A Tribute to Tori

Tori is about to turn 2. I am not sure how this happened or where the last two years have gone, but it’s true. While Tori may not have received as much attention or one-on-one time from me as Emmalee did, I wanted to let her (and everyone else) know how amazing I think she is!

1. I am amazed at her sweet smile that can melt my heart no matter what the situation is.

2. I am amazed at her ability to love her sister so much that she often chooses Sister over everyone else.

3. I am amazed that she eats-this child will eat nearly anything you give her, and so far she has shown no signs of any allergies!

4. I am amazed that she sleeps. She has always been a good sleeper and is really into a routine about her naps and betimes.

5. I am amazed at her vocabulary. While she didn’t say as much as early as Emmalee did, when she decided to talk in public (versus the safety of home with mommy, daddy, and sister), she did so in complete sentences. She goes on and on about anything and everything, and she is always using new words.

6. I am amazed at how much she loves for us to read her books. She always says, “nother one” when we finish, as well as saying “The End” when I close the book.

7. I am amazed at the cuddles she gives-the way she puts both her arms around your neck and squeezes tight-melts my heart!

8. I am amazed at how she loves to play dolls. She carries them around and gives them bottles, rocks them to sleep, and changes their diapers. She is an awesome mommy-in-training.

9. I am amazed at how she has been potty trained and gone without any accidents for nearly a month now. It was a fluke that we jumped on the potty training thing to begin with, but now she is a serious potty trained little lady!

10. I am amazed that I was blessed enough to have another little girl who is loving, funny, sassy, silly, and sweet all rolled into one adorable bundle of energy. She makes me smile on the darkest of days.

Victoria Faith, you are a miraculous blessing, and I thank God for you every day!

Happy Birthday Daddy!!!!

Yesterday was Duane's 30th birthday. I meant to post on his actual "big day", but life got in the way. Anyhow, I think he had a good day, and the weekend was great. On Saturday the two of us went shopping for a new gun for him. This item is now his prized possession, and he is thrilled to own it. Sunday we had a surprise party for him at our house. He has no idea we were doing this, and Emmalee kept it a secret for several weeks, which was amazing in and of itself! We had homemade pizzas, which are one if his favorite meals, and then yummy, yummy cake. Overall, I think it was a great time, and he seems to be adjusting to 30 really well. (Not that I didn't expect him to, it's just that some people get kind of stressed out about 30?!?)


Here is his yummy cake

Here he is walking into the house trying to figure out why so many cars were in the drive way. He had been out "looking at land" with his dad.

Here is his with Emmalee while he has to endure us singing happy birthday to him. He was a good sport about it though!

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Happy birthday from your best girls! We all love you!

Happy Birthday Aunt Deana!

We just wanted to take a moment to wish Aunt Deana a very happy birthday. The girls send out lots of hugs and kisses to her and hope they get to see her very soon! We hope her day is full of sunshine, laughter, and lots of love. We love you Aunt Deana!

Our Three Day Weekend

This weekend was a three day weekend for me, as we actually didn't have any days to make up due to snow or ice. It was very exciting, because I was really starting to need a break. We spent Saturday cleaning the house and playing with the girls. Then Mommy and Daddy went out to dinner by themselves for the first time in a very long time. It was a nice evening, and the girls had fun as well.
Here are our two little valentines in their matching shirts.
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Sunday Daddy went to the Gun and Knife Show in Chillicothe, looking for ideas for his birthday gift. Mommy thought it would be nice to take the girls some place fun. So we picked up Gamma and headed to Chuck E. Cheese. I had never had to wait in line to get in before, but we did on Sunday. It was absolutely packed. Apparently every other mom in the "north of the river" area had the same idea as me. We tried to enjoy ourselves, but it was so crowded we couldn't both leave the tables to tag team the girls. So Gamma manned the table while I manned the kiddos. Tori is harder to keep an eye on, as she really isn't afraid of much. Needless to say, we didn't get to do as much as we usually do. Gamma then sold our table to a Chuck E. Cheese employee for 650 tickets. She knew this would get Emmalee movin' on out the door. It was quite successful, and then we headed as far away from that craziness as we could. Here are a few pics of the memorable time we spent there on Sunday.

