Thanksgiving 2008

So, here's the Thanksgiving post, finally! It's been a busy couple of weeks around here, as I'm sure it has been for everyone else, too!

This Thanksgiving, Mike & Jess were able to make it to MO & IL to hang out with us... unfortunately, Josh & I were headed to Springfield this year, not Illinois! But we still got to hang out with them on Wednesday, and managed to squeeze a pretty good time into just a couple of hours!

We started with lunch on Wednesday, at a restaurant downtown called Bleu. We had a really good time just hanging out and telling stories.

The fam, or at least most of it, hanging around outside Bleu.

We spent the afternoon checking out the Black Friday ads, and playing some Wii. Mike tried out our new Lynks Crossbow game that came with our Wii Gun. He was pretty serious about it!

Check out the really cute outfit Aunt Jess bought Elena... FOREVER AGO! This is actually a 9 month size outfit, and by the time it fit it was too cold to wear it! But it ended up being warm enough on Wednesday to wear it with a sweater. It was awful cute!

After Josh got home from work, we went to Flat Branch for dinner, then grabbed some dessert, rented Mario Party 8, and just spent the evening goofing off. We had a really good time and stayed up entirely too late considering how early we all had to leave Thanksgiving morning!

At Flat Branch, Laney decided that she LOOVED onion rings! And, french fries dipped in salsa ranch dressing! She would suck the ranch off of the fries, but not eat the fry! Those poor fries would just be totally limp and mushy, and she'd keep dipping them and licking the dressing off. It was pretty funny! :)

Thursday morning, Laney & Aunt Jess put on their Old Navy Thanksgiving shirts, entirely too early in the morning! We were all up and out of the house around 7:00am!!



On the way down to Springfield, we drove through some pretty major fog at the Lake. It was pretty cool looking, and I couldn't resist taking some from-the-car pictures!


Thanksgiving dinner was great, the table was so full the food wouldn't all fit on it! But Laney found a new favorite food... black olives! And, with a little of Mommy's help, she figured out how much fun it is to eat them off of her fingers! She seriously ate GOBS of black olives that day, which showed up the NEXT day in her diaper, which was absolutely disgusting... but she sure had fun eating them! :)

Friday morning I hit the Black Friday sales, and really scored. I left at about 4:45, and opened up one store, where I got Josh's big gift! :) So excited about that! I also went to Penney's, Staples, Kohls, Walmart, Target, Bass Pro, and Walmart (yes, I went to two different Walmarts). I was pretty successful, and got most of the stuff I went after. My best advice for next year: plan to buy a pair of earrings at Kohls! The line was at least 45 minutes to an hour, and all I had were a few little toys for Elena. So I bought a pair of $8 earrings, and checked out at the jewelry counter, where there was no line!! Totally worth every penny!

After a nap on Friday, the whole family headed to Silver Dollar City. Tim hadn't ever been to the Christmas festival, and we wanted to show Elena the lights, too. She absolutely LOVED the Christmas tree, with the lights and the music, she was totally captivated by it.

Hanging out in the stroller... check out the cute hat and mittens Grandma Looten bought Laney!

Hanging out with Great-Grandma Looten, getting ready to watch the light parade...

...which was a pretty cool parade!

After which, she totally passed out.

Although I missed my family in Illinois, especially since Jess & Mike made it this year, it was a good time hanging out with the Lootens, and I loved taking Elena to see all of the lights at Silver Dollar City.

Other than that, I've taken a few other pictures that are just too cute over the last couple of weeks... so, here goes!

Look how much hair she's getting! She sure loves her bath...

Just like her Mommy... she sure does love to read... anytime, anywhere! :)

We got our first snow, which didn't hang around long enough to really enjoy and take pictures of, but I did get this cute one of Laney & her daddy looking outside. It's funny, she really liked to watch the snow falling in the porch light (it was snowing when we got home from Springfield Saturday night), and she liked to run her fingers through the snow on the hoods of the cars. But she did NOT like snowballs. Kind of a funny thing!

Springfield Shopping Weekend!

Well, every year Josh and I kick off our Christmas shopping by taking a long weekend and going to Springfield and Branson! We started the tradition before we had Laney, and in the last two years it's been a nice chance for some Mommy & Daddy time, because we leave Laney with Grandma & Grandpa Looten while we head to Branson & SDC for shop-o-rama!



But the trip started off on Friday, with a trip to Bass Pro. Josh and I love to eat at Hemingways occasionally, because they have a really good buffet- with all you can eat crab legs! Grandma & Grandpa Looten, and Jess & Luke & Leila decided to join us, which just made it more fun! After dinner we took the girls down to look at the fish, turtles, and ducks inside Bass Pro. Laney LOVED them, like she loves all animals. I think she would have stood there forever if we'd let her!

Some of the fish were bigger than she was!

Leila & Laney looking at the ducks.


Couldn't resist taking a picture with the bear!

