Comfy Cozy

Tori and James just looked so cute and cozy before bed in their feety jammies that I had to take some pictures. I sure am thankful for nice, warm and fuzzy pajamas this winter!

This is just a random picture from one of Tori's preschool parties that I forgot to post. From left to right: Tori, Hannah, Siri, Libby L., Libby A. We also just finished a parent-teacher conference with her teachers and they shared some cute projects that she had done at school. They talked about having dreams and goals and asked each kid what their dream was, here is Tori's:

"My dream is: The earth is a clean place." When asked how she can help her dream come true: "I'm going to give everyone a present with a rake in it, and we will rake together."

Lots of jumping and fun

A local gymnastics place lets kids come and play during lunch time on all the equipment for a few dollars, so we decided to go with some friends. We've been a few times before and Tori just loves it! This was James's first time and he thought it was pretty cool, too. It's hard taking a picture of the two of them now that James is so big and can move around.

Above is Tori and Megan - sorry a lot of the pictures are blurry or fuzzy, it was extra hard to get kids to hold still when there is so much fun to do. They have a big pit of foam squares to jump into, a bunch of trampolines and balance-beams, rings, etc.

James thought it was pretty cool to watch all the kids jumping around. Below I actually got on one of the trampolines with him and jumped (very gently) - he loved it!

Here's our little gymnast.

Jumping on the trampoline below was by far Tori's favorite thing to do.

Snowman

Though it has been freezing cold most of this winter, we have found some time to have fun in the snow. We got a really cute snowman kit for Christmas and Tori was really excited to get to use it. The sad thing is that in several weeks that snowman hasn't melted at all - in fact more snow has snowed on top of him and covered his face and hat. Oh well, welcome to winter in Iowa.

7 Months Old

Here's our sweet 7 month old James. It has been a ton of fun to watch him really discover toys and have more of a personality. He's eating his baby food like a champ and loves most anything (except peas). He can sit up pretty well, however, he tips himself over most of the time to get to his belly. He really wants to crawl, but right now he just sort of rolls and pivots to get where he wants to be (this tends to be pretty frustrating for him). James is also starting to babble. He can say "DaDa" now which is super cute. He likes to say it a lot, so I tried to capture it on video, but once I turned the camera on he was too fascinated by it to say much. If you listen close at the beginning you can hear him say it once. Another thing this video captures is that whenever James is a little anxious, excited, or wants something he moves his wrists in circles over and over.

Family Pictures

So, for the first time ever back in November we went and had a family picture taken! I had been feeling bad that I had never done this before so I was really excited when I was actually happy how they turned out. I never realized how hard it can be to have four people all smiling at the same time.

The family pictures were fun, but I especially loved the pictures they took of just the kids. The crazy thing is that James has already changed so much - it's going by way too fast!

Cute Talk

Tori just loves to talk. A lot of the stuff that she says is really funny and I keep telling myself that I need to write them down, since I tend to forget them after a day or two. So, here are a few things that she has said lately:


Tori asked me the other day if she could do soccer again in the spring and I said she would probably have to wait until summer, since we'll be in Des Moines for one of John's away rotations for most of the spring. Des Moines happens to be where the closest Costco is to us (about a 2 hr drive) - we've actually made the drive a couple times, since we love Costco. Another day Tori was driving with John in the car and they had this conversation:

Tori: "Dad, I don't get to play soccer this spring, I have to wait until summer."

Dad: "Why is that?"

Tori: "Because we're going to live at Costco."


Different cute comment:

John was teaching Tori about some of the different parts of your body the other day and she was just loving it:

Dad: "Where's your heart?"

Tori points to her chest.

Dad: "What does it do?"

Tori: "It's full of your love. And then you can just give it out to other people."

The other day in the car:
While all driving together in the car, I make some joke or say something funny and John starts to laugh and then says to Tori, "Tori, your mom is funny." Tori then says, "But, Dad you married her, so you have to keep the funny mommy."

Tori really loves her preschool - so much that sometimes I wonder if maybe I'm just a really boring mom. Right before the holidays I was explaining to her about how she was going to have a "winter break" from preschool and then she said, "I hate winter breaks." I felt better though, when she went to start school again after the break she said to me the morning before preschool, "Mom, I love you even more than my preschool." I felt very loved.

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!