An Easter Birthday! 3 Times Over!

HaPpY 3rd BiRtHdAy MiSs ToRi BuG!

First of all...I cannot believe that my baby is 3 years old! :) To me she was just born yesterday! Here are some cute little things about Tori...I mean you probably already know all of these things, but just in case...

10 CUTE things about Tori:

1-She is not only fun to be around, but she is funny! She makes me laugh all the time because of her cute little antics and funny little phrases (my favorite is when she randomly says "Holla").

2-She loves all things Princess...which also now includes Tinkerbell.

3-She is a dancer...if I could, I would have uploaded a video of her dancing the cutest dance, but I have issues with that as you all know. She has to pick the CD (and put it in the CD player...and press the play button by herself) and when the music is on so is her pink dance skirt. Then she outfits Brooke in her rainbow skirt and they dance the morning away!

4- She can SING. This girl can really hold a tune! She is going to be a great little singer. She sings all the Primary songs that she has learned and she knows just about every Disney and Wiggles song ever invented.

5-She loves to dress up and transforms into everything from a princess to a cowgirl.

6-She always gives hugs at the best times...you know, when you are feeling down or when you least expect it!

7-She says the cutest little prayers! No one else in the family has given a prayer since December! She has to say every prayer. We thought that she would get tired of it, but she is still going strong!

8-She LOVES bugs! It is ridiculous...she almost ate a worm the other day because she wanted to be like Mr. & Mrs. Robin (the robins that live on the side of our house). Any day that it is in the least bit sunny you can see Tori hanging out in the dirt to find some Roly Poly bugs or on her stomach watching the ants.

9-She runs to the window every morning to wave good-bye to her daddy and knows the minute the garage opens and runs to the gate to greet him.

10-Last, but not least, the CUTEST thing about Tori is TORI! She is one beautiful girl. We still do not have a color for her eyes, so I guess we will just have to say that they are hazel. I think that her eyes are the first thing noticed by strangers and she gets many a compliment. She uses these eyes for good and for evil (mostly to get her own way). She is already a heart breaker... YIKES!

So if you already didn't see from our last blog (Spring!) my parents came to Meridian to celebrate Tori's birthday and Easter. Yep...Easter and Tori's birthday were on the same day. We decided to celebrate her birthday at Red Robin (probably one of Tori's favorite restaurants). As you can see she LOVED her Sundae. (Oh...and that picture of Brooke is of her playing Peek-a-Boo and it is too cute for words!). We thought that this would be a pretty fun way to celebrate before her Sunday Easter/Birthday celebration...little did we know that we had a surprise for us the next day.


Grandma & Grandpa Dinger came up! It was an amazing surprise! My parents and Jason's parents are besties. It was fun to see them talk and have fun together. I am really glad that Dennis and Gwen made the drive. So...Tori got to celebrate again at Olive Garden (another one of her favorite restaurants) which means another sundae! I love the Grandma sandwiches with Brookie and Tori in between. While we waited to be seated Tori made sure to kiss and hug every single tree. (That is definitely part of my Oregonian genes!)


The first night that the Dingers joined our crew we played Phase 10. This game lasted all weekend! Finally we set a time limit and Grandma Frann took us all down! Tori loved playing outside with everybody. Here they guys are playing a little "net less" badminton and a bit of keep away with Tori.


These are a little bit out of order, but that's alright...these are of the girls running like banshees in the backyard after the Easter egg hunt. We had to wear them out so they would take a good nap.


What a cute little family!


Tori finding all of her loot. She had a fun time searching for the eggs that Daddy and Grandpa Lee hid in the backyard. She found most of them, but we put all the M&Ms in a bowl so that they could share them in the end.


Brooke liked putting the eggs in the basket. She thought it was pretty funny that someone would hide eggs on the slide.


After the Easter Egg hunt we came back inside for some lunch and a movie. I tried to get a cute picture of Tori in her dress and this was the best that I could do. Tori loves to snuggle with Grandpa. I think Brooke is teething...she always has her finger in her mouth. and of course she has to get into mischief by climbing everything in sight...what a monkey!


