Giddyup, pony!

On Thursday, a friend and I went to a consignment sale in Omaha. I first went to this sale when I was 8 months pregnant with Lane and got all of his 0-3 month clothes. I fell in love with the sale - it's so organized and well-run and there are always tons of cute stuff. It's fun to check out all the cute clothes and see what type of toys they have! The last time I went I mostly got clothes and since Lane is still wearing that same size, I went mostly for toys! I needed to find some things that will keep him occupied this winter. I got quite a bit of stuff, including a John Deere riding toy, a rocking horse, several trucks, and a few more toys. I also found a cute snowsuit and super cute winter boots. I hope he'll still be able to fit in the stuff once it snows!

I put all the toys away until later except for the JD riding toy and the rocking horse. As you can see in the picture, he loves the rocking horse! For only $10, he's definitly going to get lots of use out of it.

I'm planning to set up a play room for Lane in "Whiskey's Room" (the breezeway between the house and the garage) so that he has a place for all his bigger toys. I found a good toy organizer and a large play rug that he can drive cars on. Should be fun!

Keasling get-together

On Saturday, we packed up and headed to Iowa. Every fall, the whole Keasling (Curtis' mom's side) gets together at Neil and Veronica's place. They have a farm with a bunch of horses and lots of room to play. Neil even hooked up a wagon to an old John Deere tractor so we could have hayrack rides.

Since it was about a 2 1/2 hour drive, I really hoped Lane would take a nap. He hasn't taken a morning nap in forever so I was a little worried! He actually slept for almost an hour and a half! I was so happy - he was in a good mood the rest of the afternoon!

The day was filled with eating, talking, riding, playing in a bounce house, and watching the Husker game. I was very glad that the weather was perfect and it was a great day to be outside. It was fun to see some people that we hadn't seen for more than a year.

Someone brought lots of riding toys for Lane to play with - thank goodness! He LOVED them and we could hardly get him off of them. His favorite was a Cozy Coupe Car, but since he had to be pushed around in that one, Curtis hid it after about an hour :) Not to worry, there were about 3 other riding toys he played with!


Everyone seems to gather in the pasture when others are riding horses. Maybe next year we could get some bleachers??

Lane really loved riding on the wagon behind the tractor. And of course, playing with a pop can is one of his favorite things to do. And no, he doesn't actually drink the pop - Daddy takes care of that for him.

I think Brent had a little TOO much fun driving the tractor - some of the rides got a little crazy! Uhhh...Brent...you do know that there isn't a roll bar on the tractor so hills aren't the best idea??

With Daddy on the wagon....

I told Curtis there was no way I was riding horses....a few years ago, I was on one that started to get a little rambunctious and I had no intentions of getting bucked off. So that scared me away for a while and I definitly did not want to be in charge of Lane on a horse! So Curtis got the honor of taking Lane for a ride. Apparently Curtis' horse acted up a little too and Lane tried to get off about half way through the ride.

Posing for a picture....he wasn't too sure about that!

Lane also got to ride with Great-Uncle Neil. Neil also took Lane on a tractor ride, and that's about the first time I've seen Lane go to a stranger willingly!

It was a fun day, but boy, were we all worn out on the drive home! Lane slept until Lincoln. It would've been a nice drive except for the fact that the Huskers lost.

.

The Barn

Last Friday, Mom, Lane and I went over to The Barn in Hastings. They are only open two weekends out of the year, so I was excited that we had time to go! It's a bunch of buildings filled with "crafty" items and home decor. I told myself before we went that I wasn't going to buy alot, but of course there were too many cute things! One of my favorite purchases is a wooden chair for Lane. He wouldn't leave them alone while we were there and he was so excited to see that we brought one home!

One of the main reasons I wanted to go was to get a couple more candles. They have such yummy scents! My favorite one from last year, Chai Latte, is almost gone so I wanted a similar one. I picked out Creme Brulee (or something like that), but then set it down while we were doing this:

Lane had so much fun smelling the candles! He looks goofy in this picture, but he was so cute. After all that cuteness, I completely forgot to pick up my candle and ended up leaving without one. Oh well, I think I got enough stuff!

Husker Harvest Days

It has been a busy couple of weeks!! And to top it off, Curtis has been sick the past 3 days. At least Lane and I haven't gotten sick yet. I'm crossing my fingers that we won't! Especially with the weather so nice - it would be a shame to miss this nice weather!

So, back to my busy weeks - it started off with Husker Harvest Days. Even with a long wait to actually park, we were all ready to go once we got there! I think that Lane was just in awe of everything - so many big machines, people, signs, and more! There was even an airplane flying overhead! We walked around a bit and then my parents called to see if we wanted to meet them for lunch. On our walk over there, Lane fell asleep. He ended up sleeping for almost an hour - right through lunch! I was very glad that he slept though, it made the rest of the day much more pleasant.


