Fun with Crayons

Tori is loving coloring these days. She asks throughout the day to color. She sits at the kitchen table and occupies herself for quite a long time. I was able to take this video the other day before she knew I was watching her.

Last week Tori and I spent a day in McMinnville with my Aunt Roxie and my Grandma, who was visiting from out of town, and had a great time. They have a dog and two cats and during the car ride, Tori was constantly repeating the names of all three animals. Once we arrived she was on a mission to find all of them. While there, we spent some time outside playing with the dog, Smokey. Here are a couple pictures of Tori's newly acquired skill...

Such Concentration

Pure Joy and Excitement

Since this day spent hitting the ball for Smokey, Tori now tells us stories of her day with the dog. She repeats "Smokey" "Ball"(while moving her hands as if to throw a ball) "Racket"(swinging arms back and forth). Her words are coming more freely now, and in sequence. She has several two word phrases she repeats -- bubble bath, garbage truck, Easter Bunny -- the funniest to me being 'more Tori'. She loves to look at pictures, whether they be on the computer or in albums. At the end of any particular viewing session she will ask "More Tori" repeatedly until we find more pictures to look at. She has also formed a sentence, much to my shock. While we were spending time with Roxie, they were playing with Tori's shoes and laces. Tori apparently wasn't through playing and out of the blue said "Roxie, tie, shoe"

It is fun to hear her vocabulary grow, and watch her interests change and grow too. She loves to color, in books and in the bathtub (Crayola Tadoodles for the tub), is nearly obsessed with Cinderella, wants to pick out her shoes and coat when it's time to leave the house, still loves her books, and loves to play 'horsey' with Daddy -- sitting on his back and riding through the living room -- her favorite part being falling off. She is quite a ham sometimes and she definitely keeps us amused and entertained.

Finished Project

Easter weekend was quite a busy one for us. Between hanging out with friends and family, hunting easter eggs, and attending church, we found time to paint our bedroom. A couple weeks ago we finally purchased the paint, Fudgesicle is the color, and just had to wait until we had the time. Ej didn't have to work Saturday so we decided to plug ahead and get it done.

I absolutely love the finished product; it's exactly what I've been picturing. The only thing left to do is add some accessories to the walls.

Easter Egg Hunt

Saturday we took Tori to church with the Mattos Family to partake in the girls' first easter egg hunt. Both girls were decked out adorably in their pretty easter dresses, and we all had a great time, except for Tori's fright from the Easter Bunny. All us girls got our faces painted, Tori got a tattoo on her arm, and the little girls picked up lots of candy filled eggs, and balloons during their hunt. They looked so cute. Enjoy a few pictures from our day.

New "Security Blanket"

Tori's latest request at naptime and bedtime...

A Day at the Park

This is from a couple weekends ago. It was a beautiful spring afternoon so we decided to take a trip to Rood Bridge Park to let Tori play on the slides.

She thinks it is great fun to climb up the steps all by herself and then go down the slide. She had a little trouble keeping her shoes out of the way and would get stuck toward the bottom of the slide where she would sit until we encouraged her to keep coming down. Then she'd scoot inch by inch down to the bottom.

This prompted Ej to find a little larger slide that he could go down as well, with Tori in his lap.After the slides we went for a walk around the park and found a grassy hill that Tori thoroughly enjoyed running all over. Ej positioned himself slightly uphill, and I remained slightly downhill and Tori spent quite a bit of time running between us; sort of. She struggled and strained to keep her balance while walking up to Ej;

and more often than not got running too fast and fell on her way downhill.

She had such a good time though. As fast as she'd lose her balance and fall, she'd pick herself back up again and keep running. Her sheer enjoyment is priceless.

Finally it was time to head back home. But not before she got to love on both mommy and daddy.

Children's Museum

This weekend we were able to take advantage of some free tickets and check out the Children's Museum. We all had such a good time. It was fun to have a place for Tori to run and play and explore. She loved playing in the water room and, despite wearing an apron, still managed to get soaked. She also enjoyed navigating the steps in the children's theater. When she wasn't climbing all the way to the top of the audience seats, she was repeatedly mastering the one step up to the stage and down again. After running and playing hard for about 2 hours, she was wobbly on her feet and quickly fell asleep in the car on the way home.