After dinner (ham, peas, homemade rolls, and mashed potatoes) we celebrated Tori's 3rd birthday yet a 3rd time. This is the little cake she picked out. White with sprinkles. She liked opening all of her presents and cards (especially since all of her cards were sparkly). She got the Very Hungry Caterpillar stuffed animal and an art easel from Jason, Brookie and I. She got some little princess sandals, clothes and her favorite present...


a Tinkerbell outfit and Little Mermaid crown from Grandpa Lee & Grandma Frann. She was spoiled...but wait, she also got a card from Auntie Michelle and family. Yesterday we went to Target and she got the Tangled soundtrack and a little Tinkerbell toy. But there is still more to come from Auntie Lora & Auntie Marie. YIKES! Overall, she got a serious haul...but it won't be Easter on her birthday again until she is 82!

Spring!

Hurray! It has been sunny lately! Last week we enjoyed a lot of fun outside...I will let the pictures explain.

One day I was feeling...well, pregnant. I HATE hormones! So Jason bought me some beautiful flowers. Mind you, this doesn't happen all that often and I was really surprised. Aren't they gorgeous?! They are still alive and the other 2 yellow lilies have bloomed.


The girls were silly in the bath tub one day and I took some photos. Bubbles make anyone giddy!


Do you see the sunshine?! I LOVE it! And that is really how green our lawn is...I didn't even tamper with the color! Little Miss Sunshine LOVED the sun and ran around our lawn like a banshie. We bought the girls that cute little princes tent at DI for $2. They love to hide inside it. Tori got the basketball hoop for her birthday from Grandma and Grandpa Dinger. Brooke tested it out and SCORED! Brooke also thinks that she can ride Tori's tricycle, she can almost reach the pedals, but just ends up getting herself caught and falling over.


And for the newest member of our family....A SWING SET! Y.E.S! I told Jason that with a new baby coming at the end of the summer I would need something outside that would help me be sane and keep the girls occupied, so we bought a new swing set with our tax money. As you can see it is loved by all! They both LOVE it! It is the perfect size. My dad and I (mostly my dad) put the monster together.


This is Brooke exploring it for the first time. CUTE! She can climb up the stairs and go down the slide all by herself! Look...and a sneak peak...Grandma Frann playing with Brooke. The next blog will be filled with their visit!


What else says spring than all of the flowers blooming in our front flower bed! My tulips are budding too! YIPEE! I took these pictures during a lull at our garage sale. We needed to make room in our house and I was in desperate need of some maternity tops, so we had a garage sale. I never knew that we would be so successful! It was a miracle, really. I had enough to buy some maternity clothes and we have extra to buy some things that we need (garden supplies and seeds) and some things that we want too! I know that God really is watching out for our family!
HaPpY SpRiNg!

Grandma & Grandpa Dinger (plus other bonus material!)

Well, Grandma & Grandpa Dinger came to visit at the end of March and again the first week of April. On the first trip Auntie Joy accompanied them! Of course we did not get a picture. But there was a lot of fun to be had! Tori LOVES her Auntie Joy!

During the dry patches, we went outside and played on our patio. Brookie drove her little car, mowed the lawn and played on the slide. Everything is much more fun when Grandpa is there! She also loved to get big squeezes from Grandma.

This is our attempt at getting a picture of all 4 of them (mind you there are about 4 other shots not posted because I can never get all people in the picture to look at me at once! Tori loves to read a book, especially when someone else takes the time of day to read her 188 page Princess picture book! Good job Grandpa! Also there are 2 adorable pictures of Tori and Brooke. As you can see we are having some difficulty dressing Tori. She is wearing a 2T white shirt (which after this use became Brookie's), a 24 month sweater (which is a little short in the arms, but she LOVES it) and a 3T ruffle skirt (that almost falls off her hips)! She desperately needs new clothes, and she will be getting a whole bunch for her birthday in just a few day!

Here are the pictures of Tori exploring outside with Grandpa. Have I mentioned that this girl is totally into worms, bugs, beetles, etc.? It is hilarious. She loves to go out on our lawn and collect specimens and bring them all inside to play. YIKES. We then remind her that all bugs stay outside.

