Happy New Years

Tori posing in one of her favorite outfits she received for Christmas in front of the Christmas tree after we had taken all the ornaments off. We were really happy with the tree we found this year. It seems like every year we look and look at a bunch of trees we don't like and right when we think we are going to have to settle for one that we're not that thrilled about we end up finding one that is just right. If only we could find the perfect tree at the very beginning since the winters here are absolutely freezing.

We made a cute snowman before Christmas that we never got a picture of and then it warmed up a bit after Christmas and above is what he looked like on New Years eve.

For New Years we took the kids to the Children's Museum at the mall for the Noon-Years Eve countdown and balloon drop. It was a zoo and we almost didn't make it inside in time since the line to get in was so long, but we made it. There were so many kids that Tori was very worried she wouldn't get a balloon, but everything worked out in the end and both her and James had fun with their balloons and playing in the museum afterwards.

Tori liked doing crafts and making her hat and James loved checking out food in the grocery section.

Museum Fun

Here are a few pictures of Tori and James having fun at the museum. We try and go on Tori's early out days since she loves it and doesn't get to go that often now that she's in school. James really loves it now, too - it's fun to see him grow up and actually play with all the stuff in the different rooms just like Tori did when she was little. Above they're playing doctor together in the hospital and below James is concentrating really hard on driving the ambulance (one of his favorites).

Above Tori has found Iowa on the map and below she is working hard on her rocket - she's gotten so great at doing all this stuff on her own.

What can I say, James loves anything that goes - planes, cars, trucks, trains.

Grandma and the Museum

Grandma Margie came to visit us and we had a ton of fun despite the lack of sunshine and good weather. Here are a few pictures of her with the kids and a few pictures of all of us at the children's museum.

Tori and James love doing slides together. Tori loves being the big sister and James is thrilled that he gets to do something with Tori.

In one of the rooms they have this little tube (above) that blows air and balances a beach ball in the air. Tori and James had a bunch of fun playing with the ball and blowing each other in the face. Tori can make James giggle at the drop of a hat.

We tried about a million times to get us all looking at the camera, but this (above) is about as close as we got.

Our future pilots.

These two pictures are just a couple I took of Tori in one of her brand new outfits from Grandma playing with dolls in her room (she loves her dolls and will sit and play with then forever).

Happy New Year

Tori and James had a bunch of fun celebrating New Years at the Children's Museum.  They have lots of crafts and a balloon drop at noon and Tori and James had a bunch of fun!

Grandma Katie visit

We were very lucky to have Grandma Katie come and visit us for a week and a half at the end of January. Tori got to spend two whole days with her while John and I went to Chicago to see the musical - Wicked! We loved Wicked and Tori loved getting to have lots of time with Grandma.

One fun place we went to while Grandma was here was the Children's Museum at the mall. Above Tori is in the hospital play area seeing how tall she is (around 42"). Below she is practicing brushing teeth. It's actually a big deal that she will brush this funny looking guy's teeth since the first time we went to this new part of the museum I teased her by saying that he was going to chomp my hand and she ran away terrified and wouldn't go near him for awhile - I'm such a good mother.

These are a couple pictures from the pizza making area - this is one of her absolute favorite things to do. She loves baking and serving me the pizza and has gotten very good at it. I shouldn't be surprised since pizza is her favorite dinner to help me make at home. This time at the museum she discovered the pizza case for keeping it warm while carrying it to my table and she thought that was the coolest thing ever.

Below is little mail-carrier Tori at the museum.

So, I think Tori probably spent about 75% of her time awake while Grandma was here in her sleeping beauty costume. Daddy was also on vacation while Grandma was here so he was home most of the time and Tori's favorite game to play with him is "princess". There are many variations of this game usually comprising parts of several different princess movies. The funny thing is when dad was home sometimes we would look around and wonder where did Tori go, but we always found her dressed in her princess outfit laying in her bed pretending to be asleep and waiting for "her prince" to wake her up. Her prince most always has to be daddy and he has to kiss her to wake her up - a few times she did let Grandma be the prince, though. She also loves to "dance at the ball" with her dad and they're really quite good at twirling and doing dips. :) Most of the time during the ball she suddenly runs away and is quite a pro at losing one of her slippers while running away without slowing down or missing a step.

Below Tori is helping dad clean-up after dinner. She loves to hand wash dishes, though she usually gets as much water and soap on her as on the dishes.

And last, our favorite activity with daddy - stories before bedtime.

Museum

These pictures are actually from earlier this summer, but I just realized that I hadn't put them on the blog yet. They were taken at the Children's Museum in our mall that Tori loves to go to. The first two pictures are from the newest exhibit all about dinosaurs. Tori has a lot of fun in this new room. Above she is holding a dinosaur egg that she found in the maze and below is going down the dinosaur slide.

Another favorite room in the museum for Tori is the pizza making room. Her favorite thing (besides cookies) to help me cook at home is pizza, so I guess it's just natural that she loves to pretend to do it, too.

Here she is picking out the toppings for her pizza.

After pretending to cook it in the oven she brings it over to Grandma for them to eat together. Then they must pretend to drink their drinks, blow on the hot pizza and then eat every topping individually.

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.