Waiting for Fireworks

To finish off the 4th of July, we went to a really impressive fireworks display put on by Coralville (the town right next to us). Tori loved the fireworks and had a lot of fun playing with her friends while we all waited for the fireworks to start. I took all the kids on a hunt for fireflies around the field we were in and they all had a blast! Everyone fought over who got to hold the next firefly I caught .

One thing Tori has loved to do this summer is to pick flowers (her favorite is dandelions). Here are few pictures of her and her friends having fun picking flowers before the fireworks. Above: Tori and Megan.

Above: Tori, Megan and Anne.

Below: Tori, Megan, Anne and Anna.

4th Bar B Que with friends

After the 4th of July parade, we went and had dinner at Andrew and Luke's house with a bunch of friends. The kids had a blast playing in the pool and sprinklers.

Above from left to right: Harrison, Anna, Tori and Tanner.

Above from left to right: Anna, Tanner, Andrew, Tori and Luke.

Above are all the dads playing bocce ball, from left to right: John, John, Jon and Richard. (Yes we know a lot of Johns out here, a few of the kids when they were younger thought that everyone's dad was just named John.)

Anna, Tori and Andrew having fun playing the piano while we were all getting ready to go see the fireworks.

Above is a video of Anna, Tori and Andrew singing Book of Mormon stories. This is one of Tori's favorite primary songs.

4th of July

John actually had the 4th of July off this year, so we had a ton of fun. First we went to the Coralville 4th of July parade in the morning. This is such a family friendly place that the parade was really geared towards kids. They had lots of little floats, a band, some dancers, some Shriners and almost everyone in the parade was throwing some kind of candy or free stuff.

Above: Tori in front of the parade.

Above: Tori, Anna, Megan, Anne and Andrew all standing along the edge of the parade. I couldn't get them to look at me because they were all very focused on the people throwing candy. We came home with a bag full of candy - needless-to-say Tori loved the parade.

Above: Tori and Dad enjoying the parade.

Above: Tori taking a break from collecting candy and beads to sit and eat a lollipop in her camp chair.

Here are a couple of pictures of Tori after the parade in the cute 4th of July outfit from Grandma Margie.

Helmet

At the beginning of the summer, we bought Tori a tricycle as a reward for potty training. She has really loved riding it and feels like a big kid now that she has a bike with pedals. Many of her friends are a year older than her, and some of them have two-wheelers and have to wear helmets. So, after we rode her tricycle a few times with friends Tori kept telling me, "Mom, I need a helmet". I don't really think her tricycle is dangerous enough to necessitate a helmet, but I guess we might as well start building good habits now. (Plus, I think little kids look really cute running around in helmets.) Here are some pictures of her with her princess helmet that she got to pick out.

In the pictures above and below, she's holding some peas from our garden. She loved to fill her truck with peas and then ride around to the different fire hydrants in our neighborhood pretending that they were different characters from Backyardigans and eating peas with them.

Moline Zoo with Grandma and Grandpa

When Grandpa Eric and Grandma Margie came to visit us in June, we all took a trip to the Moline Zoo in IL. Tori loves animals and had the time of her life. Even though she was exhausted by the time we were done, she did not want to go home.

Above on the left is a picture of Tori with her teddy bear (usually named Aladdin) in front of the monkeys and on the right is a picture of her feeding the geese and very large goldfish. She loves to feed animals - I think she would have done this all day if we would have let her. One of the geese even pinched her fingers a bit when trying to get the food and even that didn't turn her off feeding them some more.

Above are some pictures of her feeding the goats - she loved this even more than feeding the geese and fish. She thinks it's really funny if any animal licks her.

Again, Tori is showing no fear with the animals. We went into the parrot cage with Grandma and you can see in both of these pictures Tori is trying to hold out her arm for the birds to land on her. I do have to say that when they flew close to her it did spook her a little bit - I don't think she would have liked it if one had actually landed on her. Grandma was the lucky one and had one land on her shoulder and start grooming her hair. :)

By the time we made it to the giraffes Tori was a little tired of having her picture taken.

Tori loves carousels and was very excited to ride the elephant with Grandpa.

When Tori saw the tiger she called him Shire Khan (tiger from the Jungle Book movie) and above is a picture of her "roaring" like a tiger.

Tori really had a ton of fun doing everything, but I do have to say I think she liked riding the train most of all. She had fun waving to all the animals and saying "chuga, chuga choo choo" the whole time.

Tori's Orange Pool

While Grandma Margie was here we decided we would buy Tori one of those little blow-up pools, since she loves the water so much. Tori got to help pick it out at the store and was very particular that she get the orange pool, not the green one. She loves her pool and has already used it several times, even though I have to say the hose water we put in it is freezing!

Above Tori and John are blowing up the pool together (we have since purchased a little manual air-pump). Below is Tori with her favorite thing - the hose.

When it comes to water Tori could just fill up buckets and transfer water from different containers all day long. The think she spent the most time doing is filling her watering can up in the pool and then watering my potted basil and onions (I do have to say they are flourishing now). Though, I did finally have to tell her that if she gave too much water to the plants that they would die. The funny thing is a few days later Tori was filling up a cup of water to drink in the sink, and I told her that the cup had too much water and she needed to dump some out. Then she said, "That's because if I drink too much water I will die." I laughed and then explained that drinking too much water couldn't kill her, only plants.

More fun stuff with Grandma and friends

Here are some pictures from when Grandma, Tori and I and some of our friends went to the beach at the lake at Kent Park in Iowa.

Above from left to right - Heather, Jessica holding Riggs, Alisha.

Above, Tori and I are having our lunch on our towels. And below are some pictures of Tori lying in the sand. She loves playing in the sand, digging holes, or just filling her watering can with water and dumping it into her bucket. We have definitely been loving summer and it has been a very nice, mild summer this year.