Birthday with Family

This year for her present from Mom and Dad, Tori got to go to Build A Bear for the very first time. She was so excited and talked about it for months and months before. We actually took her to go the day before her birthday since John found out that day that he was going to be in surgery really late on her birthday. Tori was thrilled to get to go a day early.

Above, Tori is helping to stuff her bear (I thought the bear she picked out was very cute). She also picked out a sound to go in her bear - it plays a happy birthday song when to press the left hand. Tori and James are really cute when they dance together to the song.

Tori and James are watching as she gets sewn shut. Below, Tori is giving her bear a bath and brushing off all the fuzz.

Below, Tori is dressing her bear in the the rainbow fairy outfit she picked out with red sparkly shoes.

Below, Tori is at the computers naming her bear - she named her Daisy. Tori absolutely loved the whole experience. She was really cute and had a lot of fun. All the people there were really sweet to her. It actually all went pretty quick since Tori was very decisive about what she wanted. I thought she would have a hard time with all the choices, but she knew just what she wanted. What a fun evening!

The next day was Tori's actual birthday and as you can see from the pajamas in the pictures and the fact that James was already in bed, John did get home pretty late. We sure were glad we did Build A Bear the day before.

Tori is blowing out the candle on one of the extra cupcakes that we had taken to her kindergarten class earlier that day. I saved one for her and she got to decorate it when she got home from school (she loves frosting cookies and cupcakes). I didn't want to make another whole cake since we were driving the next day to Utah to stay for a week.

Our happy birthday girl with some of her presents.

Actual 4th Birthday

Here are a few pictures of Tori on her actual 4th birthday which we just celebrated with mom, dad and James. She's blowing out her special number 4 candle she picked out on one of the cupcakes she got to take to school. She was so happy that her real birthday fell on a preschool day so she could take cupcakes to school and they did lots of cute things for her, too. They made her a crown, she got to lead the walk and pick people to help with snack. She had a pretty fun birthday.

These are just a few pictures of her opening some of her presents - above she is holding the new ballet shoes that James got for her because he loves watching her dance.

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.

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.