Christmas Morning

So we didn't really take any pictures Christmas morning, but we took a lot of videos. Lots of them are pretty long, so have fun watching whatever part of it you want. Tori really loved Christmas this year. She really has started to understand a little bit about Santa and a lot about the nativity story. It was a lot of fun watching her open presents, too, this year since she was so excited to get everything and has really loved playing with/wearing all of her presents.

Above is a video of Tori after she came in to wake up mom and dad on Christmas morning and right before we went downstairs to open presents.

Above is a video of Tori when she first went downstairs to see that Santa had brought her a Dora Tent for Christmas. Also, notice the several "Tori-made" ornaments on the Christmas tree. In a book her friend gave her for Christmas a mouse makes Christmas ornaments, so this was her favorite thing to do the week or so before Christmas. For her ornaments she would cut out a piece of paper, color it with markers, cut out a piece of ribbon and tape it to the paper so it could hang on the tree - all by herself.

For Christmas Tori got ballet lessons and Great Grandpa and Grandma Facer got her all of the stuff she needed for the lessons - leotard & skirt, tights, ballet shoes and tap shoes. She was so excited when she opened them that she had to put them on immediately. She also insists on only wearing the leotard, no matter how freezing I think it is in the house. She says, "I must be naked when I wear my ballet stuff." Most of the time I am eventually able to convince her to wear a sweatshirt over it, though.

This last video below is of Tori in the Sleeping Beauty outfit she got for Christmas. She loves this dress and must wear it several times everyday! When she put it on she told me that we had to go back to Disney World so she could meet Sleeping Beauty. Then I said, "Tori, we already met Sleeping Beauty when we went to Disney World, you have a picture with her." To which she replies, "But I was dressed like Cinderella."

Christmas Eve Party & Christmas dress

One of our friends here had a Christmas eve party for all of those that don't have family in the area for the holidays. It's a lot of fun and the kids love dressing up to do the live nativity while we read the Christmas story and sing carols. Tori was very excited this year because she got to be Mary and she took the part very seriously (most of the time). Above is a picture of a bunch of the kids and parents during part of the story and below is a picture of Tori with some of the "angels" - Lauren, Anne and Anna.

Below is a picture of Tori and Harrison - "Mary and Joseph" during the Christmas story.

Here are a couple of pictures of Tori with the "Shepard" - Megan. Megan and Tori have played together since they were 8 months old and usually greet each other lately as "there is my bestest friend ever".

After the nativity was done Tori and Megan played Christmas songs together on the piano and were in their own little world for quite some time.

Below are some pictures of Tori in her Christmas dress right before church on the Sunday before Christmas. She was thrilled about wearing her "very fancy dress".

I Promise the Last Disney Post

Above is Grandma, Tori and Grandpa at the Animal Kingdom. Yet, another park that Tori had a ton of fun at. She loved the rides, the animals and a neat Lion King show (even though she's never seen the Lion King). Below she is having fun making her dinosaur go up and down with Grandpa on the dinosaur ride.


Animal Kingdom also had a fun safari where they drove you around and let you see a bunch of wild animals up close. I thought these pictures that John got were pretty impressive - I especially liked the baby elephant.

I think Tori's favorite part of the Animal Kingdom was when she got to brush the goats. They had a large pen full of sheep and goats and a bunch of brushes for kids to use to groom the animals and Tori just ate this up.

She insisted that Mommy brush the goats, too.

The last park that we went to was the Disney Hollywood Studios. I think her favorite thing there was the giant playground (from the Honey I Shrunk the Kids movie). It was funny, probably the only thing she wasn't sure if she liked or not were the 3D movies we took her to. I don't think she liked things jumping out at her and she would just cling to John with a death-grip during them; however, afterwards she wouldn't stop talking about all the funny things in the movie.



A pretty fitting way to end the vacation - having a blast getting a chocolate Mickey Ice Cream bar from Grandpa all over herself during the Indiana Jones show.

Although she had a blast - by the end of the vacation I think she was a little tired out.

