Iowa State Fair

I have been meaning to post pictures of our trip to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines in August. It is suppose to be one of the nation's best state fairs (I don't really have many to compare it to, but we had fun). The amount and size of the livestock was pretty impressive.

Here are pictures of Tori in front of a huge bull (the pictures don't do it justice) and below is her in front of some pigs. She kept saying that the pigs were taking "binky naps" :). It was also amazing to see how much some of the prize winning animals were sold for - some for over $20,000!

I think our favorite part of the fair (besides the deep-fried snickers bar) was the ride in the spinning strawberry. Tori absolutely loved it and even tried to turn us around faster with the wheel that was inside the strawberry.

Another big part of the state fair are the butter sculptures. They had a life-size cow made out of butter and in honor of the 7th book coming out this summer they also had a butter Harry Potter and some other things from the Harry Potter books made out of butter. We had a blast, but as you can tell from the pictures it was one of the hottest and most humid days of the year. After a few hours we were very happy to get back into the car with A/C.

Preschool

On September 4th Tori had her first day of "preschool". She's only two, so it's not real preschool, but we've gotten together with some friends and each take turns teaching at our homes once a week for 1 1/2 hours. There are 4 other little girls in the preschool group. I was the one teaching the first week so I decided to take some pictures of them (one of the girls was sick, so that's why there are only 4 girls in the picture). Tori loves preschool, especially wearing her backpack, which she thinks is really cool (thanks, Aunt Danielle).

From left to right: Tori, Rowan, Hannah & Megan (Abbey was sick).

Happy 2nd Birthday

We celebrated Tori's 2nd birthday this past weekend with a small party at a park with friends and then a party with just mom and dad at home on her actual birthday. She had a ball! She has been going to birthday parties all summer and she loves to sing happy birthday, but when the kids actually sang, "happy birthday, dear Tori" on Saturday her eyes just lit up. I think she was very excited it was finally her turn.

We had cupcakes for her cake because she just loves them lately. Well, she actually just loves the frosting, all she does is lick it off and then she's done. :)

Here are some pictures of the friends that came to her party. In the picture below from left to right - Anna, Megan, Andrew, Anne and Tori.

I also had to throw in the picture of Tori and dad right before she opened her presents at home on her birthday.