partner up in toilet paper!  Mallorye won this game… and we all learned just how competitive she is!  She wound herself up so fast that she got dizzy and fell down when she was done!  Anything to win! :)

There were lots more games we played- we strapped a pedometer to our foreheads and got as many “steps” as possible in 1 minute… stacked washers on edge using only a chopstick… bounced marbles into a little cup… shot water bottles with rubber bands… the list is endless!  It was really fun, and actually made me want to watch the game show!

Sunday we all pretty much got up and ate breakfast, and then headed out.  We had a really good time, I love that such a big part of Josh’s family still gets together every year!  We always have a blast, and can’t wait until next year!