Tori's Best Gift

Tori loves all of her gifts, but her favorite seems to be the little purple alarm clock from Santa. Huts set it for her, and lucky for us, Tori uses it. She gets up, turns it off and gets dressed. No more having to wake her up. Unfortunately, we forgot to turn it off the day we got back and it woke her up bright and early on Saturday morning. Poor girl!

On another note, Tori has six dollhouses now, plus some smaller buildings, allowing her to nearly have her own town. We call it Toriville, but she hasn’t taken to that name yet. She’s got all kinds of dolls and critters residing in her town with furniture and cars of all types. The LaLaLoopseys are mixed in with the dolls, turtles, raccoons, etc. It’s pretty crazy and often turns into a huge mess—which she detests cleaning up. Huts and I have a great time sorting and putting things away.

All I want for Christmas

After weeks of bugging Tori about wiggling her teeth, they finally came out. She was eating an apple when they fell out, one after other, saving a trip to the dentist. Like her brother, she was scared it was going to hurt, but it didn’t, and now we are hoping she does better next time. Her permanent teeth were moving in already, right behind the baby teeth, so she won’t even have any gaps. She got $5 for her efforts, although she missed the tooth fairy—sneaky little fairy!

Tori is all set for Christmas, and her heart longs for another dollhouse. She’s got a town building up in her room! She and I have a date Friday night to watch Frosty with a bowl of popcorn. Maybe Christian and Eli will join us!

Mom's Boo-Boo

I messed up Tuesday morning and slit my hand. As I pulled a bag from an upper cabinet, my really sharp bread knife came with it. The result—six stitches to close up a gap at the base of my pointer finger. I kept the wound covered most of the day. When Tori got home, she noticed the bandage right away. I told her what happened and let her look at it. She was grossed out by the stitches and the dried blood, and she let me know it. She is also fascinated by it, however, as she keeps asking for a look at it. She says she wants to become a doctor, but I don’t know.

To Sleep Perchance to Stay Up Late

Generally Tori has been a bear in the mornings and a whiner at night before going to bed.  Recently she's begun to understand, the better she is the more privileges she gets.  This past 2 weeks, she's been allowed to stay up 30 minutes later to play at night during school because she has been getting up in a decent mood and not throwing a fit about it.  She's also improved in how fast she gets up.  It used to take us 15 minutes to get her up, dressed and out of bed, leaving not time for breakfast.  So she would eat breakfast at school.  The last couple of weeks, she's been getting up and dressed and able to eat breakfast before we leave.  It is a Christmas Miracle!  I don't know if she'll keep it up, but we hope she will.  She's also stopped whining about things so much.  She doesn't throw as many tantrums as she used to and is easier to put to bed.  Maybe she's growing up a little bit.

Party!

Tori was invited to a party this weekend, and she is VERY excited about it. She has mentioned it several times, and she has asked us time and time again when it is. It is Sunday afternoon, and we're guessing she will get up early and get dressed, although the party is not until noon! On another note, we got an I-pad, and the oldest two are all over it. They love using it, and I don't think Huts and I have been able to use it for more than half an hour. Tori especially loves the Crayola program on it and kicked off her day off school this morning doing that. No doubt Christian has played with it all day at home. They are tech savvy and they are not even in their teens yet.

Tired One

Tori was a spider queen, and she loved every moment. She went trick-or-treating twice, and when that was over, she checked out all of the trick-or-treaters at the door. She zipped around, eating candy until it was time for bed. One night of rest was not enough, however, and Tori went to bed very early on Tuesday night. She woke up this morning happy as a clam, ready for a day of school!

Baby Sister

Of course, Tori wants one, but even she admits that she wouldn’t like to share anything with a sister. There are perks to being the only girl. Tori makes up for her lack of a sister with her dolls. She has tons of sisters that she hauls around the house and yard and plops wherever. When she found out she was having a girl cousin in November, the little one became her cousin-sister too. She is excited to have another girl cousin and can’t wait to meet her. Too bad we don’t live closer because Tori would surely take this new little baby under her wing!