The girls riding together in a car. I thought if I dressed them in matching clothes it would be easier to keep an eye on them. It wouldn't have mattered if they were dressed in clown costumes; they would have still not stood out in that crowd!

Here is Tori obviously not enjoying the pony ride and crying to get off. Big sister didn't mind, as she got to finish off the time.

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Monday we spent hanging around the house playing and making crafts. I tried to get lots of grading caught up for six-week grades, and I am happy to say-I was successful. I am officially caught up and am finally done grading research papers for another year! HURRAY!! It was so nice to spend some time at home with the girls. It makes me anxious for summer break!

It's Official!

IT IS OFFICIAL!! Emmalee has finally outgrown her milk allergy. We went into the milk challenge feeling pretty confident that she would, but you never know what might happen. She was so excited that when I got her up at 5:15, she never went back to sleep; she was awake the whole trip to Children's Mercy! She was burtsing with excitement at getting to taste chocolate milk for the first time. By the way, she absolutely loved it! She was pretty disappointed that they were only giving her small amounts at a time. We were there for a total of 4 hours, and she was finally able to drink about 4 ounces.

Here is the milk jug we took with us. Emmalee thought it was "milkalicious!"

Here is my proud milk drinker about to embark on "drinking as much milk as she wanted to."

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After we left CMH, we went to Crown Center for lunch. She was too giddy to eat, so we headed to Sheridan's for some "ice cream." I love Sheridan's and figured since Emmalee had never had real ice cream before, it wouldn't make much difference to her if she was eating custard or ice cream. Apparently it did, as she didn't like her oreo concrete. Oh well, she has since found some flavors of ice cream she finds tolerable, mostly ones that have any amount of chocolate in them! After striking out with the ice cream, we headed to the Wizard of Oz exhibit. Emmalee has some fun playing around while we were there. Here are a few pics.

Here she is in the hot air balloon, ready to head back to Kansas.

Here she is looking sweet!

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Overall, the news was fantastic and much needed in terms of her allergies! This is the first time we have left an appointment without giving blood and feeling quite so "doom and gloom" about everything we have to avoid. Life hasn't changed all that much, as we already had milk products in the house, but it is fun to watch Emmalee enjoy milk products for the first time in her life!

A Beautiful Weekend

Last weekend was gorgeous here, but of course, this week has snapped us back into the reality of living in Missouri. We enjoyed some time outside on Saturday, riding bikes, taking walks, and throwing rocks into the creek-which is one of the girls' favorite activities. It was nice to have some down time to just hang out, see some sunshine, and get some fresh air! Here are some pics.


The girls love to walk holding hands. We are getting ready to go throw rocks in the creek.

I can never pass up the opportunity to photograph them holding hands-too precious!

Emmalee getting back into the swing of bike riding.

Emmalee and Tori headed for a collision in Great-Grandma's driveway!

The rest of that weekend was spent at cousin Kaitlyn's birthday party and getting ready for the big milk challenge!

Chocolate Heaven

This weekend the girls and I decided to get out for a bit since the weather was so nice. We hadn't been anywhere besides school, work, and church since the first weekend in January, so we were due some time out. We went shopping for Valentine's Day cards, goodie bag "stuff", and decorations for the all-important Valentine's mailbox. We had a great time and the weather was fantastic! Here are some pics of the day.

Emmalee thought she would help out the environment if we got her this "green" vehicle!

Hanging out in the truck-not so environmentally friendly!

Tori couldn't miss out on being environmentally conscious-this kid is a dare-devil!

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And the best part of the whole day-just ask Emmalee-was dinner. After we ate dinner, Emmalee was looking at the dessert menu. She saw a cake with Hershey's syrup and lots and lots of chocolate. She can eat most things made with Hershey's, so we decided to ask the kitchen staff if there was any chance of cross-contamination with any nut products. The restaurant didn't serve any of those products, so we knew it would be safe. Since she is scheduled for her milk challenge next week, we decided this would be a good indicator. She absolutely loved the cake and ate nearly all of it, without a single hive appearing! She said it was like chocolate heaven-she was so excited and so were we! Looks like we might have good news about her milk allergy next week! HURRAY!!!