Coasting Along

Things at school are finally coming together for Tori, and she is just zooming along. She has been reading books and taking AR tests, more than I thought. She also knows her spelling words this week. Math is not so easy. But she is coming along in that too. The daily drop-in-the-bucket math sheets have stopped, and that seems to have improved her attitude. She is finally getting into multiplication and division. We are not sure how they are teaching that, so we are just helping however we can. She keeps saying seven rows of five, so they must be teaching them to group the numbers together rather than just memorize the multiplication tables. Interesting the ways they teach math now.

Tori is looking forward to Christmas, and hopefully, the arrival of a new American Girl doll that she intends to name Emily. She already has a doll named Emma. She lives under her loft bed in her own room. She has a bunk bed and is waiting for her sister to come. Here’s hoping Santa has a doll under the tree for Tori on Christmas Day.

Candy Is IN

The Fannie May candy has arrived. We have delivered most of it, excluding the ones we need to ship. It is coming soon, I promise. The school made $19k + on it, so thank you. This is their only major fundraiser, and every dollar counts.

Tori and Eli were very good deliverers. They took the candy to the neighbors willingly, and delivered it to the people next door all on their own last night. Eli has no qualms about ringing doorbells or speaking to people. He also helped the scouts last week place sacks for a canned food drive in people’s doors.

Tori got an A on her spelling test last week. Hooray, Tori! Huts found an app that has been helping her practice her spelling. Now, we need to find an app that will help her with multiplication.

Attitude

Tori started off the school year as usual, struggling a bit. She had forgotten a lot and had to climb back up the hill. She is there now, and her attitude proves it. Instead of feeling dumb, she is now using that as an excuse to not do her best. Christian is the smart one, not her, so therefore, she doesn’t have to work as hard. Case in point, a 65% on her last spelling test. When I asked her about it, she told me she did not care and would write the words she missed 100 times. When I told her that if she said that once more, she really would be writing her words 100 times, she shut up and gave me a mean look. So, the attitude is here, and this week, she is once again resisting homework. She doesn’t want to read her book or study her spelling words and pretty much threw a fit about it last night. Too bad, so sad. She did writer her spelling words, and she did read her book,, and she will be doing both again tonight. Wish me luck!

Tori started off the school year as usual, struggling a bit. She had forgotten a lot and had to climb back up the hill. She is there now, and her attitude proves it. Instead of feeling dumb, she is now using that as an excuse to not do her best. Christian is the smart one, not her, so therefore, she doesn’t have to work as hard. Case in point, a 65% on her last spelling test. When I asked her about it, she told me she did not care and would write the words she missed 100 times. When I told her that if she said that once more, she really would be writing her words 100 times, she shut up and gave me a mean look. So, the attitude is here, and this week, she is once again resisting homework. She doesn’t want to read her book or study her spelling words and pretty much threw a fit about it last night. Too bad, so sad. She did writer her spelling words, and she did read her book,, and she will be doing both again tonight. Wish me luck!

LaLa's Still Hot

If you don’t know by now, Tori has been a fan of LaLa Loopsy dolls for a very long time. She has several of the larger dolls, and almost all of the minis. For a while this summer, she wasn’t playing with her LaLas, and we wondered if she was growing out of them. She even gave us some stuff for the yard sale. Now, she is back into them, watching the TV show and asking for five of the larger LaLas for Christmas. She has done her homework on the dolls, and yesterday, she told me that she did not want the My Little Pony dolls. Whew! Glad Santa has not bought any of those.

On another note, we are selling Fannie May candy right now. $12 a box. Thanks to all who have ordered so far. We will ship it to you should you want to order. All proceeds go right back into the school.

Progress

Tori has had some ups and downs at school this year, but finally, she is getting into the swing of things. It is only Tuesday, and she has most of her spelling words down pat. She is also starting to catch on to more of her math.

Tori has been reading more, too, chapter books now. Right now she is reading a book about dogs. She is all into Buddy and his pals.

Hot Hot Hot

The heat index is 100 today, and with some schools not having air conditioning, a heat schedule has been implemented for the rest of this week. That means the kids are getting off school an hour and a half early. Christian is lucky. He rides the bus. The other two have to go to latchkey, but not today. Annie picked them up so they could swim for a couple of hours before they have to go to soccer practice. Tori likes to play in the park and walk the trail while Eli practices. Meanwhile, Christian and I are going to be baking cookies for Back to School Night at the school. Yep, we are baking cookies in a hot school. Lucky us. Then, drenched in sweat, we get to walk around the school and meet his teachers. Fun, fun!

