Home Owners!

Hurrah, we were finally able to close on our house this evening! Buying a home is definitely an interesting undertaking. I have never felt so in the dark about such a huge decision. But, we were definitely guided to people that walked us through every step of our home-buying journey and took good care of us in the process! Jared and I are really excited to now own our first home! I'm a little sad that I have no photos to document such an auspicious occasion - but I think all involved would have thought I was a little crazy if I had whipped out the camera! Here's to our first home, we love it already!!!

Sweet Days of September

As another month draws to a close, we once again have a ton of pictures of Tori! Here are a few more of our fun memories from September!

I love it when she smiles with her tongue stuck out! You may notice a few bumps and bruises from our camping trip :)

You can tell you have had a rough day when your forehead, nose, and chin are all scraped up!

We gave Tori some ice cream on her birthday, but I think it was way overshadowed by the chocolate cupcake. We decided to try it again all by itself, and it was a big hit - even being eaten with fingers!!!

This is one of Tori's new favorite places to play or just hang out!

These two pictures just make me laugh - so many fun things to play with!!!

Tori loved getting everything ready for Grandma Allen to come visit (she comes today)!!!

Jared has been working with Tori on how to go down the stairs. The funny thing is, she now applies that to every obstacle, no matter how tall or short. She will turn around and back off of it - so cute!!!

I thought it was so cute when Tori would crawl as fast as she could to meet Jared when he got home. But, it is even better when she runs over to greet him!!!

These two still love their naps together - and are occasionally joined by Puppy!!!

Daddy's shoes make great exercise equipment - it really seemed like a struggle to haul this around. It totally cracked me up when she would grunt each time she picked it up, walk only a short distance, and then set it down to take a rest before trying again!

Happy September to you all; we hope you have enjoyed it too!!!

A Balancing Act

Recently, Tori has taken to balancing things on her head. It started with lids and has now progressed to her ABC bath toys! She usually only gets one on there!

But tonight she pushed herself and tried for two...

and ended up getting three!!!

Hurrah for another great accomplishment in the life of Tori Mae!!!

All Boxed In

Tori has an incredible knack for when to pull out fun new things she can do. She tends to shoot for Sundays when she has the biggest audience! I don't know how many times we have been in the middle of a webcam call with one of our families when out of nowhere Tori will do something brand new, to the delight of everyone!. Well, this Sunday was no difference. Halfway through our chat with Jared's family, Tori went over to her toy box and decided that she wanted to get a little, or a lot, closer to her toys and climbed right in! The funny thing is she has never even tried it before, at least not when we have been looking.

Once she was in, she then had to figure out how to get out!

Which seemed a little harder!

Once that was ironed out, getting in and out was a great game for the rest of our chat!

I love it when Tori figures out new things, it is just so fun seeing her interact with the world around her!!!

Linus

Tori has discovered a great new thing - her blanket! Up until today, she has really never paid her blankets much mind. This afternoon I heard her playing in her room, which always makes me a little nervous. We really have no toys in their yet. Shortly thereafter, Tori came out of her room with her prize in hand, she had tugged and pulled on her blanket to get it out of her crib! I'm not sure, but we might have a little Linus on our hands!!!

Yeah for blankets!

They are so much fun!!!

Dressing Up

Having a little girl in our family, we knew that playing dress up would come along sooner or later. I think that I expected to have to show Tori how to do this. But I think the dress up gene must come hardwired in little girls! After Tori received her two tutus for her birthday, I set them out by her toy box for down the road - or so I thought. A few days ago Tori brought me one of her tutus and then sat down on my lap. I put it on her and she had a fabulous time playing dress up!

I love how she also has the camera case wrapped around her!

But I just figured that it was a coincidence, that I had been the one to push her in that direction. Well, this afternoon Tori brought me both of her tutus and again waited for me to put them on.

This picture says it all...

Tori loves to play dress up!!!

We LOVE Baby Einstein

Some of you may remember that Tori hated tummy time, until we discovered Baby Einstein movies. All of the sudden she would tolerate being on her tummy for the duration of the movie - it was a miracle! Well, Tori's love of Baby Einstein seems to grow right along with her, which is still a fantastic thing for me. It is amazing how much I can get done while Tori is watching her shows (does that make me a bad Mom?). Jared and I love watching her get so into her movies!!!

