Birthday Party

12 was the magic number for the birthday party on Friday night. Owen showed up to play with Christian, and Tori had nine little girls to play with. There were also a few parents who stuck around to help. They played for an hour bouncing on nearly everything, and then they were off to the green room for pizza, ice cream and cake. Most must have eaten beforehand because there was quite a bit left. Oh well. Tori opened her presents, got a hug from Monkey Joe and took off for another half hour of play. Shop closed up at 8, and we were back home by 8:30 with three tired kids and a sack of presents. Many thanks to all who made this birthday so special for Miss Tori.

Diva Turns 6

Tori’s birthday was this Friday, and she had a blast shopping at the toy store. She collected all of her money—thanks to everyone who contributed—and bought:

Pillow Featherbed Lala Loopsy doll

Four mini Lala Loopsy dolls

Lala Loopsy doll treehouse (NEW!)

Lala Loopsy cat to dress up

Zoobles carrying case

Zoobles figures—for those of you who aren’t familiar with these, Zoobles are like Bakugans for girls.

Monster High Jeckyll and Hyde dolls

Tori is all set and spent much of this weekend playing with her new loot in her room. She doesn’t realize it, but this Friday is her party and she is sure to receive a few more gifts, including the cat above that she had me wrap for her party.

All of the Lalas and Zoobles came in, and out went the majority of the My Little Pony stuff. Tori is growing up, and her interests along with it!

Birthday Girl

It’s hard to believe, but Tori is turning 6 on Friday! She is getting so big now. Not only does she have her own way of doing things, but she is starting to talk like an older kid, telling us jokes and relaying stories of her friends. She even went to camp by herself this morning—yes, she was a bit scared but off she went without big brother Ollie.

She is fortunate enough to come from a big family, which means she will be receiving quite a bit of birthday money. This is presenting a problem in the shopping—she can’t make up her mind what she wants to buy. More than likely, some of it will go into savings until a later date. Got to make sure she leaves something for Mom and Dad to get her!

Out of all the people she gets cards from, Aunt Lucy and Lily (not Brent, sorry Brent) are her favorite. She looks forward to their card—probably because Lucy was the first to send her a musical card that she remembers. Lucy also sends gift cards, which Tori adores! Thanks, Aunt Lucy, and to everyone else who sends Tori a card or gives her a call. She loves to talk on the phone and will not doubt be pleased with everyone who calls her!

Birthday Girl

Tori will turn 6 on Father’s Day weekend, and yesterday, we booked a party for her at Monkey Joe’s. In addition to two hours of playtime, Tori will get pizza, cake, ice cream, a gift and goodies bags for everyone. She is not thrilled that she gets the green room for her party, but she will live. We aren’t sending out invitations until school is out to avoid the hoopla.

Since we can’t have the party on her birthday, we are going to have a little party of our home. Tori gets to choose where she wants to eat, and we’ll get her some gifts. I haven’t asked her if she wants to pick out her own gifts. We’ll see. Anyway, she is looking forward to her big days and will probably drive us crazier the closer we get to them.

Please

Tori has been asking for a lot of new toys lately. We didn't really know why because she got toys often enough to placate her. We found out why this past week why she was asking for more toys. Usually the kids take toys to before care to play with in addition to the toys they have there. Apparently Tori's "friends" like them so much that they decide to take them home with them. They tell Tori that they don't get new toys or toys that are that pretty, so they are going to take them home. Once we found this out, Tresa discussed it with Tori and they decided that it would be best not to bring toys to before care for the rest of the school year (about 3 weeks). Tori seemed happy with this arrangement and hasn't asked about taking toys to school since she decided. She seems to be happy about the whole thing and so far her "friends" haven't said anything that we know of. She's such a nice girl that she couldn't say no. We may have to work on that a bit as she gets older, but for a 5 year old, its pretty much expected.

Sleeping Pretty

Unlike her brother, Tori LOVES her new bed. She couldn’t wait for us to get it together, and unfortunately for her, we started with Christian’s first. By the time we got it together and everything put away, it was lunchtime. Poor Tori. She so wanted her bed up.

Finally, we got it together, and we started putting things away. Tori was a huge help. She carried in all of her clothes from the family room and put everything where she wanted it under her bed. She loves her new space under her bed and tacked up a blanket not too long after so she could have a real hideout.

There have been no complaints from her about the height, not even when I was helping her get dressed this morning. The beds are a little harder to make, but she is happily doing her best. Whew! One child satisfied.

Field Trip Finally

Tori has been waiting all year to go on a class field trip, and yesterday was the day. She visited a farm and saw lots of animals. She had much to tell us yesterday, and she can’t wait for the next field trip.

