KC Royals!

A few weeks ago we took a mini-vaca to Kansas City to see the Royal's newly renovated stadium and maybe catch a glimpse of Rick Ankiel. We stopped in Hannibal, MO for an afternoon to break up the long drive. The first thing we did in Hannibal was tour a cave! Cameron cave looks the same way today as it did when it was discovered. There are no lights or paths created by humans. It is pitch black, a constant 57 degrees, and there are bats that inhabit the cave. We had to take Tori in Bjorn and we barely made it through some of the cracks (one was only 4 feet tall and 2 feet wide). It was definitely something different and we really enjoyed spelunking! Hannibal is famous because it is the birthplace of Mark Twain and is the basis for most of his stories! We got to see Mark Twain's boyhood home and lots of Tom Sawyer landmarks. Hannibal is a quaint little town with lots of shops and diners. A cute place to spend a weekend! After Hannibal we headed to Kansas City (The home of Royals baseball and Chiefs football). Brian has been wanting to see other baseball stadiums besides Busch so for his birthday he got Royals-Cardinals tickets and a Rick Ankiel Royals shirt. The Royals stadium is much less congested and so kid-friendly! They just spend $250 million to renovate their stadium including a gigantic 100ft tall by 50 ft wide high-def screen. Its the most impressive scoreboard we've ever seen! There are lots of family-oriented things to do there ($1 for kids to have a chance to hit a whiffle ball out of a small baseball field, run sprints down a base path, mini-golf, a jungle gym, and a baseball fountain that Tori loved!). It was amazing how many Cardinals fans where there! Brian was bummed that Rick Ankiel was on the DL but we still had a great time! And it's official that Tori is bad luck for the cards because we've lost both games she's been to :) But we'll forgive her because she's the cutest cardinals fan ever!

The diaper cover from her Cardinals Cheerleader outfit has a logo on the tush! I just couldn't help myself with this picture :)

11 Months

Tori is at such a cute age! She imitates everything we do! She loves to steal my toothbrush and help me brush my teeth and she grabs my makeup brush and brushes her own face with it. One of the cutest things she does right now is when she's playing with a phone she holds it up to her ear and says "heh-oh" (it sounds like hello without the "ll" sound). She is contently playing and moving. She's even WALKING! Yes, that right! She started really taking steps on her own last week. Yesterday she walked 6 feet before she fell. She can stand up by herself without pulling up on anything and just starts taking steps! I haven't gotten a good video yet because she's teething really bad (getting her bottom two molars at the same time) and has a cold so she's been pretty crabby the past couple of days and just want to be held most of the time. Over the past month she has been walking around the house alot using push toys to help her. She has decided now though, that she likes to climb into the hippo and be pushed around by mom and dad :) I don't think this toy was designed for this, but the hippo's ears make a great place for her to hold on with her little hands. Tori is also learning how to color all by herself (the crayon maybe upside down but it still works). Before it took alot of coaxing to get her to make marks on a paper.We were taking pictures in the back yard to use for her birthday party invitation and she decided she wanted to play on the gym set (hence the tutu). She loves to climb so this is perfect! She crawled over to the slide, pulled herself into the bottom of it, and started crawling up to the top! She actually made it all the way up by herself! (with mom and dad watching closely of course!). I think the tutu makes these pictures super cute!!
I can't believe we're already planning her first birthday party!! She's getting so big!!

Happy Father's Day!

We had a great father's day today. We spent the day in St Louis and went to the Cardinals game. Tori got Brian a special #1 dad shirt to wear on his first father's day. Not only did we go to the game for Father's day but it was Tori's first game. Brian has really been looking forward to taking her to a ball game. It was 98 degrees outside but she did fantastic! We invited my mom and Jeff along too. The tickets we had were great, thank you so much Jim! We feel like we had the best seats in the house since it was so hot out and our section was completely in the shade and there was a large air conditioned area behind our seats. I am so glad we got to do something that Brian loves on father's day. He deserves the best because he's the best dad!!

Brian had a mini-bat made to commemorate Tori's first game! He says its the start of her Cardinals collection :) He's such a great daddy! Unfortunately we lost the game but it was close and we had a great time.

Spaghetti Night

We let Tori feed herself spaghetti =) She LOVED it and had so much fun slurping up the noodles. She made a huge mess and we went straight to the tub to play some more!

Stair Master

Little miss Tori is in love with the stairs. She climbs up and down without help, just someone behind her to make sure she doesn't fall. She can scamper up a whole flight of stairs in just a few seconds, and she is coming up with some creative ways to get back down!

Happy Retirement Pam!

This past weekend we celebrated Brian's mom's retirement! Congrats Pam!!! Smash that alarm clock, sit back, relax, and have an umbrella drink at noon! :)

10 months

Little Miss Tori has made huge strides in starting to talk in the past month. After spending a week with Braden she picked up saying "Uh-Oh." It's SOOO cute and she knows to say it when she drops (or throws) something. She also says something that sounds like "daddy" and sometimes when you ask her a question she answers "yeah." She has also been saying "er-ul" and we think she's trying to say turtle (Braden's favorite word). She started waving to everyone and gets such a big smile on her face when they wave back. She also LOVES to dance. I'm working on editing a video of her dancing to post, she bobs her head to the music and sometimes shakes her tush while she's in the crawling position when she hears a song she likes. :) She has learned how to blow with her tongue out to make a tooting sound and she does that pretty frequently now. She's such a happy girl and is always giggling and smiling. She brings so much joy to our family! We love her so much!!