A Man's Gotta Do What a Man's Gotta Do

We're thinking about potty training. Calvin will go potty standing up just fine when his diaper is off. Now for the harder part--getting him to go #2. He pretty much hates to sit and try. I noticed he was "trying" so I ripped off his diaper and put him on the throne, he protested of course, but I wanted him to sit there awhile and just try some more. So I got the TV tray and the laptop and he watched excavators on YouTube (he can click the next video and the next) for awhile. And he had to have his excavator that goes with his Duplo blocks.

Circus, More from Barn Dance

We all (us 4, the Moody's, and the Rempels) went to the circus a couple Sundays ago with Grandpa Vail and Grandma Pam, compliments of Gpa's company (leftover tickets)! We all ate at Cracker Barrel first.


Marie and Tyler, and not their kid! :) That's Jordan, Justin & Lesley's sweet little girl.







Mr. Kaleb!

These are some of Calvin's pics from the Barn Dance.





This is Mr. Phil & Miss Penny whom he obviously adores!














Mr. Paul! Calvin took about 5 pictures of him :)








Miss Johnna! Johnna's one of my good friends from the past several years! Lots of sweet times with her!

Barn Dance!

Here's Calvin before we left for our church's Barn Dance on Nov 3. What a cutie! The boots were given to him by "Aunt Tracy". The hat is more of an explorer hat, which belonged to Grandpa Vail when he was little! Calvin's gotten a lot of use out of it! His grandparents brought it back from Thailand on one of their trips!









Wow, a picture of the 4 of us! That's rare!

Rick always goes for the "farm" look and wears his old work clothes :) Both of us grew up on farms, but weren't cowboy/cowgirl, just farm kids. Seems like everyone else dresses up "cowboy". I usually wear my overalls, Rick usually wears his gum boots (they're called mud boots where I come from) but we didn't do much this year. Bandana strips tied on to pigtails was as fancy as I got. :)


Fallyn was so sleepy and so sweet. We put the hat on her for fun when Calvin took it off, and she was frozen in that position with her hand on it for at least fifteen minutes solid. She wasn't even closing her eyes...just so spaced out that she was completely motionless. :)

Calvin had a good time taking lots of pictures with the camera (strap always around his neck!) and people really got a kick out of this tiny person walking around like a professional photographer. It was so funny when Matt, who is often working in the nursery room that Fallyn goes to on Sundays (and doesn't like) came over to sit by Rick (holding her) on the bench, and Fallyn clung tightly to Rick and started to cry! It was so sad, but so funny! The next 2 times he came over, she realized she wasn't going to have to leave us, but she would start breathing faster like she was on the verge of being on the verge of tears. Then one time he came back with a peace-offering, a piece of candy, which she accepted after hestating only a couple seconds. And all was well. :) Speaking of nursery workers, Calvin just wanted Mr. Phil & Miss Penny (his nursery workers) the whole time! He would ask about them and wanted to go find them every couple minutes! WE could not get him to dance with us, but he was so eager to go dance with the Josts!

Here's a video of the little man dancing & a-stampin' his boots. It's dark because it was so dim and it was just taken by our digital camera, not our video camera. Isn't watching your little one dance the BEST?!?!

Java Villa!!!

Java Villa on Thursday nights is one of our favorite things to do, although we definitely don't do it as much as we'd like to! Every Thursday evening from 7-9 pm they have a group of musicians who get together really informally and play Celtic/Irish music. It's been going on for YEARS. You never know how many people will show up to play and therefore the mix of instruments you'll get, but it is always SO GOOD! We've heard banjos, mandolins, bodhran (traditional Irish drum), lap dulcimers, hammer dulcimers, fiddles, tin whistle, a type of flute (I'm not sure of the name--last time we were there was the first time I'd seen it. I'll ask next time.), recorder, and more! I have fond memories from this place with one of my former roommates from back in 2001-2002--especially an elderly gentleman teaching us how to play the spoons, and giving us each our own set of spoons! We went home that night and played our hearts out on the spoons, so much so that we had bruises on our legs the next day! I still have my spoons :)

We love this coffee shop and want to promote them all we can and see them do well! Their coffee is GREAT--fair trade, organic. WHERE ELSE CAN YOU GET A 12-OZ LATTE FOR $2 IN THIS TOWN?! Their prices are unbeatable, as far as my experience in Wichita coffee shops can tell. They also have yummy bierocks, pies, and other goodies... and free Wi-Fi!

So, go to Java Villa sometime, ESPECIALLY on a Thursday evening at 7 pm!!! You'll love it!

Here's a little sampling of the music from 2 Thursdays ago:


Another video from the same night. We made Grandma Pam, Grandma Great (my dad's mother), and Grandpa Nolan (my mom's father) go along with us. Grandma Great was here for a few days not too long ago, and I knew she'd be up for music and coffee! Grandma, you're on YouTube!!! :) ***are Fallyn's little squeals not the cutest?!*** She squealed every time she saw the picture on Gma Pam's phone.