First Day of School

Brandon had our camera in Montana with him, so I used our other camera to take pictures on the first day of school, and just barely got around to uploading them!

This year Alexis is in 4th grade, and her teacher's name is Mrs. Skinner. Everyone kept on telling her how lucky she was to have her as a teacher because she was so nice and fun, so Alexis was very excited about starting school. That was a big relief because in years past she has been anything but excited, lol. We are a little over a month in and her excitement has continued! She is loving school and has had a great start. This year Tori is in 1st grade. She was very excited to have the same teacher that Alexis had for 1st grade, Mrs. Griffith. We really liked her when Alexis had her. She is so sweet and loving and Tori just loves her. She has had a great start to her year as well. She is now going for the full day, and gets to have lunch at school. I was a little worried about how she would do, but she has adjusted just great, and is so eager to learn.

Here's a group shot of all three of our kiddos. This wasn't Levi's actual first day of school, but we couldn't leave him out of the picture!

The following day was Levi's first day of his last year of preschool. He was very excited. Notice how his hair is shorter then the day before? Well he decided to take some scissors to his hair and cut off a huge chunk right in front. We had to get it cut pretty short to make it all blend in =) It could have been a lot worse! Levi has love school so far. He has the same teachers as last year. They are so sweet and we love them.

This school year already seems to be flying by. Here's to a great year!

Learning to Ride Bikes

Brandon decided it was way past time that Tori learned how to ride a two wheeler. We have gone on several bike rides as a family this summer and those training wheels are just slowing her down and making it frustrating for her. Yesterday, Brandon took her outside and within about 10 minutes she was riding on her own! What an accomplishment! Tori is so excited to be finally riding without her training wheels. Brandon started teaching Levi too. He was having a bit of a harder time and didn't quite master it yesterday. They all headed back out today though, and he was going in no time! We had him start out on one of the girls old bikes because it was smaller and easier. Levi wanted to try on his own bike, so Brandon took off the training wheels while he waiting patiently =)

Here is a video I took of them both riding. This is before Levi tried with his bike. Try to ignore the fact that I have a very delayed reaction to them nearly crashing right into each other! lol

A Broken Arm and a Toothless Grin

Tori had an eventful end to the summer. At the beginning of August she broke her right arm right above the elbow. It wasn't too bad of a break, but definitely needed a cast. I feel so bad about how it happened! Tori has never been one to climb in bed with us at night. She occasionally does, but not very often at all. Well on this particular night she had a bad dream and wanted to climb in bed with me. I rolled over and let her slide up next to me. I am not exactly sure how it happened, but I remember sitting up in bed, and the next thing I new Tori rolled right off and landed with a thud on the floor! I jumped out of bed yelling Tori! She started to whimper a little as I lifted her up onto the bed. She kept on saying Ow, over and over, but we could never get her to tell us where it hurt. She seemed very out of it. Brandon felt her arm all over and it felt ok. A few minutes later she drifted off to sleep. In the morning when she woke up she kept complaining that her arm hurt whenever she moved it. Even though it didn't appear to be broken, we thought it would be a good idea to get it x-rayed just in case. I called the doctor and got her in right away. As we were in the xray room waiting for the xray, the technician asked her what happened. Her response was, "I don't know" They looked a little confused, and it was then that I realized she didn't even remember what had happened! We knew that she was acting really out of it when it happened, but we figured she would at least remember it! Even though she had cried when it happened she actually slept through the whole thing! I quickly explained what had happened to the doctor. When they left the room I told Tori that she needed to tell the doctor what happened when they asked so they don't think I hurt her or something! lol It was actually pretty funny =) It was so hard watching her arm get the xray. She sobbed and sobbed as the doctor forced her arm to turn a way that caused her a lot of pain. They sent us back to wait for the doctor. He came in and told us it was broken! They wrapped her arm and told her that we would need to wait a week, before we got the hard cast put on so that the swelling could all go down. She actually thought it was pretty cool to have a broken arm, and she loved the sling that she got! She chose to get a dark purple hard cast, and we had to fight for it, but we got a waterproof liner. Thank goodness, because we got the cast put on 2 days before we left on our trip to Las Vegas where we spent 2 days on the lake. A waterproof cast was a definite must have!

Another exciting event for Tori was losing her very first tooth! This tooth had been loose for the longest time. She saw daddy pull out several of Alexis's teeth with the pliers, and vowed to never let him do the same thing to her. But with her tooth hanging by a thread preventing her from enjoying eating, she finally decided to let him try and pull it out. He opted to use a Kleenex instead of pliers and with one twist it was out. Boy was she excited! It twisted out so easily that it actually flew across the room. We were all down on our hands and knees looking for it. It was so tiny! We finally did find it though and immediately put it in a plastic bag to keep it safe until the tooth fairy came =) Here is Tori with her new toothless grin:

Here she is right afterwards holding a paper towel to her mouth. I realized I didn't have many pictures of her purple cast so I had her hold it up so I could get 2 pictures in one.

Look at the cute tiny tooth. I said the same when Alexis lost her first tooth... that I remembered very well when that first little tooth popped we were just as excited when she got her first tooth, as she was when she lost it =)

So with a broken arm and a new smile she definitely had a lot of things to talk to her friends about when she went back to school later that month =)

Hike with Dad

Back in August Brandon decided to take the kids on a hike. I was feeling under the weather that day so I opted for a nap instead =) After hearing about all of the fun that they had I was really wishing that I had gone! Thankfully Brandon took several really cute pictures to document their fun day. They had so much fun hiking 7 miles, climbing rocks, spotting dear, and even encountering a rattle snake! Here are some pictures from their fun adventure at Roxborough State Park.

