Easter 2011

Well, it was a little sad to celebrate Easter without Daddy around, but as the girls ended up with 5 Easter baskets apiece, we survived!  We spent the day with all of our families (church, the Lootens, and the Prices), but we still missed our Daddy!

The Easter Bunny left some treats for the girls on Saturday night!

(the Easter Bunny was apparently too effective with spring cleaning last year, ‘cause all of the Easter baskets were gone!  Good thing Laney didn’t notice that the baskets were the shoe basket from the closet and the bib basket from her room!)

Aunt Ruthie stayed over on Saturday night to help me get the girls up and ready on Sunday morning (since we had to be at church at 7:00). 

Audrey definitely showed her non-morning person genes when it was wake up time on Sunday morning, but she still loves her Truman!

Laney, on the other hand, has never jumped out of bed and gotten dressed as fast as she did when we said she had to get up and dressed before she could go see her basket!  She was moving at warp speed!

Love the Peeps on a stick!

Audrey… still not sure why we’re awake!  But she did like the balls the Easter Bunny left her…

After Sunrise Service, breakfast, Sunday School, and church, the girls and I headed to Uncle Tim’s house to have lunch with the Lootens.  Grandma & Grandpa Looten came up from Springfield, and of course Mallorye and Tim and Grandma Jo were there.  We had a delicious lunch and a little indoor egg hunt for Laney, who just about exploded while we were making her wait to start “finding” the eggs.  She could see them, of course, so she just ran around yelling “I SEE ONE! But I can’t get them until Grandma Jo gets here.  I SEE A BLUE ONE! But I can’t get them until Grandma Jo gets here.”  It was pretty funny, actually, when it wasn’t really annoying! :)

Although we didn’t get a whole family picture this year, I did manage to get both girls to sit down and take a picture… they were kind of looking at the camera! :)

When Grandma Jo got there, Laney & A finally got to pick up those eggs that had been taunting them (or at least Laney). 

Audrey did kind of get into putting eggs in the basket…

…but not nearly as much as Laney, who didn’t stop smiling or shrieking the entire time!

Since she had about half an hour of looking time before the “hunt” began, she really found them all pretty quick, even the ones that were pretty hidden!

Happy with her pile of candy and eggs!

Notice the second Peep stick in Laney’s basket… yeah, she said she “only likes the PINK ones!” Good thing Miss A. doesn’t have the same preferences…

So, after eating way too much at Uncle Tim’s, we headed out to the Price Farm, for more Easter baskets, Easter egg hunting, and, of course, eating!  The bad news was that Laney and A did NOT take naps.  They slept for about 20 minutes in the car, and I was thinking I would be able to get them in the house without waking them up, but the both were totally perky (ok, not perky, but definitely awake) by the time I got them to a bed.  It’s like they’d had a sugar overdose or something… sooo, it was a cranky Laney that did the egg hunting!

I know, hard to believe this could be cranky… but, trust me!

Even Audrey got into the hunting… a little!  Then she pretty much wanted to be held…

For Laney there was much yelling, laughing, running (and,therefore, falling), and several fits while she hunted for eggs! 

She did look awful cute, though!

After two rounds of hunting eggs, we were all pretty tired, and cold (would have thought that it would have been warm, as late as Easter was this year, but no, thanks loads, MO).  We played with some bubbles, which was hilarious, but I have to wait to tell that story until I have the video version… So, anyway, we headed inside for dinner, and had some delicious bbq pork sandwiches (not that the girls and I were the slightest bit hungry after a late lunch).  After lunch, we watched Anastasia (Laney’s favorite movie to watch at Grandma & Grandpa Price’s, since she doesn’t have it at home).  It was nice just to chill and watch the movie (and that didn’t invite too many fits from the non-napped 3 year old). 

After the movie, it was about time to get my sleepy girls (and my sleepy self) home and to bed!  We had such a good Easter, though… the only thing missing was Daddy!

Daddy Visits!

Well, these pictures are actually from a couple weeks ago when Josh last visited, but as I went to do an Easter post, I found these pictures and they were too fun to pass up… so, look for an Easter post tomorrow instead! :)

Josh got to come home for his spring break, so he was here for a nice, long time!  We got some stuff done around the house, went to my mom & dad’s house to hang out and shoot the boys’ guns, and just generally got to spend a week of normalcy again!  It was a much needed time of rest, that’s for sure!

Part of the reason to go out to Mom & Dad’s was to meet the newest member of the family, Sassy!  Mom & Dad got a new puppy, a miniature rat terrier… she is adorable, and looks just like a cross between their other two dogs, Bob & Joy.

We actually hadn’t been out to the “farm” since Christmas, so Audrey was much bigger now!  She was so excited to have dogs that were her size, they were like much more active cats!  She spent most of the time hanging out with the puppies!

She loved being eye level with them…

The boys, shooting their guns.  Tell you what, if wild, rampaging, Cheer bottles ever try to attack the farm, these guys will have things UNDER CONTROL! :)

Laney spent most of her time picking flowers.  That’s pretty much all she does now, pick any flowers she can find!  We spend most days with a glass full of dandelions and clover on the counter (and in the trash as soon as she goes to bed!).  But, hey, she’s having a good time! :)

One of the most exciting things to happen that week was… WE GOT AN OFFER ON THE HOUSE!!  We did a few days of counter-offers back and forth, but eventually came to an agreement (thanks to our realtor, Ryan Cunningham, giving up some of his commission to help us meet in the middle).  What awesome timing to have it the same week Josh was here, so we could just sign all of the papers and get things rolling!

