Happy Holidays

Daddy and his girls (well...at least the little ones)

Tori taking stuff out of her stocking one piece at a time....we had to keep telling her there was more candy in the stocking for her to go back and look again...

Tori and her cousins enjoying the gingerbread house. We'll see if Tori tries to eat the house next year before eating time...

So...Christmas has come and gone and we are now into a new year. As always, I was ready to open my prezzies at 3 am (actually, it was more like 1 am when I started telling Bryan that Santa Claus had come and we needed to go see what was in our stockings). True to form, Bryan told me we couldn't get up that early...so about every hour on the hour, I would ask and his reply would be the same.
Growing up, that's how we rolled...one of the kids would awake and see that Santa had come - sometimes that kid would look through their stocking before awaking the other kids, and sometimes we would do the waking up before we peered into our stockings. Nevertheless, it was usually at some obscene hour, and after waking our parents, we would open presents, eat bubble bread, play for a bit and then go back to sleep....to wake up a few hours later and play again. Here are a couple pics of the girls and their loot. Elaenia is wearing the Christmas nightgown that my sister wore when she was celebrating her very first Christmas (many moons ago).

Christmas-time

So...we have been busy since Bry has been home from Ghana...mostly we've been busy eating, sleeping and eating some more!! Tori is eating something (I'm sure chocolate - there's a chance that it might be raisins, but I wouldn't bet on it).

We did get Christmas photos of the girls and even managed to arrive at Santa's place! Tori knows Santa says "ho,ho,ho" but she hasn't figured out how wonderful he is to bring toys and goodies to all little girls & boys!

Dad's not so sure about any of this!
Tori's food fest began the night we made the gingerbread house...since then, she pulls us into the kitchen to get her a "snack" which really means candy. She has recently learned the signs for candy, cookie, cracker, apple, etc. Let's just say that the apple sign is only used when she's doing her puzzle. I'd like to say that as a Dietitian, my daughter loves to eat healthy food - but lately, it's all about the candy and Christmas goodies. We also had fondu the other night - Bryan splurged and although you can't see Tori's face because the photo keeps disappearing, it was- Excitement! We'll have to do that again!

More Christmas photos to come!

Snow days & visit from Grandma

3rd Annual Shirley Gingerbread House

Grandma Francis came for a visit to meet Elaenia and to help me out. It was a fun and very FAST trip. It took her a little while to get out of Salt Lake County, but once she got to our house, we were snowed in :) Needless to say, she was checking the weather 24/7 - a little nervous for the trip home...

Tori doesn't have any real snow gear (yet), but we just had to go play in the snow while gramma watched Laeni. Here are the layers of Tori's "snow day play clothes"!

She's wearing my socks for mittens...but she'll be getting her own soon (mittens that is - not socks) The boots are ginormous, but we haven't been able to find any lil boots yet.

Tori wasn't feeling well :(

Elaenia's One Week Birthday!

I thought that since we had Elaenia a week ago, I'd post some more photos so you can get to know our newest family member...Her official name is Elaenia Marie Shirley. We thought about not having a middle name, but I thought she needed a family name in there (especially since Tori has a family name (Delene). Marie seemed to fit, although it made her whole name so long - Marie - kind of after me, and then I remembered that my Grandma's middle name was Marie. After we decided on Marie, Grandma Shirley and Aunt Cami mentioned that Marie would make a cute middle name - even before they knew we had selected it...it was meant to be :)

Cute one of Laney (or Laeni...not sure how we'll abbreviate her name) but not such a great shot of mom...luckily, this isn't about my 1st week :)

Dad has been through a lot...not as traumatic as last year watching the birth of Tori, but this birth still took a lot out of him :) Look how tired he is.

Getting right down to the dad stuff: playing and tickling!

My cute girls. This was right after Tori met Laney for the first time - Tori was napping when we arrived home...once she woke up, we introduced her to her lil sister and Tori has been in love ever since (I think). She comes running into our room yelling "daydee, daydee" (looking for the baby). When they first saw eachother, they were reaching for the other, almost as if to say, "Hey there, I've been waiting to see you again old buddy!"

Tori LOVES to "hold" daydee on her lap...

Eyes open...checking us all out!

Dad has been trying to make things fun for Tori, so he painted her toe nails...not bad for his first time - in fact, he did a LOT better than I have done...but maybe it's because Tori knows how to sit still now...

Bath time for lil Nakey-nakey.

Good Morning Bright Eyes!

Good Night Sweet little girl. She definately is not Tori...Tori had to be wrapped up tight like a burrito, but Laney likes to be lightly wrapped and able to wiggle.

One other little shot of Tori D. She LOVES frozen blueberries and so we thought we'd take a shot of the aftermath...if her finger is any indication of the blue/purple mess, just imagine her purple tongue (she wouldn't stick it out for this photo).

What a fast week in the Shirley house. What a blessing to have another sweet little spirit in our home! Happy Thanksgiving to you ALL.

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!