Opening Christmas Presents

Tori absolutely loved finally getting to rip into all those nicely wrapped packages under the tree that mom kept telling her not to touch for the past month. The only problem was that she loved each present so much that it was hard to get her to stop playing and to move onto the next one. It was just a ton of fun to have such a happy, sweet kid that was so into Christmas this year.

One of the funniest things was that she loved getting the Chicken Run DVD from her Grandpa. She wouldn't let it go and just ran around the room with it saying, "Bock, bock".

Her big gift this year was a kitchen set that she can't get enough of. I think she thinks it's Christmas every morning when she comes down and still sees the kitchen there.

Live Nativity

On Christmas eve one of our friends had a little party for those of us who couldn't travel and see family during Christmas. All of us there had little toddlers and as a part of the party they had the kids dress up and do a live nativity while we read the Christmas story. The majority of the kids were 1-2 years old so needless-to-say it was chaotic, but very cute. Tori had the part of one of the three wise men (the nativity was mainly little girls). She had a lot of fun, however, she was not a big fan of the crown (probably because mom made it a bit too tight) and it was ripped off by the time her part came up. We still thought she looked cute, though.

Nativity

Tori received an adorable Little People nativity set from her Grandma for Christmas. She has just loved playing with it. Her favorite thing is to push the button on top to make it play the song "Away in a Manger". It has also been a wonderful thing to distract her from the Christmas tree, which she is fascinated with.

Tori's videos

Tori absolutely loves watching her Signing Time and Little People DVDs. There is nothing else that will make her sit still. She takes watching them pretty seriously and does not want to be disturbed. She used to just sit and watch on the floor, but now her rocking chair has become a favorite part of watching anything on TV. If I go near the DVD player she begs me to watch "baby" (which is her name for Baby Signing Time), followed by lots of signing and saying "pease, pease". If I relent, then she proceeds to pull up her rocking chair and get comfortable.

I want to be a toy

Lately Tori loves to throw all the toys out of her basket and then climb in herself and sit there quite content. Sometimes she even piles toys back in the basket on top of herself.

Signing

We have these baby sign language videos that Tori started watching when she turned one that she absolutely loves. She can do quite a few of the signs now and she's really cute when she does them. It also makes my life easier because it's easier for me to know what she wants. I took a few pictures of her playing and tried to capture her doing some of the signs.Here she is signing book and then she goes and reads one of her favorite books (it has tons of pictures of babies in it).


Here she is signing please, which is rubbing your open hand around on your chest (I think she is particularly cute when she does this sign).

This last picture I just thought was really cute. She is talking on her phone (a favorite toy). She usually holds the phone to the back of her head when she is pretending to talk on it.

Children's Museum

Another one of Tori's favorite places to play is the Children's Museum. It's a place in our mall that has tons of play areas for kids of all ages that Tori just loves to run around in.

She loves pretending to shop in the little grocery store (as you can see she fills her cart with fruit and bread, her favorite foods).

She also enjoys the new animal exhibit with a maze that you can go through while dressed up as your favorite animal.

She is really cute when she plays in the little kitchen area, and

her favorite is racing the cars in the ball/car/train room.

Fun at the Mall

While Grandma Facer was visiting we did lots of shopping. Tori got a little tired of just sitting in her stroller since she loves to always be up and on the go, so we stopped at the play area in the mall for her to play. It is one of her favorite places to play especially since she learned how to walk. Grandma got some great pictures of her having fun.

She loved to slide down the giant plastic book and

play in the ambulance,

but her favorite was trying to clap and dance up on top of the books where she could see everyone playing.

Bubbles

Tori loves bubbles. At the birthday party we went to they had a bubble machine that she was just mesmerized with, so we came home and did bubbles in the kitchen. Now everytime she sees a little plastic container she brings it to me and says "Ba-ble, ba-ble".
It sure is a lot of fun to watch her try and pop them.

Party Hat

Tori went to a friend's first birthday on Friday and had a ton of fun. I was very surprised that she loved the party hat - she kept it on the entire party and wore it home. The funniest thing at the party was that they had the little noise makers that are paper roled up and you blow in them and they flip out; well I blew in Tori's for her and she just couldn't stop laughing. I did it about 20 times and everytime she would giggle uncontrolablely.

For Halloween I had a bear with a witch hat holding a pumpkin that I put out as a decoration on the table. Well, I think Tori thought the bear was for her. She loves it and has played with it almost everyday since I put it out. Her favorite thing is to say "Rarr" like the bear. The only problem now is I get to have a Halloween bear out all year long. :)

Ready for Church

We just thought Tori looked too cute in her new dress and pig-tails not to post some pictures. These were taken right before church on Sunday when she is usually very happy and loves to find all sorts of fun things in the bathroom drawers while Mom and Dad are getting ready.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Trick or Treat

Here are our masterfully carved pumpkins. The happy pumpkin is Dad's and the scary pumpkin is Mom's (Tori was being very difficult during her afternoon nap :)).

She was still a very happy and festive girl during Halloween. We made dinner in a pumpkin and she couldn't get enough of it.

Tori was a happy little duck when it was her turn to go trick or treating. (We only had a few trick or treaters at our house, but Tori did not like to part with the candy when they came.) Dad got home late from the hospital so we just went to a few neighbor's and friends homes. Tori didn't quite get what was going on, but she loved grabbing all the candy she could get. Especially when Dad showed her how the Milk Duds made noise when you shook them.

Lots of Parties

This year Tori is going to be a duck for Halloween, because she loves to say "quack, quack" and she looks really cute waddling around in her costume. We were very happy that she had several opportunities to wear her costume. She got to go to a church Halloween party, an ENT Halloween dinner, and a Medical Partners Halloween party and boy did she love being a duck.

She also loved seeing all her friends in costumes. Though trying to take a good picture with a bunch of one and two year-olds is quite a challenge. (Tigger & the Monkey are Andrew , Pooh is Anna , the Bee is Ann and the doctor is Megan)

Her favorite thing was playing with the other ducks in the little duck pond they had at the church party.

New Do

We've finally found another way to do Tori's hair, which is good because she loves to find the little clip that I usually put in her hair and pull it out while saying "oww". She loves the new do, though I think she has the most fun playing with the comb after mom is done.

Dad's hat is still a good stand-by for those bad hair days.

Books

Tori has always loved books. Now that she is big enough to get them off the self, she loves to just sit and look at the pictures. The only problem she has is trying to decide which ones to read.