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).

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.