Tori's new fascination

We have one of those barnyard magnets on the fridge for Tori. You know, the kind where you match up the front and back of the animals and farmer Bob plays his banjo. We also have her bumbo on the kitchen floor for when she used to sit in it while I gathered her bag for daycare in the morning. Well, this is what we witnessed on Christmas morning. She pulled off all the animals, one by one, and dropped them in her bumbo. She was so proud!


She does this more and more often now. We have the Playskool ball popper. While it's on, she pulls them all off and puts them on the floor next to her. Once they aren't coming out anymore, she puts them all back in through the chute they came out of. Same thing with her box of blocks. It absolutely fascinates me to watch it.

Tori's first Christmas

Christmas season started with pictures with Santa! As my sister and Shawna and we were getting out of the car at the mall, some random told us not to bother. Santa's elves were having computer problems, so the line was forever long. We agreed to eat lunch first then go check it out. We got to Santa while he was at break, but decided we'd wait it out. Yay, he came back! First kid goes...computer stops working again! But this time it was fixed much quicker. But by now, Tori's getting tired, so any chances of a smile were shot. Still a cute picture.

Later, I was wrapping presents while Min was out one day. Tori decided to help me. She's not so great with the tape yet...

On Christmas Eve, we went to church. We switched out the usual midnight mass for the 6:30 mass. After that, we went to dinner at Bash with Min's family. After such an exciting night, we had a sleepy baby on the way home.

Yay! Christmas morning. She didn't do as good with even the wrapping paper as I would have thought. But she still really loved all of her gifts. She was interested for literally a second, then decided it was too much work. But here are a couple of Christmas morning pictures.

These were her gifts from us.

We went to my sister's for breakfast. Shawna got a Zhu Zhu pet that Tori did NOT like. :( It came towards her. She pushed it away with 2 hands, screamed, and ran to Min. She kinda dug Tim's new socks, though! She got a Little People dump truck and SUV and a play phone from Aunt Denise and Uncle Tim.

Then off to mom and dad's for Christmas dinner. And more presents!!! She hasn't figured this out completely yet, but she got a cool walker toy. As well as some fun blocks and a xylophone.

We had a great turkey and ham dinner. Tons of desserts. Of course, Tori ate anything and everythign we put in front of her. Except for the second bite of watermelon. She spit that one back out at me. I guess she didn't like it so much...

All in all, Christmas was great!

10 Month Checkup

Has it been 2 months already?!?

height - 28 1/4 (53%)
weight - 17 lb, 13 oz (19%)

milestones - pulls herself up to standing and has started letting go; speaks a number of syllables non-stop; eating almost everything we give her and drinking water and a mix of grape juice and water from sippy cup; 2 bottom teeth and 4 top teeth; and loves investigating her hands and wrists and using them to wave and pull her fingers on either hand (her idea of the "more" sign, I think); mimics us with kissing, sticking out her tongue, and playing hide and seek with a shirt or blanket herself; eczema is showing improvement!!!

problems - still dry skin, but face is getting better

The appt went great. I think it's weird that her growth slowed down so much. She only grew 1/4 of an inch from last time, which explains why she's been in the same onesies for what seems like forever! But the Dr. didn't seem concerned, so I'm not concerned.

Our living room floor will temprorily be less cluttered as we decided to put away the Exersaucer, the play mat/gym thingy, and the swing. I'm sure something bigger will take it's place soon, but it will be nice to have some free space again!

Standing tall!

Ok, so she doesnt' necessarily KNOW she's standing. But she's standing. She'll start playing wiht whatever is in her hands and just let go of the sofa. She's doing it more and more. It's so fun! I'm hoping Santa brings her one of those push toys for Christmas. I'm excited for the activity table thing we got her. Maybe she'll be able to walk around it!

On a completely unrelated note, when did you guys start putting tv on for your kids. She's 10 months, and I've put cartoons on the tv for her almost never. It's not really a conscious choice...I just am not ready to give up our tv. :) So needless to say, she's watched a lot of Law and Order and Food Network. She's seen the Baby Bach dvd a total of 5 times.

And her first Thanksgiving was awesome! She ate turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes. :) It was so fun feeding her all that food!