On another note, she had lost interest in dancing and is now into MAD. She loves to watch the show with Christian. It keeps them laughing and they always come downstairs with recaps!

Busy Week

Things have been crazy around our house lately. Grandma Vickie is in the hospital—has been since last Wednesday. She is still in ICU so the kids cannot visit her. Tori did tell me to tell Grandma that she loves her. They may transfer her today. If so, the kids and I may be visiting Grandma tomorrow.

In addition to that, we’ve been preparing for our subdivision’s yard sale. We thought it might be this Saturday, but the sign never went up. Then we got a notice in the mail that it was this Saturday, so we have to set up for it. Good thing we have everything priced and moved downstairs.

Uncle Frank is also coming down to see Grandma Vickie, so we have to get ready for that. Tori is hoping he brings his girlfriend’s daughter Destiny. We have grocery shopping to do, and the kids’ rooms are a mess because they are getting new furniture next week and their old furniture is going into the yard sale. Tori and I worked on that this morning, shoving her doll stuff into a laundry basket for the time being.

Busy, busy, busy, and Tori is looking the part. She is very tired, but hopefully she will pep up as soon as she gets to see Grandma and gets her new bed.

New Dollhouse

That was the highlight of Tori’s Easter—a new purple dollhouse to go with her pink one. She had more than enough furniture to stock the two and made some steps out of Legos. The house is small enough for her to carry, and she did—to her room, downstairs, upstairs, etc. She says she is going to put the black family in the new house and the white family in the old house, but last night, she had all kinds of dolls in the houses, along with Eli.

She also got the first-ever boy Lala Loopsy and the Frankie Stein Monster High doll, plus some play jewelry, tiara, etc. Right away the clothes came off Patch the Lala Loopsy doll and went onto another Lala Loopsy. Patch now has on some Builder Bear clothes. Frankie escaped the clothes switcharoo, but not for long I’m sure. Tori was absolutely thrilled with her Easter basket—thank you Easter bunny.

Back Home

The kids are back home now and back in school. This week is Spirit Week, and Tori is having a ball. Today was Fashion Disaster Day and she dressed for it—yellow shirt, green and purple dress, Hawaiian shorts, mismatched socks and crazy hair. Christian is sitting this one out, and tomorrow’s Career Day too. Tori wants to dress up like a fashion designer, so we’ll see what that entails. Maybe her new pink outfit with a tape measure or a feather boa around her neck.

Excited and Weepy

Tori was so excited to go to her grandparents for the weekend, she was up and dressed at 6:45 am on Sunday morning. Considering she doesn't usually get up until 8 am on weekends and we weren't leaving until 8:30, this was a miracle. She was ready to go! On our trip down we stopped for drinks and snacks and I told the kids if they had to go to let me know so we could stop. About 10 minutes after we stopped in Springfield, Tori told me she had to go. Luckily there was a rest stop up the road. We stopped and got out and I told her to meet us by the flag pole when she was done. Christian and I came out and she was dancing by the flag pole. She exclaimed "ha ha I didn't have to go". So we stopped for nothing! We hit the road for the rest of the haul and the kids were excited to try the head phones that came with our car so they could hear the movie, while I could listen to anything else but the movie! We got to Wentzville and the kids had lunch at McDonalds. Tori showed her Grandparents her color book and they were off.

We called Tuesday to check on the kids and they were having a blast with their cousins. Tori talked to us and got a little weepy when I was talking to her. She missed us a little bit, but I'm sure she perked right up after I got off the phone with her. They had a big week planned and it sounded like it was in full swing!

Almost Time

Christian and Tori are headed to Marie and Steve’s this Sunday for a whole week. Lucky for them, the weather is going to be good, if not great. Eli is not going though he keeps saying “I go.” He would miss Mommy and Daddy way too much.

Tori is the most excited. She can’t wait to spend some time with her grandparents and cousins. She thought she was leaving tomorrow and got really excited. I don’t know if we will be able to contain her excitement tomorrow. We have clothes to wash and bags to pack. She will probably be over the moon!

Everyone Loves Tori

We met with Tori’s teacher, and she had nothing but good things to say about Tori. She is a real delight, and all of the first grade teachers want her in their class next year. She has mastered most of the skills and is working on her numbers to 100—moving from one group to another, 69 to 70, and saying them backwards. We were thrilled to find out how well she is doing and got Chinese for dinner to celebrate.

Dancing Queen

DWTS started last night, and Tori couldn’t wait. She was all excited when the first pair came on and danced her way around the living room. Huts and I looked at each other at one point and said she needs to be in a dance class. Today I am going to look into some dance classes. I might find her one soon. She also wants to go to camp this summer, so we’ll see.