After a couple weeks of thinking she was coming any day now Elaenia finally was born this morning. It was pretty crazy how fast it all happened. At first things were progressing pretty slow and we thought we were in for an all day ordeal, then about 3 minutes later we had nurses running all over trying to find a Dr (he was so close to being there, but not quite). She weighed 6 lbs 5 oz and looks a lot like her older sister did about a year and a half ago.

Ann-Marie is doing well and getting some well deserved rest. Now that it is over I think she is looking forward to being able to brag about having done it old school since we had no time for any drugs. I don't think I have ever heard anyone yell "OH CRUDDY!!" with such vigor...

Halloween Fun

This is a birthday cake I made (all cupcakes) for Rycam's 5th birthday. Bryan was key to the success of the design...the final product was holding a balloon.

Carving Pumpkins - Tori didn't last as long as this year as she did last year...after this little photo, she decided it was time for a bath!

Notice the bat-shaped mouth on the left pumpkin! A very creative Bryan came up with the design.

Tori dressed up ready to go trick-or-treating - definately NOT wanting to get her picture taken! We were all from Japan this year for Halloween. I LOVE Halloween...this year was a little different, but still fun - all of the anticipation of candy and trick-or-treaters...so fun!

OctoberFest 2009

The mighty Shirley's went to Pumpkinland to see the pumpkins and the cornmaze etc. Some of these pumpkins were as big as Tori D! In the picture below, she's contemplating the wonders of God's creations!

Grandma and Grandpa Shirley are on a road trip and will not be here for Halloween, but Grandma made sure she gave Tori a Halloween suprise. This is Dada reading Tori her card from Grandma and Grandpa...she LOVES her Halloween book!
The weather has been cooler these days and Tori is getting a little bigger (yeah, not a whole lot, but her legs are a little bit longer)- at least long enough to push herself on her bike all by herself. She knows the sign for "bike" and always signs it when she hears the word bike. SO stinkin' smart!

Sometimes as a parent your first instinct is to say "no" to every little thing. No, you can't write on the table, no, you can't play in the toilet, no, this, and no that. I almost fell in to the "NO" trap when Tori wanted to help me make pot pies...but I didn't want to stiffle her creative flair for cooking/baking, so I let her help. Dada pulled a chair up for her and she just kinda took over (although I'm pretty sure she really didn't know what she was doing - she just knew she had to hold the big stick and touch the flour :) I can't wait until she's old enough to help make cookies and then decorate them with me! Too bad my nephews aren't here - they would help me for sure!

Last week, Tori and I went up to Ogden to see my cousin Paul get married. Here he is with his wife and dad (my uncle Vern - yep, the same uncle that just married off his daughter - how is that for timing? All of his kids married off in the same fall - not bad!) and Telina's (my cousin) kids. The little ones totally remembered Tori from Jessie's wedding, and she had fun chasing them around and they loved chasing her.
This has been a fun October so far, but we'll have even more fun in this last week of the month as we take Tori trick-or-treating. I have been trying to teach her to say that magical phrase, but all she does is look at me like, "hugh? Why are you so weird mom!" Stay tuned for photos of Halloween!

Below is a video I took of Tori at the pumpkin farm - "jumping" on their blow-up trampoline thing. She would just stare at the other kids' legs and then make a whole hearted attempt to jump - all while we laughed at our little explorer!

Cute as a Bug Dancin' on a Rug

So here is our cute little bug. Don't you just love overalls?? This photo was taken a few days ago, the day my back gave out and my legs gave out a couple of times at work. I left work early, after being escorted out -Peggy wouldn't give me a choice :) Yesterday the Doc put me on bed rest for a couple of days with the good news of it only being muscle spasms (not my discs as I origionally thought). When I took this picture, I was feeling great - amazing how fast a body can turn on you :) It could be a LOT worse, so I'm grateful my body still works and am even MORE grateful for a self-less mother-in-law that came over the minute she found out and has been here ever since to help with Tori. There is NO way I would be able to do it without her. I LOVE you Carolyn!!