Every morning when Tori woke up she went to snuggle with Grandma on the couch! Well, the Dingers and Auntie Joy left on Tuesday and lo and behold, two nights later the Dingers were back to help us out with some much needed yard work. I promise to take some pictures of our success (pruning hedges, rose bushes, edging and mowing our lawn and rotatilling our garden). Our lawn looks so amazingly green and our spring flowers are blooming!

This is the way we watch Conference. Well, mind you this was the 2nd session on the 2nd day. We were worn out! The girls were surprisingly good and only got a little antsy towards the end of each of the two hours. Tori recognized the prophet and his counselors. It was pretty cute! I love snuggle time and Jason loves to be horse. (ok...well, maybe not all that much, but who could resist the riders?!)

Tori, Brooke, Grandpa and Daddy all went to the park after conference. Tori went down the slide by herself. Brooke loved exploring and running wild!
OK...I know, this collage is a little random, but I didn't want this blog to be longer than it already is! Please note that Brooke is wearing short sleeves outside! There was one day that it was warm enough that we needed to put sunblock on little miss Brooke. It was gorgeous and we were outside for 5 hours! AMAZING! Then the one in the left bottom corner is so cute of Tori and Brookie hanging out with Grandpa. Do you see those delicious and humongous cinnamon rolls?! They are a recipe that is the Food Network Magazines best bet on how the Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls are made. I tried making them the first time and for some reason the dang flour didn't rise (I am guessing my yeast was bad), but I tried it again and TADAH...delicious cinnamon rolls. Mmmmm.

After the Dingers left, it was back to the regular ho hum of normalness. So to break it all up Tori and I planted some cherry tomato plants for our garden. She thought this was the coolest thing ever. I wasn't so sure if these little guys were ever going to bloom, but in our kitchen are six little cups of dirt with tomato starts in them! Awesome!


Brooke learned to say "Thank you" which sounds more like "Tank Q" but it is adorable. She says that every time she is given something or gives something to me. She also says "Yo elcome" for your welcome. These pictures are of her eating taco soup for lunch. She LOVES taco soup!
Brooke looked so cute in this dress that I had to get a photo session with her. But she was binky dependent, so with the binky it was. Look...I am in a photo! Too bad they are both blurry! It was mostly due to bad lighting. Can you see the stronghold that I had her in?! She barely stayed for both pictures. I cannot believe that she is already wearing this dress...click here to see Tori in it last March.

It's a...

GIRL

I am really having a hard time with this one. I really want to be happy and excited that I am having another girl, but I guess that is what will happen every time we find out the sex... I am going to remember Spencer and remember that I once has a little boy and I never got to raise him. I still have all of his little clothes that have never been worn and that I will long to put on my little boy. I wish that I wasn't so sad and depressed, but I am. I am having a hard time. I wish that I could just be happy that she is healthy and has all of her parts. I know I will be eventually, and really I know I am somewhere down deep inside. I think that I should have just kept this one a secret, then I couldn't have been disappointed to hold a sweet new little baby girl in my arms. I think it will just take time....and I feel bad about that...I should be happy NOW...I guess I am sad that I am sad about it.
So as I go through a box of kleenex mourning for my little Spencer wishing that I had my sister, my mom, a cheeseburger & some really good chocolate, you can check out the cute little pictures of our little girl number 3. I hope that she looks like me! :) I didn't include the one that says she is a girl because it was a little too up close and personal (if you know what I mean!).


Well, here she is. She is measuring a little small, but like all of my babies, she will be small. You can see her little left hand at the bottom of the picture!

In this one you can just make out her right hand and her right leg.

There are a whole bunch of limbs in this picture...maybe you can figure it all out!

Here her little right hand is next to her little face. She kind of looks like Tori here.

This one is a little harder to see, but these are her feet.

I LOVE this picture. Isn't it so neat? You can see all of her little bones in both her left leg and arm! AMAZING...and I think that she is only the size of a banana. Truly a miracle.