Once Lane did wake up, he didn't feel like eating much, so about all he ate was a raisin schnetya my mom had brought along for him. Yum!


As we were finishing eating, Nate and Dennis Goertzen walked by and ended up eating with us. It's always fun to see some friends!

Once we were walking around again, Lane really enjoyed everything. I was on a mission to get as many of those reusable shopping bags as I could find. Unfortunately, I only found two. And one of those Mom picked up for me. But we did find some cool Pioneer Seed cups, a couple of foam footballs, and a few pine trees. Oh and of course pens and keychains. What more could you need??

Curtis enjoyed seeing all of the equipment and pointing things out to Lane. He even ran into one of his classmates from SECC who is working for John Deere.

Lane was so excited he didn't even fall asleep on the way home. Made for one tired little boy that evening!! I think he just really enjoyed spending the whole day with Daddy!

Busy week!

At the end of the next couple of weeks, I will feel like this:




Between Husker Harvest Days, The Barn, the Lincoln Children's Zoo, a family reunion, and a consignment sale, I will be very busy the next couple of weeks! At least I should have lots to blog about. If I remember my camera!

Heritage Day

Last year at this time we were busy packing, moving, and settling in to our house in Henderson. I didn't realize that Heritage Day had gone on until it was already past. Since it sounded like fun, I made a mental note to go this year. So, when Grandma Jost asked if I wanted to go with her, I said yes!

In case you don't know what Heritage Day is, here's a little background. Several years ago, Henderson started building a "Heritage Park" which consists of old buildings that were around in the late 1800s when immigrants settled in the area. At first, I thought it was kinda strange, but now I think it's pretty cool! They're slowly adding more buildings, including an immigrant house, a large barn, a schoolhouse, a summer kitchen, and an old farmhouse. Lane and I toured the buildings during Community Days, so we didn't see any of that this weekend.

Saturday morning, we picked up Grandma and headed over there right at 9. Following Lane's lead, we went here first:

There were several old tractors and cars lined up and Lane thought that was just the coolest thing he had ever seen! While he was sitting on them, a semi pulled up with three more tractors! Wow - tractors on a truck - how neat!





We finally pulled Lane away from the tractors and moved on to the barn. Snack time! There was so much good Mennonite food to choose from - zweiback, schnetya, apple preishke, new year's cookies, raisin-filled cookies, and more! I of course had to have a preishke and a new year's cookies. Lane tried schnetya for the first time and just loved it. Yum!

There were also demonstrations of old time activites such as rope-making, corn shelling, lard making, laundry day and freshly-pressed apple juice. Lane was most interested in the corn shelling and tried to help by putting the cobs back into the tub filled with corn. It was all pretty neat. I especially liked seeing the washing machine, since it had belonged to my grandma's family before she donated it to the museum.

Even though Lane wasn't really old enough to do the children's activites, he did earn some Smarties by putting bean bags into a wooden box!

A highlight for Lane was the horse-drawn wagon rides. He sat very still at first just watching the horses and looking around at everything. After awhile he got more comfortable and really enjoyed it!

We only stayed about 2 hours since Lane was getting pretty wound up and not really listening to me - he kept running up and down the sidewalk and falling down. It was a fun way to spend a Saturday morning and we'll go back next year!

Target deals!

While we were Kansas, I wanted to go to Target to take advantage of some good sales/coupon matchups! Target always has alot of good deals where you can get items pretty cheaply. Wish we lived closer to one! I got the above items for only $4.97 - saving a total of $28.28!

Here's what I bought:

3 Glade Scented Oil Candle tins (I already gave one to my grandma)
3 Glade Scented Oil Candle refills (gave one to Grandma)
1 Glade Fragrence Collection 2 oz. candle
2 Dove deodorants
1 Bounce dryer bar
1 package of storage containers

Wondering how I did it?

Candle tins were on sale 3 for $5. Inside each tin was a coupon for $1.50 off a tin - $0.16 for each tin!
The refills were free with purchase of a tin - coupon is here
The 2 oz candle was free with a $3 off coupon (no longer available)
The deodorants were free with this coupon and this $1 off Target coupon
The Bounce dryer bar was close to free with a $2.50 off coupon from Vocalpoint and a $1.50 off Target coupon.

I actually think that the cashier overcharged me. I tried to explain what she was doing wrong but either she didn't understand or just didn't care. Still, I thought I got some great deals since each deodorant alone cost $3! It was pretty fun getting the stuff for so cheap and I'm sure Curtis got tired of hearing about it :)

Trip to Kansas

Ever since we moved back to Henderson, my 4Runner has needed a new muffler. Luckily, it wasn't loud and noisy yet, but Curtis said that it could totally break any time. Instead of paying a lot of money for a new one, he wanted to check a few salvage yards that just deal with Toyotas. Only problem was, they are in Wichita, KS. So, we decided just to make a little trip out of it and go visit my grandparents in Buhler. We went on Monday afternoon and came home Tuesday right after lunch. It was a very quick trip, but it was fun!