Below is a little video I took the same morning (before I got Tori dressed). I think she must have learned "ring around the rosies" in nursery because this is how she has been dancing since Sunday. Kinda funny...as soon as I turned Phantom of the Opera on, she was rearin' to dance. I didn't get the camera in time to film her running in place :)

Tori D

There aren't any pictures of Tori with this lil' post, but I wanted to write about Tori. Today was her first day alone in the nursery - to get practice at going (since she doesn't turn 18 months until next month). I was only going to take her the last hour since she gets way too much attention from our primary class, but she was wandering during sharing time, so I brought her in early - which was good for her because it was during singing time - her favorite!! She did really well and I guess she loved the cheese cracker snacks :)

During sacramant meeting, she likes to lead the music and during one song in particular today, she was going full blast with the waving arm. The family behind us was laughing so hard that Tori turned around gave a shy smile and quit conducting the music. Funny that someone so little can still get embarassed. I do have to admit that she was doing a fabulous job. She was so into it, I think she must have really felt something from the music.

Also during the sacrament portion of the meeting, I have a couple of books that Tori can look through, one being my old missionary flip chart and the other is a book my mom made to help the kidlets stay focused on Jesus. We were flipping through the book my mom made and we came to a picture of Christ on the cross. Tori has seen the picture before, but for some reason today, as soon as she saw it, she said, "uh oh." It's AMAZING how much a little one can soak in and comprehend, and then vocalize in their own words.

On another note...my good friend Peeps got married yesterday in the Logan temple, so here are a couple of photos of the fun day. All these weddings are so fun and exciting that I am exhausted - it's been GREAT catching up and seeing friends and family the last couple of weeks! My eyes couldn't even stay awake long enough last night to turn the bedroom light off...in fact I woke up about 3 times to turn it off, but before I could reach my hand out to turn the lamp off, I was asleep again! Luckily today is Sunday, a day of rest! Tomorrow will be another play day with my friend Anne. We're going to listen to records and make pastries and catch up! Fun times!

Makin' Jam & Playin' in the Cottage

My cousin Jessie was married this past Friday and so Tori and I went up for the big day, and to support my uncle Vern. Mom flew in and my great-aunt Helen and her husband also drove in for the event (other family members came as well). Helen wanted a 4-generation group picture, and this is as close as we could get since my grandma passed away several years ago.
Bryan has been finishing half of the basement, so I thought I would post a couple pics of our favorite part - "The cottage" playhouse under the stairs. As you can see, Tori is already having a ball playing inside. (This is a shot of Tori helping dada put up sheetrock inside and taking measurements.)

This is a front shot of the playhouse with sheetrock. We're planning on painting it to look like red brick, putting shutters on the outside of the windows and having a porch light on the left-hand side. There will be shingles on the top part of the roof. We might be playing inside more than Tori :) Vern helped Bryan with the electrical work, so now Bry is a pro!

My great-aunt Helen picked a plethora of peaches from Vern's house and decided that I needed them, so after making 6 batches of peach freezer jam, I thought I should make another flavor...here is Tori helping me make raspberry jam (super easy, but not quite as cheap as the peach jam with free peaches!)

Notice the big black pot??? This was one of the treasures Vern gave to me when we were up at his house. There are a lot more suprises, but I can't spill the beans, since Bry hasn't seen them yet :) The pot will be perfect for Halloween though because we can put candy inside or make homemade rootbeer in the cauldron. So many possibilities!

Look at Farmer Tori move!

So...a few weeks ago, Tori decided that she was ready to walk and forget crawling altogether! After we had tried to get her to walk, she was ready to do it on her own. As a matter of fact, it was a week after our Francis family reunion, so my mom has been looking on the blog everyday to see if we posted a video...sorry mom. Here it is, and Tori is even wearing a pair of overalls that my mom brought down. Sorry the video is sideways, but I can't figure out how to turn it after I've taken it sideways. If you listen past my commentary, you can hear Tori saying mouth and grandma, etc.