Tori Girl

Tori had a decent first week of school. She had no problems lining up on the first day and she went willingly most of the week. She did well on her first spelling and math tests. She is trying to get into the groove, but it is not easy. It usually takes her a month or so for everything to really start clicking, hence her teary episodes doing homework. We’ve had a few of those this week and last.

Tori got really upset the second day of school when she realized that Ms. Lynn had been moved to latchkey at another school. She was really hoping to see her and had a complete meltdown. Fortunately, she has been better about everything this week and has learned the new staff’s names. Of course, they are starting to change already. There was a new woman there this morning, so who knows, Ms. Lynn may come back.

Last Dance

Tori has her last dance class tonight. My friend is coming to watch. She stuck it out, tears here and there when the focus was on her, but she made it. Now whether she chooses to take another class is up to her. She seems torn between taking Ballet II again or trying something else. For now, she says she wants to focus on school and seeing what is going on there She is going to be upstairs this year in Ms. Roach’s class. She wanted a male teacher, and I thought she would cry when she didn’t get one, but she took it in stride. She is all set for a good year with Ms. Roach, even if her friends are in other classrooms.

Hairspray Girl

Tori decided to let her bangs grow a bit so she can sweep them to the side. In the meantime, she has been training them with hairspray—loads of it. She puts on a headband, pushes her bangs over and sprays and sprays and sprays some more. She smells lovely and her bangs are extra crunchy, which causes her to play with them until they fall back into place on her forehead, I don’t know that we’ll ever get to the side swept bangs at this rate.

It's Official

Tori can swim. Saturday was her last swim class, and she swam, freestyle, on her own for several feet. She also passed everything else on the list. Now, all we need to do is get her some time to practice.

Tori also learned how to tie her shoe and ride her bike this summer. She is timid, but she can do it. And, she can now change her own earrings. Hooray, Tori!

Side Bangs

Tori is changing her hairstyle to sideswept bangs. I am supposed to get some hairspray and help her start pulling them over. I wonder how long this will last—as long as the nail polish on her fingers? That comes off pretty quickly.

Tori has grown up a lot this summer, doing more for herself and making her opinions better known. She can pretty much ride her bike and tie her shoes. She can change her earrings too. She can also make her bed and clean up her room when she feels like it. And, there is no need to help her in the bathroom anymore. She can care for her hair all on her own now.

My little girl is little no more!

Shocking! She's Ready

After a weekend of boys, Tori announced she was ready to go back to school. She can’t wait to see her friends and find out who her teacher will be. She is the only one of our three who is a returning student, so she does not have to attend registration. We are hoping they have the classroom assignments posted then anyway so we can see who will be her teacher. She has a two-in-three chance of getting a male teacher again. I think she is ready for that; in fact, she even mentioned she was hoping for Mr. Hagan, whom Christian had. We’ll see.

Tori has also started talking about middle school. We’ve told her that she is going to Mark Bills, and she is ok with that. She may even be looking forward to being at a different school than Christian. Anyway, she is already talking about walking home. I am not real keen on that idea, as it is about a mile away from our house and there could be bullies. We’ll see what happens. She still has two years to go!

Party Time

Last weekend was Tori’s party, and this weekend was her friend Dakota’s. They played together for three hours, doing crafts and swimming in the pool. Tori came home happy but exhausted and hungry. The snacks were good, but after all of that swimming, she needed more. We got her McDonalds and a yellow Minion and she scarfed most of it down. She was really tired this morning and stayed home too.

School is less than a month away. Only Tori can fit into her clothes from last year. We got her a few new shirts and are looking for shorts this weekend. She needs something she can fasten and unfasten with ease. They get short bathroom breaks, and the buttons on her short are just too tough for her little fingers to undo—mine too. Wish us luck shopping!

Birthday Party

Next weekend on our anniversary is Tori’s birthday party. Yes, we are late, way late. We had so much going on in June that we had to push her party to July. She is having three or four girls over, and most of them are staying the night. She asked us to plan the actually party—pizza, cake, gifts, water fun and shirts (decorating T-shirts), and then she is taking over. She has got lots of things in mind for the sleepover. Whether she will get to do any of them is another matter. She had things in mind last year, and the party took on a mind of its own that night. One little girl that is coming adores our cats, so watch out, Squeaker and Junior. Shaylee and Tori are coming for you!

Anyway, we are prepping for the party this weekend. We have to get the shirts and the decorating supplies. We also have to get some water guns. We already have bubbles, and the sprinkler, and the water balloons. We also have to get a cake next week. Lucky for us, Tori has had a cake already and is looking for anything special. We’ll pick up a sheet cake from Walmart or Kroger, and that will be that.

