County Fair

It's county fair time again! We went for the kid's day at the local county fair and Tori had a blast. She loved seeing all the farm animals and getting all the free stuff from local businesses advertising at the fair. These are some pictures of Tori and Megan with the donkeys. Tori loves feeding animals! Also, as you can tell, Tori is very into dressing herself lately. I try and gently steer her towards things that match, but she knows what she wants to wear and is pretty determined once she picks something out.

Below all Tori and friends are watching the local 4H club members showing their pigs.

James even enjoyed himself at the fair. Tori got a big kick out of helping me feed him a bottle.

Tori's favorite part was when I let her do a couple of the little rides at the end.

Potato family & James video

Lately Tori is very into families (they are learning about families in primary at church this year). The favorite game to play when we get together with friends is "family" (from what I can tell this usually consists of someone being a mom and a dad, who get to tell the others what to do, and there are plenty of babies - the majority of the kids we play with either have new babies in their family or their mom is pregnant). Above is a picture of Tori and the potato head version of our family, which she insisted I take a picture of (from left to right - James, Tori, Mom, Dad and the real Tori).

Below is a video of James at about 6 weeks. There is a little mobile on our pack n' play that James really loves to watch. Many times he makes all sorts of cute noises at it and I was trying to capture some on video, but of course he stopped making the sounds once I turned the camera on.

Grandma Katie Comes to Visit

Grandma Katie came to visit and meet little James and we all had a blast. Here are some of the cute pictures we took while she was here:

I can't get enough of the pictures of Tori and James together. They make such a cute pair (yes, I'm biased) and they already love being around each other. Tori is really gentle and loves to help out and give James hugs and kisses. Anytime James is fussy or bored I can tell Tori to go say hi to him and he stops crying and loves to look at her and listen to her talk. I love having two kids (though I can't get anything done anymore, but oh well).

After a wonderful lunch with Grandma (our absolute favorite thing to have for lunch - steak sandwiches at a restaurant called One Twenty-Six) we went to a park in Iowa City that has a little train and a couple of carnival style rides.

Tori loves little carnival rides like this fish one below. She gets so excited to ride them and begs for more, but when she is actually riding the ride she is all business. She holds on tight and has a very serious expression on her face during the entire ride - you have to yell at her to get her to even look at you and possibly wave at you. She always says how much fun she had afterwards, though.

Cute pictures of James (1 month old)

One Month:

11 lbs 3 oz

22.6 in

Tori decided James wanted to play with his toys and she wanted to help him - so he gets to wear his toys.

Swim Lessons and Brand New Bike

A few weeks after James was born, Tori got to take swim lessons for the first time. She was incredibly excited and talked about it for weeks before-hand. She did them everyday for 2 weeks and had a blast! It was nice for me because it forced me to get out of the house and get into sort of a routine with James only being 3 weeks old. After the lessons Tori was even better at blowing bubbles in the water and can now jump off the side of the pool into shallow water all by herself. She is loving doing things herself and being a "big kid". She has gotten really into picking out her own clothes and dressing herself. I think this is wonderful (though she doesn't match as often as she used to). It's also interesting to she which clothes are her favorites (most of the time not what I would have guessed).

She really feels like a "big kid" now that she has a "big" bike. It was fun to go to Walmart with her and watch her try out the bikes and pick one. The cutest thing was we let her ride it up to the cash register (with Grandpa who bought the bike - thanks) and out to the car and everyone who saw her couldn't help but have the biggest smile on their face (what's more fun than a kid getting their first real bike). I've been really impressed with how well she is doing on it right from the start. When we go on walks she still has to get off now and then to sing songs, do poses and climb on the rocks (below).

The 4th of July

We started our 4th of July celebration in the morning at the local parade. It was very rainy and we all left very wet (well, James stayed somewhat dry tucked in the stroller pictured below). Tori didn't mind the wet since she left the parade with a bag full of candy, beads and other stuff.

Below are Tori and James in their 4th outfits.

The highlight of the day for Tori was getting to do sparklers while waiting for the fireworks to start that night. She loved the fireworks, too, but was a little tired by the end of them since they don't start them until around 9:45pm. Coralville really puts on a very nice fireworks display and we all had a lot of fun - though I was impressed that James slept through it all since it was quite loud. Have I mentioned that he's a really sweet baby?

Pictures Together

These are just a few cute pictures of Tori holding James and James at three weeks old. I'm trying really hard to get some pictures of him - he's just growing so fast.