Frozen Beach Visit

We made a token visit to the beach, knowing it was really cold, and it was! The kids only lasted about a minute outside, and could barely stand for the picture, before running for the warm car.

Cold Ice Cream

We had just finished swimming at the Astoria Pool, and it was still very cold outside, but the girls still insisted on having their traditional ice cream at Custard King. Here's a picture of the kids shivering as they eat their ice cream outside.

Coffee at the Beach

Here's a shot of us at the beach, walking to coffee and hot cocoa at Adelaide's. It was snowing and raining just a little bit ago.

Gingerbread House

 First the girls made chains to mark how many days until Christmas.  They could hardly wait until Tor took his nap to be able to decorate their gingerbread house.

This is the very colorful finished house.  They had a lot of fun decorating and eating the candy.  Then I wanted a picture, which was challenging, maybe because of the sugar, but they were being two silly girls.  We finished the afternoon with the Rudolph movie.

Basketball with Brock

Jillian's second basketball workout was with Brock.  This time they went for almost an hour.  In this drill Jillian has to dribble the ball while Brock holds up fingers for her to count, so she won't look at the ball.  Brock stressed ball control almost the whole time but Jillian always wants to shoot.  She also worked on her defensive positions while trying to guard Brock in a game.

Turkey Cookies

We spent the afternoon at Auntie Greta and Adam's house watching the Seahawks (well, actually the adults watched the game while the kids ran wild). Then the girls got to help Auntie with frosting the turkey cookies.

Winter Coat

Here's Tor posing in front of church wearing his warm winter coat.

Coloring

Bridget was all into coloring this week.  She must get lots of praise at pre-school for her coloring as she stays in the lines and picks appropriate colors.  She did at least 8 large sheets of animals and usually wants me to color with her.  When Jillian got home from school she colored one sheet and I told her it was impressive.  Bridget got all bent out of shape since I didn't call her coloring impressive, like she knows what that means, but I had told Bridget many times that her coloring was very nice.  Anyway, I was taking a picture of Bridget coloring when Tor steps in front of the camera to pose for a picture.  I didn't get a good picture of Bridget but liked the close-ups of Tor.

A Basketball Lesson

 It was nice out so Ty took Jillian outside for a basketball lesson since she will be playing this winter.  At first she wasn't paying any attention to Ty so I told her he was her coach, for right now, and she had to listen to her coach.  Then she got serious and listened to Ty.

Her she is following Ty's instruction to shoot with one hand and leave her hand in the air until the ball goes in the basket.

 And the waiting to see if she scored and she did!  She also worked on her ball handling skills.  Obviously she liked it because she kept wanting to play Ty in a game after her lesson.

Tractor Rides

 Papa had the tractor out so when I took Bridget and Tor outside to play, they wanted a ride.  Bridget always wants to steer and she is doing so much better.  Before when she was headed off the path she would over-correct and head straight for the other ditch, all this accompanied by screaming.  Now she is not so wild and it's just a little scream.  Daddy came and they got another ride with Bridget driving.  Tor loved it.

As soon as they parked the tractor Tor climbed on and tried to figure out how to make it go.  Won't be long....

Breakfast to Bedtime

 Tor thinks now that he should be able to do whatever anyone else is doing.  Here he was reading the newspaper with Papa.  He was looking at the ads and pointing and saying, "Mommy, Daddy, Jillian" at the pictures of people.  Then he saw Papa eating cereal and got right up close until Papa gave him some too.

 Bridget wanted her picture taken and this is what happened when Tor insisted that he was going to be in the picture.  She was shoving him out of the picture.  I told Bridget he could be in the picture and I took several pictures but Bridget was frowning in all of them and Tor was distracted.

So this is the best picture that morning.  It shows her cute dimples.

Jillian always gets to go to bed early so Bridget sits on the couch to read books until it's her turn.  She reads every book out loud, making up the stories according to the pictures.  She does a great job.  After she finishes her pile of books she is ready to go right to bed.

Tierney's Home!

 Jillian, Bridget, and Tor got lots of play time with Tierney over her Veteran's Day break.  Tor had a cold so wasn't feeling too well but loved playing ball with Tierney.  Bridget loved doing Pet Shop with her too.

Since it was so nice out, Tierney took them outside to the play fort and then to all the bikes.  Jillian got home from school and was thrilled to get the play time outside.  After all that I'm sure Tierney slept well, just like the kids.

Nice Try

I brought the bouncer inside so they could get some exercise but Bridget had other ideas.  She turned it into a bed for her and Tor and asked if they could sleep there.  Silly question.  But they did spend some time there reading books before bedtime.

Halloween

 Here is Bridget in her Elsa costume.  She was thrilled with her outfit and she wanted several pictures.

Jillian wanted to be Olivia from the Lego Friends set.  I'm sure not many people knew who that was but she was happy with her outfit.  Notice the Lego.  This girl scored 4 goals today in her soccer game!

Tor was a puppy with a little brown nose.  Surprisingly, he kept the hat on but lost one paw.  He seemed to take right to this trick-or-treating.  It was sunny so that interfered with a good picture outside, plus it's hard to get them all looking at once.