Little Sneak

Every night before I go to bed I always make sure and go and check on the kids. One particular night, while checking on Alexis this is what I saw: At first you may think that nothing is out of the ordinary. Alexis always sleeps with her head covered, and when I come and check on her I always pull the blanket off of her face to make sure she can breathe. This time when I pulled the blanket down this is what I found:

She had strategically placed her American Girl doll to look like it was her! After further investigation I found that she had snuck downstairs to watch t.v. with daddy. What a little stinker!

One year older and oh so cute!

I need some blogging therapy, and what better thing to blog about then our sweet Tori's 7th birthday. I can't believe that Tori is 7. Wasn't it just yesterday that I was counting down the days until she would be born? Well our Tori loves to roller skate so what better place to have her birthday party then at skate city? Since her birthday fell on a Sunday this year we had her party on Saturday. Here is the birthday girl all ready for the party to begin. She's sporting her brand new roller skates. They were included with the birthday package. She likes them much more then her family reunion garage sale ones =)

Here are some pictures I snapped as the kiddos roller skated to their hearts content. Alexis chose to rent roller blades. She was whizzing around so fast. All her practicing and not giving up after falling many times really paid off.

Tori's cute friend, Lauren was struggling a little at the beginning, but with Brandon's help a few times around she was going in no time. I was so grateful he was there to help with all of the kids. I am really no help, considering that most of them can out skate me! lol

Levi is fearless when he's skating. He gets out there and there's no stopping him!

Here's the birthday bunch!

About halfway through we took a break for pizza, cake, ice cream and presents. I love how Tori is so intently watching the candles being lit.

The picture I got of Tori blowing out her candles was so blurry! =( I did manage to get some pictures of her and her friends licking the candles though!

In this picture you can see Tori's new charm bracelet we got her for her birthday. The heart on it says Tori.

Her friends were all so generous. They were all so sweet and very into watching her open up each present.

Tori has always loved cards. She opened up each one carefully and loved them all!

I have to admit. Having a party at skate city was quite chaotic, loud and very busy! It was so nice to have someone else set up, clean up and feed us though! All in all, it was a success! =)

The next morning on Tori's actual birthday she woke us up bright and early to see her birthday table. It's a good thing though, considering we have 8:30 am church!

We let her open one present. Silly bands (the latest craze), a new dress to wear to church, and some new earrings.

Here she is all dressed up in her new outfit and ready for church. She is sitting on her new bean bag chair we got her.

The moment we walked in from church she wanted to open up the rest of her presents. I thought we should spread them out a bit throughout the day, but when you have a daddy that is just as excited as the birthday girl, there's not much you can do to stop it =)

Tori wanted aqua sand so badly for her birthday. I am usually very opposed to any type of sand that is not in the sand box, but I caved and bought it for her anyways. As I was cleaning up the kitchen tonight and felt sand beneath my feet and saw it scattered all about the counter, I regretted that decision a little!

Alexis went shopping with me for presents for Tori, and she picked out this pottery wheel. We finally got it out today, and made quite a cute pot. Brandon had a lot to do with it though. He walked in when we were in the middle of trying to figure it out, laughed and quickly took over =)

We love our Tori so much! Here are some things we want to remember about our 7 year old:

~She is so generous and always willing to share whatever she has with her brother and sister.

~She loves to play outside, and I often find her in the backyard just sitting there picking flowers and enjoying her surroundings.

~ She successfully has broken her thumb sucking habit! What a task that was!

~ She still sleeps with her "whinnie the pooh" blanket every night.

~She has the biggest sweet tooth of us all!

~She is so caring, and always concerned about others. If she sees that any of us is sick, or sad she will always come up and pat us on the back and ask if we need anything, then happily get it for us if we do!

~She loves to draw and is very good at it. She says when she grows up she wants to be an artist.

~She loves to paint her fingernails and toenails, and went through 12 bottles of nail polish over the summer.

~She loves bring a first grader, and her teacher says she is such a good student and is so excited to learn.

~She loves wearing dresses and skirts.

~ She is a great little swimmer, and even with a broken arm towards the end of the summer (more about that later) she could still get around the pool just fine. (thanks to the waterproof cast we were able to get!

~ She has to sleep with the door shut and no light shining through. This often causes a lot of nightime drama considering her sister wants the door wide open with the hall light on!

~ If she wakes up in the middle of the night she will always come in my room and ask for a prayer. Once we say one, she is just fine and happily heads back to bed.

~She rarely complains about anything

~She doesn't like to play video games, but loves to watch Alexis, Levi and Brandon play and always knows all the tricks to the game even though she's never played. She's so observant.

~She notices the little details in everything around her.

~She says she wants to live at home with us forever and never get married or have kids! lol

~When she is in the middle of crying about something she will suddenly erupt into a fit of giggles and everything is suddenly just fine!

~She has a special bond with animals. They are drawn to her!

~She just started an acting and singing class, and absolutely loves it.

~She is such a blessing to us, and adds so much happiness to our lives!

We love you so much Tori!