Even More Disney

Above we are outside of Cinderella's Castle (or as Tori would say, "My Castle") at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World. Tori loved all of the rides at this park (and we took her on most of them). Below is a picture of Tori and Daddy riding the carousel - I tried to convince her that we have a carousel at the mall at home and there were lots of other fun rides to go on, but she said, "This is Cinderella's carousel" and she wanted to ride on it with her prince (while at Disney World her prince was either Dad or Grandpa depending on the day).

She was a trooper and loved everything we took her on. She even loved Thunder Mountain (below) which was a pretty intense roller coaster for someone her age. I was not allowed to ride since I'm expecting, so I was able to get the fun picture. If you can't tell - Grandma and Grandpa are in the very last row and John and Tori are in the one right in front of them.

Another ride that Tori loved at the Magic Kingdom was the "teacups". At home during the weeks before we took Tori to Disney World we were trying to explain to her what Disney World was. So we told her there would be lots of fun rides and John told her that he would take her on a fun ride with teacups. So all she talked about before our trip was getting to ride in teacups and pots. She loved spinning the cups around during the ride, though she was a little disappointed that she didn't get to ride in the actual teapot.

As you can see above, after we let her wear her princess dress the first day for the princess lunch, she insisted on wearing it during at least part of every other day we were at the parks. I don't blame her since when she had it on all the workers at Disney would greet her by saying, "Hello Princess". She also loved the Minnie ears Grandma and Grandpa bought for her.

The rest of the pictures are of Tori with more Disney characters. I can't stress enough how much she loved hugging and getting her picture taken with them. She still talks about meeting them quite often.

We don't even know who these bears are in the picture below, but they were characters, so Tori had to hug and get a picture with them. As you can tell from the big smiles it sure was an easy way to make her happy.

More Disney and more characters

These are some more pictures of our first day in Disney World at Epcot. Earlier this afternoon we had the princess lunch that Tori loved! As you can see in all these pictures - once we put her princess dress on for the lunch it was impossible to get it off. Tori got a big kick out of putting her dress over Grandpa's head so he couldn't see while she was on his shoulders.

The picture below is of a pretty impressive balancing act done outside the France part of Epcot, which Tori was mesmerized by.

Above Tori and Grandpa and in the shark's mouth after we went on the Nemo ride (again another hit). At the end of pretty much every ride we took her on, Tori would say, "That was really fun!" She really was the perfect little kid during most of this vacation and loved every part of it, which made it a very fun vacation for Mom and Dad, too.

The one thing I was really surprised about, was how much she loved meeting and taking pictures with all of the characters. It got to the point where we would ask her if she would like to go to a certain part of a park or on a ride and she would say, "Well, are there characters there?".

Every character she met, she would run up to them and give them a huge hug. Poor Goofy (below) couldn't get her to let go during their hug and I had to go up and help her let go.

Disney World - Princesses

At the beginning of December John and I and my parents took Tori to Disney World for the first time. It was wonderful to get away from the cold winter in Iowa and Tori was in heaven. She loves princesses and all the Disney characters and movies right now so it was the perfect time to take her. She loved getting to spend lots of time with Grandma and Grandpa and going on all the rides.

The first park we went to was Epcot where we had scheduled a "Princess Lunch" for Tori. They have a lunch set up where you can eat while all the different Disney Princesses come by your table and say hi and take a picture with you. Tori dressed up in her Cinderella costume and loved pretending to be a real princess. I love the picture of her above doing her "curtsy".

Belle was the first princess she met and as you can see she is a little shy at first. As more and more princesses came around to our table she loosened up and had a permanent grin on her face.

Above is a video of Tori meeting Belle - I think she is a little star-struck.

She was beyond excited when Cinderella came up to our table and their dresses matched. She showed Cinderella how to twirl around in her dress and they twirled together.


Above is a video of Tori dancing during the lunch and pretending to be a princess.

At the very end of the lunch, our waitress brought Tori a certificate that said she had been selected as the honorary chef for lunch that day. They brought her out a chef hat and a cupcake for her to decorate and eat. She thought this was almost as cool as meeting all of the princesses and loved licking the frosting off her cupcake.