Uh-Oh

Tori got her ears pierced in May, and she finally got to change out her earrings this week. We started off fine, but now we may have a bit of a problem. She has been wearing larger earrings, in her sleep, and they appear to have irritated her ears. There was a bit of pus and blood this morning when we changed them. So, tonight, she is going to pull out her earrings before she showers and then douse them with peroxide. Then, we are going to pick out some smaller, flatter earrings that she can wear overnight. Hopefully we can get this irritation under control and avoid a trip to the doctor.

Tori still loves her earrings and she has mentioned getting her American Girl doll, Cory, earrings. I don’t know if the store pierces doll’s ears, but Tori seems to think so. At least we won’t have to worry about an infection with Cory’s ears.

Happy Birthday Tori!

Tori is 8 today. She had a celebration last week at Grandma and Grandpa’s house and came home with loads of goodies. She opened her presents from us last night. She already knew what they were. She has money to spend two weeks from now in St. Louis, and she is having a party on our wedding anniversary, July 12. She is psyched. She took donuts this morning for all the babysitting kids and she is eating at McDonalds—ugh—tonight. It's the birthday that never ends!

Too Busy To Care

Tori has been at her grandparents’ house in Kansas City all week long. While her brothers have taken the time to skype with us, she has generally been too busy, at least the first few nights. Huts saw her for a second on Monday night, a few minutes on Tuesday night and finally, a lot on Wednesday night. I am wondering if she is starting to feel a little homesick. She is having a great time with her cousins, but I bet she is starting to miss her room and friends here. She may even be missing her parents. She turns 8 on Monday, so that should give her something to look forward to.

Shopping For Clothes

We started packing for the kids’ visit to Grandma’s next week, and it became clear that Tori could use a few more clothes. She wears her clothes out faster than the boys—probably due to all of the changes. She has several shirts for hot days, but few for warm days. Tonight we are headed to Penney’s to see what we can find for her. We are also going to pick a few things for the boys, but they are not into the shopping, so it is up to us to choose for them.

Tori loves to shop but gets distracted easily. She likes to weave in and out of the clothes racks, picking out little. I will have to keep zeroing in her focus, else we will never get out of the store.

Sneaky

Like Christian, Tori came home with a backpack crammed with school supplies from the past year. Some were used, and some were not. Instead of showing us, however, she took everything upstairs and jammed it all into drawers. She loves to play school and thought she would use it all until we went through it. That’s when she found a lot of trash. We kept all of her old books and notebooks and tossed all of the scraps. She is all set for school with the girls this summer at the babysitter’s.

We discovered this week that Tori has a dentist appointment on the Saturday that was supposed to be the end of her sleepover birthday party. We are going to St. Louis the weekend after, so we decided to move the sleepover to July. It will be hotter then for better water fun, and that gives us more time to prepare—which is great because she has a lot planned.

Sparklers In Her Ears

Tori has been very busy as well, with the end of school approaching. She worked hard and made her AR goal, testing on two books in one day. She has been doing well on her spelling tests, acing some of them when I was certain she wouldn’t. She had fun on her field trip days--thanks, Annie for going. She is looking forward to third grade and being the big sister for Eli.

Tori has grown up a lot this year, and she just got her ears pierced to prove it. She was going to wait until her birthday, but we decided to just do it. She was very nervous of course, but there was no way she was leaving Claire’s until she got them done. She picked out birthstone earrings, held my hand and went for it. One ear, a minute or two, and then big tears. The other ear, and more tears. Two minutes later, the tears were gone and she was picking out earrings to wear six weeks from now. She loves her new earrings and her new jewelry box, and she, not me or Huts, has been caring for her ears. She is very careful with them and very diligent in washing them. The result? Her ears look good. Only five more weeks of diligent care. Then, we’ll see how careful she is with new earrings. Bet she loses a ton of them.

What A Mess

Tori can make a mess of her room in no time. Last night, her dad got tired of tripping and told her it was time to clean it up. Now, we’ll see if she listens. She has selective hearing and tends to forget the things she does not want to hear.

Tori has become a good reader, and she is inching closer to her AR goal. She thought she was done, but her teacher misread the report. She has 1.9 points to go, or 4 short books or 2 long books. I read a book to her this morning. Hopefully, she will take a test on it very soon. She seems to be liking the chapter books, so maybe she will bring home another one of those. She’ll get there.

