Trip to the Zoo

A bunch of the moms and toddlers that Tori and I hang out with all decided to take a trip to the Moline, IL zoo (about 1hr drive away). A pretty small zoo, but still a ton of fun. It was a beautiful day and Tori had a blast. She loves animals and was really excited to see them all. Below is a picture of her next to the elephant.

This is a picture of Tori riding the hippo with Megan, Arjun and Avery.

By far, Tori's favorite part of the trip was the train ride. We had to pay to do it twice she had so much fun. It was especially adorable when she would say, "Chuga Choo Choo" while we were riding the train.

Chairs

Lately Tori loves to climb anything and everything, especially all kinds of chairs. She is quite proud of herself when she is able to climb up into a chair or on the couch successfully. The more difficult a climb it is, the more fun it is for her. Unfortunately, she likes to push her limits and then stand on the chairs and even sometimes try to jump on the chairs. So, of course she hears "Sit down, now" quite often. Several times she has stood up on a chair and then looked at me and pointed down with her finger and said, "Sit, Now." :)

Easter Egg Hunt

This is sort of a late entry, but these are pictures of Tori at the Easter egg hunt we went to at our church building (it was supose to be at a park, but due to the fact that it was still only 30 degrees at Easter time here, they moved it inside).

Tori had a blast searching for eggs and loved filling up her basket. She was even more excited when she opened an egg and found candy inside. It was Tori's first experience with Skittles and Mike N' Ikes and now she's hooked!

Sunday dress

Here are just a couple of cute pictures of Tori all dressed up in her Sunday dress. She has so many cute dresses, but I don't get that many pictures of her in them because we have church in the afternoon now and I never think to take any pictures. She's also growing so fast that her dresses keep getting too short very quickly.

Power Outage

Our power went out because of a horrible ice-storm back in February and was out from 4pm Saturday until 11am Sunday and needless-to-say it was freezing outside. Luckily, our gas fireplace still worked. So we lit a bunch of candles, brought down Tori's pack n' play, and had a big family sleepover in the living room. Tori thought it was a blast (probably because there was nothing to take mom and dad's attetion away from her). She thought the candles were really cool too and kept asking for candles for a few days afterwards. These are some pictures of Tori bundled up and playing with dad's warm, very bright orange hat.

Stuffed Animals

One day while I was making dinner, I looked over at Tori and she had just cleared a little spot for herself on the shelf with her stuffed animals and was sitting there with them, very content. I thought she looked so cute that I ran and grabbed the camera. Tori loves getting her picture taken, so for the next couple of days she would go and sit with her stuffed animals again and say, "picture Tori".

Nemo

Tori is a big fan of her new Nemo stuffed animal lately. These are some pictures of her giving him hugs and kisses. One of the really cute things that she has been doing lately is usually when it is time for bed or nap time she likes to say goodbye to all her toys. Sometimes it's just "b-bye toys". Usually she picks a few that she played with that day and says bye to each of them and Nemo almost always gets a "b-bye Nemo". She just gets more fun everyday.