Lane had a blast. I really wish I had taken my camera (why don't I ever think to take it!?!) because there were alot of cute photo opportunities! He had fun looking through all the toys that I played with when I was younger and there were even some that my mom had played with when she was little! A favorite toy was an old metal airplane. Lane even demonstrated what an airplane does - fly around in the sky. An old rubber train was also a hit. And of course, a whole bucket of balls. And don't forget the plastic horses. And our old playhouse (even though he couldn't go in it, he still thought it was pretty neat). And running down the slope in the driveway and into the mud puddle. He even liked just running around the house. Guess Great-Grandma's house is alot of fun!

Hopefully it didn't take Grandma too long to pick up all the toys that Lane left laying around. I'm sure she will be finding some in weird places long after we've left! Thanks, Grandma & Grandpa for letting us stay with you and for all the yummy food!

Oh, and Curtis did find the part he needed. At an auto parts store in Newton.

Great deal on Taste of Home magazine!

One of the hardest things for me to do is figure out what to make for supper. I like things to be quick and easy! Since I also like to read, one of my favorite things to do is look at cooking magazines - specifically Taste of Home, Simple and Delicious, and Cooking for 2. I subscribe to Simple and Delicious and I got lucky because Mom got Taste of Home so I always "borrowed" them from her (actually I don't think I've given any back!). I was really sad when she stopped getting them!

Well, I just saw today on another blog, The Good Deal Gal, that right now, you can get one year of Taste of Home for only $2.88! The cheapest I've ever seen it was like $14, and I didn't think it was worth it for that. But, I just got a 4 year subscription for only $11.52! Pretty cool!

Go to her post here to read the details and get your own subscription! I just had to share this with you guys :)

Can I go too, Mom?

Last Saturday my mom hosted a scrapbooking day at the church. Curtis promised to watch Lane so that I could have 12 uninterrupted hours of scrapbooking! Yay! I did get alot done (but not quite as much as I had hoped - there were a few distractions in the form of Kara and Stacey!) and it was fun getting to talk with friends without a little one around. I managed to do 5 layouts (3 on our trip to Des Moines and 2 from the York County Fair) and one card. And of course the Christmas card workshop that we did there. It feels a little silly that one of my "big" events from the summer was the county fair, but Lane was so cute! It was so fun to scrapbook all day! I am anxiously awaiting the next one!

Now on to the pictures....while I was deciding what to take (yeah, I ended up taking all of it!), Lane was "helping" me look through everything. Suddenly, he grabbed the adhesive and the paper trimmer and headed for the stairs! I got him to turn around for some pictures, but I could tell that he was thinking that he should go too! How did he know I can't do anything without those 2 tools?? At least he didn't hide them like he did one of my stamping blocks :) Maybe I'll turn him into a scrapbooker someday, much to Curtis' chagrin ;)

Jump, jump, jump!

Last week, Lane and I were down in the basement. I was on the computer and Lane was just running around the room. After awhile, he came over to me and started tugging on me like he wanted to show me something. I followed him, and he ran over to his jumperoo. He hasn't been in that thing for probably 7 or 8 months! He got really frustrated with it about the time he learned to crawl, so we just put it in the basement. Now, though, he wanted in it!

So, I put him in it and let him play. Surprisingly, I didn't even have to adjust the bars clear to the top - there's still one more setting. I guess that he could've used it longer than I thought! He played for a good 10 minutes just jumping around and spinning everything. Of course he posed for the camera and even played "peek-a-boo".

Every time we go to basement now, we have to stop and play with the jumperoo.

I know, I know....

So I know that it's been a loooong time since I have updated! It just kinda seemed like we've just been doing the normal stuff, and nothing too exciting! I like having pictures to go with my posts, and since I haven't been taking any pictures - no posts. So, just until I find the time to put up a few pictures, here are a few cute things Lane has been doing lately:

Lane seems to be very aware of the fact that Whiskey needs to eat too! This morning, he brought her dish to me to make sure I knew that it was empty. I filled it up and he brought it back to her. The other night, I was trying to get Lane to drink his milk before bed. For some reason, he didn't want it, so I tried a different tactic. I said, "Lane, Whiskey really likes to drink milk. It's yummy!" He promptly turned around and offered his sippy cup to her! Then, last night, Lane wasn't falling asleep at bedtime, so I went in to see why he was upset. When I looked in on him, I noticed he was sitting up with his sippy cup and his stuffed kitty. Well, he was trying to get kitty to drink some water. I told him, "Good job, Lane, kitty had a good drink. Thanks." Then he laid down and went right to sleep!

Just tonight, Lane learned how to turn in circles! He stomps his feet on the ground while turning. It's so cute! He laughs and laughs.

Another thing Lane laughs at is cows! Whenever we are driving down the road and we point out a pasture full of cows, Lane laughs. I guess cows are pretty funny!