Another attraction of Bass Pro is the glass elevator... and she loved it, too!

On Saturday, Josh and I went to The Landing in Branson to start our shopping. It was actually a beautiful day, so we really enjoyed the outdoor mall. We actually didn't get a whole lot of shopping done there, but we got a few presents, and mostly just enjoyed spending time with each other. We walked around enjoying good lattes and just window shopping and looking through stores.

When we'd finished at The Landing, we headed to Silver Dollar City. If you've never been to SDC during their Christmas festival, I highly, HIGHLY recommend it! You won't find a place with such a clear message that we're celebrating Christmas (no "Happy Holidays" here!) and of what Christmas is really about. One of my favorite things (you'll see by the end, I have many, many favorite things) is the huge tree that you see as soon as you get through the gates and into the park. It's impressive even in the daytime:

A close up... the ornaments are huge, but look at all of the lights!

A self portrait, of course...

As impressive as the tree is during the day, that's nothing compared to it at night! At 5:30 they do a tree lighting ceremony, and it's a MUST. It's all choreographed and timed, and it's 2 or 3 songs, and just amazing! Pictures never do it justice, so this year I videoed it with my digital camera. The picture still isn't as bright as it is in real life, but it'll give you an idea...

The whole rest of the park is covered in lights, too. One of my favorites is the "Rejoice" that is up over the lake, so you can see a cool reflection, too...

Not a great picture, but this is an overview of the whole park. You can kind of tell how many lights there really are.

Again with the "We are celebrating Christmas, and Christmas is celebrated because of Christ." theme... this is part of the train ride. During the year it's a comedy routine as the train gets "robbed." But, during Christmas, you stop in to see Grandpa, and he tells the true story of Christmas. Seriously, where else can you do that?!

Well, besides the city and the shopping, we hung out at Grandma & Grandpa Looten's house, and read LOTS of books. Several books managed to find themselves underneath couch cushions at various points during the weekend!!

This picture doesn't look very interesting, as it's not very focused and the balls kind of take over the picture... but I put it up here because Elena took that picture, all (well, mostly) by herself! :)

Thought this was such a cute picture of Josh & Elena on our way to church Sunday morning. The dress she is wearing is the dress Grandma Looten got her for this Christmas last December. Unfortunately, when I took it out of the closet, it became quite clear that it was barely going to fit her now, much less at Christmas time! So, it became her Thanksgiving dress!

After going to church with Grandma & Grandpa Looten, we met Great-Grandma & Grandpa D. for lunch, then spent the afternoon at their house. We sure had fun catching up with G'De & G'Don, and Laney LOVED the elephant piano!

Well, it's sad but true... on Monday night after we got back, Josh & I became "those people" and put up our Christmas tree. Yes, we put it up the Monday BEFORE Thanksgiving. But we were hanging out with Jess on Wednesday, and we wanted to take our pictures for our Christmas cards then, so we had to have the tree up. I know, I know, twist my arm... ;)

No matter how many times we put it up, I still love how our tree looks...

And, apparently, so does Laney! :) Couldn't resist this shot, and there aren't even presents to dig in yet! But she loves the tree skirt with the bells, and (in this case) she was actually going after Truman, who spends a lot of his time hiding under the tree now. I think he feels like he's really in the jungle!

Anyway... I've got a backlog of several more posts, so check back often (if I ever get time to get them done!) This time of year I get so behind because there's something different every weekend!! But, next up, is Thanksgiving and hanging out with Mike & Jess... and you know if Jess was around there are lots of good pictures!! :)

My Deepest Apologies!

I know I have been terribly remiss about the whole blogging thing... I don't really have a good excuse, other than that I have been reading lately. I absolutely LOVE to read. The problem is, when I start reading a book, it practically becomes an obsession, and every spare moment is spent reading. Seriously, I take the book with me in the car and read at stop lights, every moment that I'm at home and not required to do something else, I read. Which means the house becomes a mess, I neglect my husband, and I totally forget about blogging! So, my deepest apologies, but here's a quick catch up on the last few weeks!

We invited Josh's Sunday School class (he teaches the college/career class) over for a Wii Game Night. It was... well, awesome! :) We played a few rounds of boxing, and then spent most of the night playing a game called Mario Party 8. It's like this giant board game, and you can play with a bunch of people by putting them on teams, and you get to play these different mini-games... it really is perfect for a big group of people... definitely on our Christmas list this year!! We ended up having 15 or 16 people, which was pretty awesome. Several people invited friends, so it was a good time to meet some new people. Unfortunately, I missed a good portion of the party because I was getting sick, but I managed to have a good time, and I'm thankful everyone else did, even if I wasn't a good hostess! But, being that I was sick, I didn't get many pictures taken... so here are just a few!