We celebrated the next night with a fondue picnic night!  Swiss cheese fondue with hot dogs, ham, broccoli, carrots, etc.  And we followed up with some chocolate fondue with strawberries, marshmallows, and oreos for dessert!  We spread out our picnic blanket and watched a movie during dinner… it was the perfect way to celebrate!

Ready for our picnic!!

Audrey loves oreos!

So, that was Daddy’s visit… too short, but I ended up going to Etown the next weekend to do some house shopping!  We found one we liked quite a bit, and are thinking about making an offer on later this week.  And things are rolling right along with out house… we’ve had the house inspection done, and very few things showed up.  The roof has been replaced (part of her original deal), but the insurance is covering it because it had hail damage, along with replacing all of the gutters.  So, at the end of the day, all we had to do is put in 3 smoke detectors.  Not too bad at all! 

It’s amazing how things work in God’s timing… if only I could remember that more! :)  Things are getting very real, with all the talk of closings and packing and trucks and trailers… we’re really moving now!  Laney is so excited to move to Huckentucky, she can hardly stand it.  Almost there… now we are waiting on a job for me.  But, as with all things, in God’s timing…

YCW 2011

Well, lots of people called me crazy last year for going to Young Christians’ Weekend at Silver Dollar City two weeks before I was due with Audrey.  And this year, they called me crazy again for going with the two girls and no Josh!  And, perhaps they were right… it was definitely a little stressful of a weekend, and I’m not sure I was much help on the whole supervising youth front.  But I think they wanted someone along who had been several times before, since Josh obviously wasn’t coming, and Mom couldn’t go, either.  So, along I went, with both girls in tow!  And, really, we had a good time.  The concerts were great, Tenth Avenue North was a band I really wanted to see, and Caleb Rowden led worship Sunday morning, which was cool since he’s a Columbia boy.  For the most part, the girls and I hung by ourselves, with Aunt Ruthie, or with Laney’s friend Clara, and her parents, Betsie and Matt.  It was fun just to get to play, without trying to juggle any grown up rides or anything.  So we ended up having a really good time…

What trip to SDC would be complete without a trip to the “ball place” (aka Geyser Gulch).  It really was fun to have A along on this trip, because she was big enough to play and have fun.

=

She looked so big playing with the balls… too bad she kept trying to put them in her mouth!  Purell, anyone?! :)

We also had to check out SDC’s new area for kids, which has a carousel and a tree house.  It’s nice, because the tree house only has two exits, so you can send the kids up there, and not worry about them, because there are workers in the tree house, and they have to come out at a certain spot.  Pretty neat, and Laney seemed to like it.

Laney loved the carousel!

And so did Audrey!  So much so that she wouldn’t sit still long enough for me to take a good picture of her! :)

The new part also had a set of swings just for littler kids… Laney and Clara tried them out right away!

We had absolutely beautiful weather for this YCW, which was nice, since we’ve had not so beautiful weather the last few years!  By afternoon it had really warmed up, enough that the girls and I headed back to Geyser Gulch to play in the water.  It was Audrey’s first introduction to the water mats, and well, she was a FAN!  I felt kind of bad, I was a little worried that she’d get sprayed in the face and be totally unhappy!  But, well, she definitely wasn’t unhappy!  She would crouch down over a hole until it sprayed her (usually in the face) and then she would laugh and grin and head to another hole to repeat the process.  She was absolutely SOAKED in pretty short order!  Good thing I’d brought a change of clothes…

At the beginning, just a little wet on the jeans…

And totally soaked by the end.

Big sis got in on the action, too… she’s always loved the water mats!

My girls… playing together happily.  A moment to savor!

While Laney was napping, we spent a lot of time hanging out in this little area next to Geyser Gulch that is just for toddlers.  It doesn’t have much, just a couple of animals to ride on and a slide.  But all A needs is a slide; she LOVES playing on slides. 

She also loved us rolling a ball down the slide to her, which is what she’s cracking up about in this picture:

Laney even tried a new ride- the little roller coaster in the World’s Fair area.  She was not a fan- we got off and she said “That was NOT very much fun!”  It was pretty funny.  I’m inclined to agree with her, though, because it was awful jerky…

Really, it was a good trip… I am very thankful for Ruthie for spending so much time hanging out with us and helping me get the girls in and out of the van, the park, corralled at the concerts, etc.  But we all had a great time, and we managed to get 30ish kids and 10ish adults to and from SDC without major incident… I’ll call that a successful Young Christians’ Weekend! :)

Speaking of successful… we finally had a successful showing, an offer, and we’re now UNDER CONTRACT on our house!!!  We are so excited, although still really only cautiously optimistic until the home inspector comes and goes!  But if God can bring us the buyer, He can make the home inspection work for us.  We are so thankful for our realtor, Ryan Cunningham, who definitely treated us right this whole time.  And, in the end, it was the realtors who made the deal work- we were kind of at a stand still, and they both offered to give up $1200 of their commission to help us meet in the middle.  Our closing date right now is May 20th, which gives us about 6 weeks to figure out where we’re moving TO! :)  I’m headed to Etown next weekend so we can do some house shopping.  Hopefully the right house will fall in our laps! 

Anyway, so a fun trip and an exciting new development on the whole move-to-KY front!  I am still looking for a job, I’ve applied at several districts around Etown, and I’m sure God will provide the job just as He has everything else in this crazy journey!