More legs.
Well, I hope I didn't depress you. I really am happy inside somewhere. She will be cute little bean. And here is to hoping that I get myself a pinto bean!

Once there was no blogging,,,

...and all were wondering why? Why would Kendra do such a thing? Why would she deprive us of the strange ramblings of her brain and cute pictures of her children. Well, I decided that we needed to paint the den, a project that I thought was going to take a week or so lasted 3 weeks. YIKES! But boy does our den look fabulous. Our den will soon become the computer/library/workout room/craft room/guest room! We are still in the process of transitioning things from room to room to make room for the little bean (which, by the way, we get to find out the sex next Monday at 10! Wehew!). So you think you may have seen really long blogs, but this one may blow them all out of the water! :) I am in the process of uploading a video (cross your fingers that it works) and I think there are 10 collages (this is not counting a future blog of all of the pictures taken during Grandma and Grandpa Dinger's visit...they already have 5 collages!) But you know...if you don't want to read my gab then just look at the pictures and see how my cute girls keep on growing like weeds!


Meet Princess Victoria. Tori is really into dressing up and I finally got some pictures of her in her cute little princess outfit that includes the pink skirt, pink tiara and pink puff high heels. I told her to pose like a princess (the top left picture) and she posed just like her little plastic Belle with her hands clasped together. She also loves to dance in her pink skirt because it makes a really big flare. She is sooo adorable.


Brookie is talking like a mad woman. For the past 3 weeks I have written all of the words and phrases that she knows. Here it is: done, boo, wee, yeah, yay, no, go, Aurora, mommy, mama, daddy, dada, amen, beep, moo, Dora, E-I-E-I-O, meow, baby, wa-wa-wa (pretend crying), poporn (popcorn), in, pull, bow wow, down, rea (read), book, kiki (kitty), bye-bye, hi, whoa, oh-no, "my baby" (I say this phrase all the time to her when she snuggles with me), "I lu you" (I love you), ou-sy (outside), ball, book, tain-q (thank you), "I know you" (which is Aurora's theme song and she also sings all of the middle when Aurora just sings ah, ah, ah, ahs...it is quite adorable and she sings it all day long and anytime she holds a princess) and she also sings the wheels on the bus. Can you believe that?! She is just going to be 17 months! As for the pictures, she likes to be a monkey and I found her one day trying to climb on our kitchen counters. She thought she was pretty cool. And of course, her favorite book is Jesus the Christ (which I finally finished!). She would sit on the couch and pa-rouse the pages every morning. So I had to snap some shots.


I have mentioned before that my girls love to listen to music and dance, well, Tori was really into the Wiggles CD Top of the Tots which included the song "Cow Boys and Cow Girls". She has seen the video and learned the dance that went along with it, so every time the song comes on she gets out her hat and does the boot scoot. It is adorable. As you can tell by the change of outfits, we listen to this CD almost every day.


Who doesn't want to see Brookie eat spaghetti?!


Some silly pictures of Miss Tori.


These are some of Tori's paintings from the many rainy days we played inside. The bigger one that is brown and orange is a lion.


One of Brooke's favorite pass times is to talk on the phone. I love that she speaks with the phone behind her head!


Tori gets more independent every day. Some of her new feats, brushing her teeth by herself and using the bathroom by herself (meaning that she screams "STAY" and charges to the bathroom and closes the door and goes all by herself). She still needs help with a few things like finding the front of her undies, but she is getting better (if we could just get the pee in the toilet and not on the floor, rugs, shirts and socks!). She also likes to brush her teeth all by herself...more like she likes to eat the toothpaste, drink water from her toothbrush and spit in the sink. Ha ha ha. (I didn't think that it would be appropriate to take photos of toilet time...YIKES!). Is she not so cute when she lets me do her hair!?


Well, as you can see, uploading the videos did not work. BUT luckily I got a few pictures of Brooke at the duck pond! Isn't the swan beautiful. The girls LOVE to visit the duck pond. I am tired...so this all you get for now. But I am sure that this will last you a few days. :)