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!

Pumpkin Fun

Josh and I never make too big of a deal out of Halloween, but we still always carve a jack o' lantern. So, Monday night we sat down and carved one. We let Laney play with the gunk,


but she wasn't too interested in it:

She was way more interested in drawing on things with the marker that came with our carving kit. Speaking of which, if you haven't gotten a pumpkin carving kit, you are missing out! I bought our's for $2.99 at Hyvee, and it was AWESOME. Plus, I found this fun site for printing off templates for pumpkins, so Josh and I went with the "Surprise" face. I think it turned out pretty good... though I can't take any credit for it, because Josh did it all!



Don't know why this picture came out so funny, guess I moved the camera a little. But still a good picture of Laney and her daddy.

In other news... I'd really like to thank Jessica for buying this card for Elena:

She loves it, but all I have to say is... payback is coming!! :)

A Weekend at Home

Well, this weekend was a much needed respite from the normal go-go-go of our lives, and we DEFINITELY enjoyed it! We set out on Saturday to have the perfect Saturday, and we did! We started off by sleeping in as long as Miss Elena would let us... which was about 9:00 (after getting up to feed her once). Then we headed to breakfast at Little General, and Laney decided she LOVES chocolate chip pancakes and mangoes! After breakfast, we wandered around Walmart for awhile (who doesn't love to do that?!) and learned the funniest thing- Laney also LOVES Christmas stuff! Walmart has all of its Christmas stuff out (just a TOUCH early, if you ask me), so of course we had to go up and down the aisles. She was just enamored by all of the shiny, jingly, fun Christmas ornaments and decorations. She is going to be a maniac once we get our tree up!!

After Walmart, it had been such an exhausting day, that we went home and took a nap! There is something so awesome about all 3 of us passed out in the bed together, taking a good afternoon nap. It is priceless family time, even if we are all sleeping! After our nap, we played with Isabelle, and took her for a walk. If there is one family member who really suffers when we are busy, it's Isabelle, so I'm glad it was nice enough to head out with her. We just strolled around the neighborhood and admired the leaves.

By that time, it was 5:30, and time for the game to start! So we headed to our favorite place to watch the game, Kostaki's! We like it there because they have great pizza (and even better cheese bread), big flat screen TVs, and not a huge crowd. And they're really nice about letting us stay and just sit and watch the game after we're done eating. Anyway, Ruth came and joined us there as we watched the Tigers STOMP Colorado, 58 to NOTHING!

Aunt Ruthie and her favorite (only) neice, supporting the Tigers! Notice that's the same shirt Elena has worn every other game day this fall... 'cause she's only got one MU shirt! :)

Don't know why I took this picture... but something about that penguin sticking out of Josh's hood struck me as funny...

Speaking of funny... guess now we'll know what happened when someone charges us with child abuse after Laney ends up with shaken baby syndrome!!

So, that was pretty much the perfect Saturday!! :)

On Sunday, we got to celebrate Uncle Charlie's 22nd birthday!! Laney thinks Grandma & Grandpa's house is LOTS of fun because there are doggies there that are JUST her size! Not sure what the doggies think, but Laney sure enjoys herself!

Check out the cute dress Liz made!

Since lunch wasn't going to be ready for awhile after church, and Laney's not the happiest when she doesn't get fed on time, I thought it would be best to distract her with some exploring! So Aunt Ruthie, Laney, and I headed down to our old house to look at my favorite fall tree.

Riding on Mommy's shoulders... check out that awesome blue sky! The weather was so perfect for fall!

Laney thought the leaves were pretty cool... for about 10 seconds. And then she was way more interested in Bob the dog!

Sitting IN the tree was cool for about another 10 seconds! Guess Laney just doesn't quite get fall yet... maybe next year!
So, instead we decided to take her down to the creek! Every Price girl (and Laney is half-Price!) loves a good tromp through the creek! And Laney was no exception...

This was moments before a sopping wet Rachel-Dog came bounding by about six inches from us! But the picture came out pretty cute, anyway! Many thanks to Aunt Ruthie for braving the stepping stones in the middle of the water to take the picture!

Nothin' beats splashing in the creek with a stick!

FINALLY, it was time to eat! But Grandma Price's lasagna was well worth the wait!

And the birthday boy! Hard to believe that there are that many candles on my baby brother's cake! He turned 22 years old!! I always especially love Charlie's birthday party because he loves lemon cake with lemon icing, just like me! And, apparently, just like Elena! She hoovered like half a slice! And then was promptly on a massive sugar high!

In the middle of the sugar high... making all kinds of noises at the dogs outside! Check out the belly... this will be a torture-her-with-it-later picture, for sure! Kind of like the one of me sitting at the picnic table in our backyard totally naked at age 4 or so!