22 Days and Counting

Tori started off this morning at school with a meltdown. She was tired physically and did not feel like she could bear another day of school. Lucky for her, she is in the home stretch. I reminded her there were just a few weeks left, and she smiled. Then, I told her to go show Ms. Lynn her latest boo-boo, a big red splotch on her forehead. She was zooming along yesterday on her scooter when she hit a bump and fell face first. Apparently, they were playing a game where they were running out of gas with zombies behind them. I felt bad for her, but at least it slowed them down.

The weekend went by fast. Tori played a lot with Eli outside and a lot with the kid next door. He is Christian’s age, but lately, they have been worlds apart. So, Tori plays with Matthew, looking at stuff on the iPads and playing games on the trampoline. Christian, it seems, has gotten too old for that. Eli also like to join them, shoving Matthew around and yelling at him like he was his brother.

Sleep Over

Tori has been invited to a birthday sleepover this weekend. No doubt she will wake up early on Saturday morning and drive us all crazy waiting for 5 o’clock to roll around. It is at the babysitter’s house with her granddaughters whom Tori adores. Now that they are all in school, at different schools with different schedules, the girls do not get to see each other much. So, this is a BIG deal, and Tori is sure to remind us of that. We have already gone shopping, and Tori found Kylee a Monster High doll and journal. We've got it wrapped and ready to go. I am sure she will bring some other Monster High dolls with her so they can all play.

Tornado Tori

Tori can be quite the tornado, destroying her room in minutes. She loves to pull out almost everything she owns and create houses, towns, etc. There will be piles all over her floor, and because her room is so small, it is difficult to walk around without tripping on something. Some days I am fine with the mess. Other days I get fed up with falling on stuff. Last night I had had enough, and amazingly, Tori cleaned up her room without complaint. And, she did a great job! She put things away rather than stuffing them under something else. Now I can get in there with the vacuum cleaner.

Meltdown Over Videos

We’re getting ready for a yard sale in May, and last night, I sorted through items and priced them. Of course, I had to ask the kids about some of the items I had pulled. Tori was good about everything but some DVDs. She had a cow when we asked her to look at those and go through them. The tears flowed, too much, so I told her to leave it be. She could keep them all. She settled down, and before I knew it, she had gone through her collection of videos and pulled some really old ones that she had no desire to see. Then she was off and running, helping me to separate all of the toys into bags and price them.

In spite of her occasional meltdowns, Tori has really blossomed this year. She is a bit ahead at school and is starting to move into older things. Her current favorite is Monster High. The dolls resemble Barbie dolls in size but come from monsters, like Dracula and Frankenstein, hence Draculaura and Frankie Stein. Her favorite is Laguna Blue, daughter of a sea monster. She also likes Ghoulia Yelps, a zombie who does not talk. She has several of the dolls, plus the school. She has also turned her dollhouse-shaped bookshelf into a Monster High home, complete with Abby Abominable’s bed.

As for the LaLaLoopsys, well, they have kind of been put on the back burner. We are not sure if she has tired of them and is past them, or will return to them this summer. She has them all still, many undressed, so maybe one day she will play with them and her Loving Family dollhouses again.

Big Sister

Eli had a rough night yesterday, but lucky for him, Tori was there. She has been his buddy lately, and when he came downstairs crying about feeling so lonely upstairs, she went up and sat with him. She watched a movie with him and stayed with him until he fell asleep. What a lucky boy to have a good big sister to watch over him. Good thing Tori will still be around at school next year. Christian is off to middle school, and Tori will be in third grade and ready to pave the way for Eli. Eli knows it and even mentioned to me that Tori could help him at school in the bathroom—well, not exactly, but at least he knows his sister will be there.

Sleep Over

Tori loves sleep over's.  A few weeks ago, she was invited to 2 sleep over's in 1 weekend.  Unfortunately, she was too tired after the first sleepover to go to the 2nd.  We rescheduled the 2nd and now Tori is returning the kindness having Shaylee stay the night on Friday night.  

Tori is already making plans on what they will be playing, but she's constantly changing her mind.  The girls love playing together and they love playing with the cats together.  Squeaker and Jr. better hide away.  

Hopefully the girls will sleep in.  We plan on taking them to Jillian's to play games and lunch on Saturday before we take Shaylee home.  Tori will need the time to recuperate and need the extra sleep.  

Doll World

 Tori ended up with a lot of dolls, Monster High dolls and LaLaLoopsy dolls. She has 61 mini LaLas, 24 big LaLas and a dozen or so Monster High dolls. Somehow we managed to find a place for all of her dolls, but it was not easy. She has been playing with them for days, taking them to and from the sitter’s. The dolls are getting one heck of a workout.