The girls... boxing! They totally got into it, but it's hard not to with the boxing game. It's quite the work out! After this I totally dominated Josh... and then I puked... what a fun night! :)

James and Corey REAAALLLY got into this game... they turned the remotes sideways and had to act like they were in a mine racing in those rail carts that you have to push up and down on the lever to move... given that they weren't ACTUALLY pushing up and down on a lever, just flailing about with little plastic wiimotes, it was pretty hilarious!

The next day, we had a youth service day. We almost always spend a Saturday in November raking leaves as a service project, but we decided to twist it a little this year, and turned it into Leaf Pile '08! We took all of the leaves out to my mom & dad's place and made a giant leaf pile to jump in. It was pretty awesome... again, due to the sickness, I didn't make it, but from the pictures, it looks like it's a definite repeat event!

This is the group with HALF of the pile. Isn't that amazing?!

My husband... he's kind of an idiot, because sometimes he forgets that he's 27!! Needless to say, he was a little sore the next day...


...but they did look pretty cool! This one has pretty good form!

And these pictures are for my friend Julie, in Japan! Elena finally fits into the Japanese onesies that you got her! The funniest thing about them is that they are actually kind of shorts at the bottom, so they go partway down her legs. She spent a good part of the day running around the house with no pants, and it looked pretty hilarious!

A close up of the front... gotta love the Engrish... :)

Well, sorry for the delay, but you can tell there hasn't been gobs going on! Elena continues to grow, she is a total maniac now, racing everywhere! She has also become quite the jabbermouth, and she LOOOVES to read. Now, that could be because she's been watching me read a lot lately, but she just keeps bringing books to us to read to her. Some of them are getting rather old (Brown Bear, Brown Bear had to go into hiding for awhile). She is also starting to talk more coherently, she says a few words- mostly "Uh-huh" (yes), and the occasional Dada and Mama. She has certainly started developing some stubborness and attitude, so life has been getting interesting. She is becoming quite the climber, mostly she just likes standing in her rocking chair and looking to see what I'm going to do because she knows she's not supposed to. There was much screaming one night when I took the chair and put it in the kitchen (on the other side of the baby gate) after 3 warnings. Ahhh, life is going to be so interesting for the next couple of years!!

The daycare issues have eased off, she has transitioned into the toddler room, and I am getting to know those teachers. I am still keeping my eyes open, but for now I think we will stay there. She is happy to get there in the morning, and happy when I pick her up, and that's about all I can ask for. No daycare is perfect!

Josh and I are off this weekend on our annual trip to Springfield to start our Christmas shopping. This is a weekend that we take for us, to go to Springfield and Branson and shop and just hang out together. It is a much needed break, and we are so excited to be going! I will try really hard to post pictures soon after we get back!!

Frustrated

Well... I am feeling rather like Laney in this picture right now... I'm really frustrated with our daycare. I absolutely love them, and they have taken excellent care of Elena thus far. But in the last month, there have been some issues that I haven't been too pleased with. The first was the resignation of the director. See, there is one lady who owns the daycare, and then she hires a director. Well, I absolutely loved the director, she was always in the classrooms lending an extra hand (especially in the infant and toddler rooms, where extra hands are MUCH appreciated), she always had a smile for me, and she really loved Elena. Well, a couple of months ago, her father died, and while she was gone to take care of that, something happened between the staff and the director, and Nolanda resigned shortly after she got back. On the same day, one of Elena's teachers resigned. So, I don't know if those were connected, but I assume they probably were. But Elena's other teacher, who happened to also be Nolanda's daughter, stayed because she liked the kids she was taking care of so much. Well, today I dropped Elena off like normal, and Chas was the one who was there to take her. But when I picked her back up, one of the teachers gave me a note, and said that Chas had been let go that day.

So Chas was my favorite teacher of Elena's, and I don't know why she was let go, but it's not like she quit- they fired her. And she was an amazing teacher who really cared about the kids she was taking care of. I actually got to spend quite a bit of time with Elena's teachers because I nursed her at lunch for so long, and I got to watch Chas with the kids. She was great, and she really had a soft spot for Elena- she didn't want her to transition over to the toddler side at all.

Anyway, I'm just a little frustrated with how it was all handled, and the fact that no one told me- the note I got from the other teacher was not from the director or the owner, but from Chas, and she talked about how she'd like to see all the kids one more time to say bye. So they didn't even let her say goodbye to the kids. I just don't get it.

And I'm not sure what to do... when Nolanda left, she kind of joked about her and Chas setting up an in-home daycare. If they did that, I would totally move Elena there. But the non-emotional side of me says that there are two sides to every story, and I don't know the reasons they had for firing her. But I find it hard to swallow that they wouldn't let her say goodbye to the kids she took care of for 6 hours a day (and more, because she'd stay after she was off the clock and rock a cranky baby to sleep, etc), and that neither the director nor the owner had the courtesy to let the parents know.

Anyway, I guess my plan for the moment is to see if the owner is there tomorrow, and ask her about it. And I'll probably call Chas, and talk to her to see what happened. And go from there. Any better ideas???

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!