Come Fly With Me

Tori is now a seasoned flyer.  We took 4 plane trips to Portland and back a few weeks ago and she had a great time.  We got in late and had a hard time getting back to the hotel, so we got to the hotel around 3 am our time.  She got a 2 hour nap on the 2nd flight and loved the in flight music selection.  She wasn't interested in the kung fu panda movie though.  She slept in late and went flower picking with all the girls and had some lunch.  Then back for a quick nap before the rehearsal and dinner.  She had pizza for dinner that night and had fun playing with her cousins and other kids.  We tried breakfast again in the morning at the hotel, but the kids weren't into it, so we walked to BK and had breakfast there.  We also had lunch at Elmers, which wasn't bad, but the kids needed a nap.  Tori and the girls took a decent nap and got ready for the wedding.  They all got to blow bubbles in the procession and were good for the ceremony and pictures.  They had a blast at the reception as you can see below.  We left a little early since we had an early flight and I took Tori and her cousins back to the hotel to get some sleep.  They played for a little bit and watched the cat and the hat and zonked out for the night.  I warned Tori the night before that we were getting up early and she'd have to get up when I woke her.  She got up, but was tired and crying a bit.  Once we got on the flight, she was ok.  Unfortunately, there wasn't any entertainment on the way back, but she still enjoyed the flights and only got a little ancy on the last flight waiting for it to land.  It took a day or so to recover from being exhausted, but she Overall, she had a good time and loved flying.  She can't wait to get on a plane again. 

Shot Time

Tori went for a checkup yesterday, along with Eli, and sadly, they had to get shots. I thought there shot days were over, but it turns out there are a couple of new shots. Tori, apparently, took it in stride, not even crying about it. She came home with a bright pink band-aid and stickers. She is doing well and growing fine. Eli, too. Unlike his big sister, he did cry. By the time I saw him, however, he was doing well with his band-aided leg. He told it hurt, and that was that. My babies are all grown up. I don’t even have a toddler anymore. Sad, but not sad enough for us to want another kid. We are done! The sight of infants doesn’t even move us anymore. Travis is having a girl in November, and while Huts and I look forward to meeting her and holding her, we also look forward to handing her back! We are so done with babies.

Happy Camper

Unlike her brother, Tori was a pure delight on the first day of school. She got up without a fuss and talked non-stop at breakfast, though she was a little teary when she learned there would be new kids in her class. Huts took her to her line, and they found it right away. After the fuss with Christian, I walked over to Tori and gave her a big hug. She was so excited to be there and even more so when she got off the bus. “That was fun!” she echoed Christian as we walked across the street. She had a great first day. The only downer was the 15 minutes of reading with her dad. She was not interested in that at all, but she survived and we will do it again tonight!

Ready for School

Tori got a mail teacher, Mr. Jacobson, for her first grade teacher. She was upset at hearing the news. She wanted a female teacher. Once she saw his picture and heard how nice he was, she got excited to start first grade. She's all ready to go to meet her new friends.

She also got to meet a kindergarten girl named Kayla who lives in our subdivision. She is getting some of Tori's old school clothes. They both seemed to like each other and want to play together right away. Kayla didn't stay long the day she came to check out the clothes, but they both were excited to setup a play date in the future after school gets rolling. Maybe they'll get to play together soon.

In a couple weeks, Tori gets to take her first flight to Portland for her Uncle Samm's Wedding. She's a bit scared about the flights, but she'll be fine after the first short leg of our trip is over. She'll get to dress up and fawned over at the wedding, so she'll be fine once we get there. The trip back is going to be a bit more difficult. We have an early flight and Tori is not an early bird. I may be carrying her through the airport zonked out. Hopefully it goes well and we can do it again in a few years to Disneyland.

Tori does not yet know her teacher for first grade. They are still sorting everything out. One of the first grade teachers passed away recently, so that and the coming and going of students has resulted in some shuffling. Christian promises not to say anything about his teacher until we know Tori’s. She wants a woman, but there is a possibility that she will end up with Mr. Jacobsen. She is terrified of that, but all will be ok. She is looking forward to having her own desk and using all of her new school supplies. Wish her luck!

Readers

Along with our trip to the bank, we visited the new library. Christian was not impressed, but Eli and Tori had a good time looking at the books and playing with the blocks and puzzles. We spent about an hour there, much to Christian’s dismay. Tori brought home a book about Olivia—she is on an Olivia kick right now. She has the house that turns into a pirate ship and the family. She also watches Olivia every chance she gets! Anyway, the book she borrowed folds out, and she has done a good job of keeping it away from Eli. Way to go, Tori!

Wowww!

We took the kids to a ball game late on Sunday night to catch the fireworks show. Tori had a blast. She got some fries, played at the playground and watched the fireworks show in awe! She loved every boom, unlike Christian who slunk down into his seat and covered his ears. She thought it was spectacular and watched most of it with her mouth open in awe! She had started to tire out, but the fireworks woke her up and she was oh so ready for more once we got home. She played outside for an hour lighting up the night with sparklers and went to bed after midnight! This morning, she was a bit tired but happy to go off to the sitter’s with toys in tow for whomever else might be there.