Absolutely SHRIEKING at Joy on Grandpa Price's lap. Grandpa Price couldn't pick her up since he just had surgery on his neck, but we just sat her on his lap and she loved every minute of it!


Apparently, October is Pastor Appreciation Month, and the youth kids surprised Josh with a Superman ice cream cake and brownies! It was pretty fun! And the cake was right up Josh's alley... as a side note, I had a much better picture of the cake that's taken at a cool angle, etc... yeah, but blogger insists on putting it on sideways, so here's the plain ol' boring picture instead!

Here's Laney playing in the nursery later... check out the icing ALL OVER HER FACE! Uncle Charlie was feeding her cake during the songs and, well, it's dark then, so his aim was a little off. It's tough to hit a moving target, you know!

In random Laney news, she has discovered the joy of climbing... GREAT! But, as my typical bad-mommy self, I grabbed the camera before I grabbed the baby! :) She's actually pretty good at balancing, so I wasn't really too worried about her!


And funny story from today... the daycare calls me at like 1:30 and says that Elena just woke up and is just arching her back and screaming like she's in pain. We tossed around some ideas, and decided to give it a little bit. So they call back at 1:45 and say that nothing is working, and it would probably be best if I came to get her. So, I gather all of my stuff, drive home with a SCREAMING baby in the backseat, and within 10 minutes of walking in the door, she looks like this:

Happily banging toys on the cedar chest, grinning like nobody's business... GREAT!! Oh well, it got me out of work early, I'll take it! :) But that's sure not gonna fly when she's older!

Worlds of Fun

Well, to continue the absolute madness that has been our lives for this fall, we took the youth group to Worlds of Fun this past weekend! They won the trip by selling $1000 in raffle tickets for the Fish Fry, so it was totally a for-fun event. And we did have fun... I hadn't been to Worlds of Fun in a long time, probably close to 10 years. The very sad news I got when we got there, was that the Orient Express had closed!! That was the very first roller coaster I ever rode, and it was on a youth trip! I was very sad about that. But I did get to ride the Patriot, which was one of those rides where your feet just hang loose, like the Batman ride at Six Flags. It was really fun, I love those rides! I only rode that and the Mamba, which is that really HUUUUGE roller coaster, because it's pretty hard to ride many rides with a one year old tagging along! Anyway, it was a pretty easy day, because we only stayed until 7:00. During October, Worlds of Fun does a Fright Fest thing, where they make it really spooky and scary at 7, so that was a darn good excuse to head out early! Anyway, I didn't take many pictures, because I was trying to corral Elena most of the day, but here are a few! :)

In a bad move by Mommy, Laney wore khaki's and her camo jacket... so she got called a boy the WHOLE day! :) Not sure the dog on her head helped, but it was awful cute. Sam actually won that and gave it to her. The big pink dog was Andrea's, and she was nice enough to let Elena borrow it... and didn't even mind when Elena slimed its nose! :)

The carousel isn't just for little girls! Ruth, Jordyn, and Heather rode, too!

Mommy & Laney on the carousel. She was not convinced that she liked it. Kind of like the frogs the weekend before, it took a lot of convincing!
Random... but Elena kept sticking the head of this turtle in her head... never mind that it's a bath toy, she was loving it! :)

In other news, Elena had her first bout with spaghetti at home, and it was definitely an event that merited breaking out the camera!! Not much to be said about these pictures, just enjoy them! :)

WOW... onery, much???

Life with a one year old continues to be really interesting. We've developed some new fun tricks, like barking when someone asks what a dog says, and she's really close to using Mama and Dada purposefully. She's got more, please, and all done down pat in the sign language department. But, there have been some not-so-fun tricks, too... like pinching, which she got from her mommy, unfortunately. It seems like it is a frustration thing, when she doesn't get what she wants or she's having trouble letting us know what she wants, she'll just grab whatever's close (arm, face, chest, whatever) and pinch with her whole hand. Sometimes, if you tell her no, she'll grab herself- hair, ear, hands, even face- and pinch herself. It's pretty frustrating for everyone, but we're working on it. The last couple of days she has been very, very fussy. We're guessing it's teething, but it sure isn't much fun!

But nothing beats a Sunday afternoon nap with everybody in the same bed!! Last weekend, we took a good, long one, and Laney woke up with some SERIOUS hair... check out the spike!! :)

This picture is just for Aunt Jane and Jess! Does this look familiar?? Laney kept walking around doing that (honestly, her ear probably did hurt) and it was cracking Ruth and I up. And it made me think of Florida... and Disneyworld... and ol' Jess with the swimmer's ear... :)