Tori's 2nd Shindig..and the basement

For those of you that couldn't come to Tori's birthday Elmo Party, I am giving you a play by play so you can feel like you were there :) When my mom asked me how the party way, I said, "It was AWESOME!!" Then she asked how Tori liked it :) I had been looking forward to it for some time...but I think Tori liked it too :)

The invitation was on red paper and had a photo of Elmo with presents on the front...on the inside it said:

It's a Party!!

Tori's turning 2 and she's inviting YOU!

What: An Elmo Party

When: Saturday

Time: 2:00-2:45-ish

Where: Tori's house (and address)

We hope you can come and hav some cake, come at 2:00 and don't be late!

Don't worry about gifts, your presence is best, come on Saturday for an Elmo-fest!

We started out coloring an Elmo coloring sheet (thanks to sesamestreet.org) and we were going to use that same sheet to pin the nose on Elmo after everyone was ready. Tori's new little table in the corner of the photo actually came in very handy...I'm just not sure if she realizes it was for her birthday too...
Pin the nose on Elmo. The older kids were blindfolded...the wee ones just tried to pin the nose in the right place! We did this downstairs in the playroom...the kids also were able to play in the playhouse.

Then it was back upstairs for Elmo cake, ice cream and Elmo juice. The cake didn't turn out exactly as I had imagined, but the photo looks alright...

Make a wish! Actually, it was more like...blow out the candles Tori...blow...like this....whhhhhh...Tori, blow out the candles...blow...blow...(I finally just blew them out)

YUM! Chocolate cake with fresh strawberries (Tori's fav) and whipped cream. And Elmo juice.

Then it was off to presents, although I mentioned not to worry about bringing anything, she received LOADS of fun stuff.

After presents, the kids decorated Elmo cupcakes, took an Elmo balloon (not pictured) and an Elmo coloring sheet and went home. It was a BLAST!

Tori in her new Elmo jammies...boy jammies yes, but none of us care since Elmo in on the front! :)


Photos of the downstairs...

This is the outside of the playhouse. The shutters turned out great thanks to Bryan! It was fun to have it finished by Tori's party cause the kids were able to play inside!

The view of the basement looking into the playroom...we're hoping Kristen will be willing to paint nursery rhymes on the wall). The rock wall and hearth were accomplished due to Bryan's hard work. I helped with the grout because of my super piping skills. The woodburning stove is still in the garage, but it will go in the open space :) I think a piece of fuzz is floating by the mantle! If you look close at the carpet in front of the wooden door, you'll notice the carpet changes color....apparently our carpet was the end of the roll and the color faded really good...too bad it wasn't under the archway...the carpet guys are coming again in a week or so to rip up this carpet and put the new stuff down (hopefully one color). As you look at the photos and wonder why we haven't decorated...mostly it's because of the upcoming removal, but also because since Friday, when it was installed, we haven't had a lot of time. We're just happy that it's finally done...well, almost.

A look at the top of Laeni's head and the windowsill. Bryan did a fabulous job on the pine piece above the 1/4 log sill. You'll have to come to our house to get a good look!

Here is a video at Tori's birthday party. This is mostly for Grandma Francis. I tried to get a video of Tori for Grandma Shirley, but Bryan took her tiger music maker away just as I was filming...sorry.

Spring Fun

What a cute girl with a sporty mohawk!

Dying Easter Eggs...Tori even sampled the vinegar.

Easter Egg hunt at Kim's house...each kidlet got 40 eggs!!!! (We are counting them to be sure we didn't go over our quota!)

Before the hunt...we had gone to one earlier in Payson, but the other kids' parents were OUT of control...swiping as many eggs as they could get their hands on. Let the kids have a lil fun! Kim's house was much more calm...plus this time we dressed Tori a LOT warmer (notice the snow pants - it was blizzard the following day!)

Trying to go potty...she likes to sit and try to push something out, but the best we've had was a toot.

Tori sporting her Easter dress, the week before Easter, when it was actually sunny!

