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.