We also love the many ways she watches. She watches standing up....

sitting down...

and kind of in the middle!

Hurrah for Baby Einstein, we are big fans!!!

Hangin' in the Kitchen

Tori loves to be in the kitchen! She loves playing with bowls, lids, silverware, and a new favorite- our dish towels. It cracks me up to watch her swipe towels and run around with them around her neck like so:

It really is amazing how fascinating lids can be!

One afternoon Tori had been helping me unload the dishwasher. I noticed that my little helper was taking a break and I hurried as fast as I could to get done. A few minutes later I heard what sounded like an exasperated little girl. This is what I found...

I have no idea how she got her sippey cup stuck behind her and I don't think she knew how it got there either!

Since Tori is now such a great helper, we tend to find our kitchen stuff all over our house.

And we find things that should be all over the house in the kitchen! (I love this video - I think our daughter is developing an attitude!)

So, even though it can get a little frustrating to have things spread everywhere, I love that we can hang in our kitchen together!!!

My Homecoming King!

This week was Homecoming at Pike High School. You might think that this would only be fun for the students - not so my friends. Jared has thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of this week and has even enjoyed dressing up every day! My favorites were Nerd Day on Wednesday...

and Mismatch Day on Thursday!

As you can see, Jared went all out on his costumes! A fact that I am sure was not missed by his students. This evening, Tori and I were able to join Jared for the Homecoming Carnival before the football game. We had a great time supporting all of the clubs at their various booths. Tori's favorite game by far was the Duck Pond -we played it twice!

Jared shows super concentration at the pop-a-balloon-with-a-pin-taped-to-a-pencil booth (I can't remember the real name!)

Jared and I thought that it would be fun to try the Face Painting Booth with Tori. The look on her face tells her side of the story!

After a few tries, we ended up with something that almost looked like a P - go Pike!

When it came down to it, Tori had a ball chewing, yes chewing, on the fence! I guess she just couldn't wait for the game to start!!!

And we weren't disappointed either, the game was awesome! Pike played so well and soundly thumped their opponents - what a great way to wrap up Jared's first Homecoming Week at Pike!!!

Camping 101

Jared, Tori, and I were able to meet up with Willie, Krista, Parker, and Lincoln this weekend for a fabulous camping excursion near Nashville, TN (the halfway mark between us and them). We had such a grand time just getting away from everything and enjoying a little bit of nature and whole bunch of family time! I loved watching Tori get to play with her cousins- especially now that she is walking. We had an almost impossible task of trying to keep rocks, leaves, and sticks out of Tori's mouth - I don't get why she thinks they taste so good. We had a great time enjoying our late night chats around the campfire with Willie and Krista - so nice to get to really talk and catch up on everything. And of course we had some amazing camp food - especially the yummy smores and an awesome peach-raspberry dessert Krista made for us! We are so glad that we took this trip and hope that there will be many more like it in the future!!!

Here are some (really- this is only a fraction of the pictures I took) of my favorite pictures and a few videos from our camping trip...

Here is Tori on our first night - trying out the local leaf cuisine!

Jared and Parker getting camp all set up - I loved watching the two of them together!

Parker gave a big 'thumb's up' on getting his tent all set up!

There is nothing better than watching cousins playing together - especially when they picked Willie and Krista's tent!!!

The doggie den/door was such a fun place to play - even if it got a little crowded!

Tori loved spending time with her Aunt Krista!

We got all ready to go swimming, and Tori decided she was ready for a nap. I love that she has one sock on and who knows where the other one is!!!

We did finally make it swimming and Tori loved every second!!!

This is one of my new favorite pictures of Jared and Tori - so stinkin' cute!!!

Tori loved playing in (and eating) the sand!

Yeah for family photos- thanks Krista!

Our resident grill masters- those were some tasty hamburgers and hot dogs!

Here is the whole happy group!

Tori was in heaven with a never-ending supply of rocks and sticks!

Of course, we had to take a few cousin shots. It was a little tricky getting them all situated...

The results -priceless!!!

Tori loved playing with Parker's trike - he was so nice to share with her!

Our last morning, Tori and Lincoln were discovered playing in the water- I think they were trying to get all cleaned up for the car ride home!

Hurrah for an awesome trip- the only bad thing is that it ended way too soon!