Dad and the girls

Tori sampling daddy's salad "Cami's special salad"

Marathon

Just back from Japan where all 3 of us completed the Tokyo Marathon. It was pretty awesome. There were 35,000+ runners and they estimated about 1 million spectators. There were so many cheering us on that after hearing "GANBATTE!!" 1 million times even Darren could understand (it means hang in there or don't give up). It was about 35 degrees and raining for the first half or so, then it cleared up and was blue skies by the time we finished. Speaking of time, Darren finished with a personal best at 4 hrs 19 min. J and I both finished under 5 hrs so we were pretty excited.

I have spent the week doing pretty much nothing - it has been 1 week and my legs still hurt, but I am about ready to start running again. Will I ever do another marathon? For sure. Even though my legs hurt worse than I could have imagined and I could barely walk for a week, it was all a way cool experience and the pain wasn't as strong as the great feeling of having done it!

Tokyo Marathon

Bryan and his brothers (Darren & J)have been training for the Tokyo Marathon and it's just around the corner. With Bryan's training has also come Tori's preparations...

Wear Comfortable running shoes

Weight training on the non-running "off" days (follow a strict schedule for marathon training!)

...and ALWAYS stretch!
Good luck at the Marathon Shirley Boys!

Catching up...

Before you begin reading this post, can you tell me what famous person this looks like? I'll give you a hint - it's a man! Now on to the regular news...

The girls are asleep and I should be working since I stayed home to take care of the two little sickies (the second photo above is not from this week, but the first one is). Tori has "RSV-like" symptoms. I took her into the InstaCare on Saturday night and they checked her O2 which was low and took x-rays of her lungs then gave her a nubulizer treatment. We are now doing the treatments at home. Monday, I called our regular doc to see if I should do anything to keep Laeni safe and they asked if she was coughing and throwing up - yes to both..."bring her in". Good news is that she has clear lungs...bad news is that she has an ear infection. After we got home from the doctor and waiting an hour at Walgreens (they had a few problems mixing Laeni's meds) I noticed Tori had big green boogies in her right eye...GGGRrrrrr. So, this morning I called the doc straighaway and so far we don't have to make another trip to the doc...as long as the eye stays clear. It glued itself shut this morning, but hasn't been full of gunk since. Keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer for us that these little cuties are done getting sick for awhile.

Usually I'm a mom that doesn't allow much TV besides an occasional sign language video or Disney show...but not the last couple of days. Tori asks for Elmo and we watch Elmo videos on-line. She wants to watch a "ruff-ruff" and I pop in Disney dog movie (one of the two we own :) She has been so sick that she just crys and lays down, or wants to be held, or wants "Elmo." So...she gets exactly what she wants. I have even let her have her bink all day long a couple of days. All of this video watching has been helpful so I can hold the nebulizer up to her mouth. (They gave us a fish face to put over her mouth that she can breathe the meds through, but she refuses, so we do what we can).

On the 31st of January, our lil' Elaenia was blessed. We had the blessing in our home since we still haven't taken her out much...turns out she got sick anyway! Bummer. She was a little doll. Didn't even cry until the very last. Bry did a great job and now she's official! My mom flew in from Seattle and suprised us...well, Bry knew, but us girls didn't. My uncle Vern drove her down and were sitting on the couch when I came upstairs. Very fun. There were about 30 people here to share this special day with Laeni and the rest of the fam. Thank you all for coming all this way to see us. The main photo above is from that same day. Everyone looks great except I look like I have a helmet on. Not the best hair day I guess for me. Oh well..Enjoy the pics...

My girls

How can you not LOVE smiling babies?? Big and small??

There's a video at the bottom of this post of Laeni smiling - the first couple of seconds at least.

Elaenia had her 2 month check up today...looks good. Measuring the 20th% for all but head=50% The doctor said she has a perfectly shaped head (due largely in part, I'm sure, because she desires to be held and snuggled A LOT)...hey, we need to do our part to ensure the asthetics of our baby's head shape!

This is how I found Tori when I went to tuck her in one last time before I crawled into my own bed...not sure how having your ankles in the bars can be comfortable, especially since she's always rolling around at night. (And yes, Tori does still take her binky at night)

Me and Tori bond by eating graham crackers and milk....usually chocolate grahams, but we ran out, so here we're eating the dull honey kind :)

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).