Dancing

 Tor decided to make people out of play-doh now.  He made the head, arms, and legs to show me.  They were pretty small but he was excited to show me.

I heard loud music and when I checked they had a program to play music on the computer.  They had made light sabers from a building set and Bridget was showing Tor dance moves with the light sabers.  They both had some swinging moves.  Pretty cute.  Meanwhile Jillian was more ambitious with her building.

The Polar Express

 Wow, were Jillian, Bridget and Tor surprised when they arrived at Grannie's and Rielee was there to go on the Polar Express train ride with them.  Papa wasn't feeling up to going so Rielee took his place.  Here they are in front of the engine with their tickets, waiting to board the train.

 Tor was a very serious boy throughout the trip.  Here he is holding his precious ticket.

 They served hot chocolate and cookies which were delicious.  Then they passed out songbooks and Jillian requested that the train car sing "Jingle Bells".  They sang lots of songs and then the girls all sang the "12 Days of Christmas" to us.

 When they heard the jingle of bells, Santa appeared to delight them all and gave them each a bell engraved with "The Polar Express".

Tor had his bell and he didn't let it leave his hand the rest of the trip.  Later they sat on Santa's lap and talked to him.  It was a fun trip to the North Pole for the kids and adults.

Thanksgiving Dinner

The kids had lots of food to eat - turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green beans, rolls, cranberry sauce, pumpkin and chocolate pies, and turkey cookies. They all went back for seconds, but even that didn't slow them down as they resumed their running-around ways afterwards.

Busy Boy

It's rare when it happens, but Tor sat and worked for a long time.  First he wanted a yellow legal pad like the girls write on and a pen.  He filled up a lot of the pages with his drawings.  Then he saw a pair of scissors and wanted them so I got him some kid scissors.  Obviously he learned to cut in pre-school as he proceeded to cut out all kinds of shapes from his drawings.  And you can guess which one he was proudest of-a light saber.  In fact, he kept hold of it and even had it when he got home.

Tor's 3's Preschool Picture

Here's Tor's 3-year-old preschool picture. He told us that the photographer had him say "stinky feet" to get him to smile.

Bike Riding Boy

We figured it was time for Tor to learn to ride a bike without training wheels, so we gave it a go at the beach cabin, since it has a nice flat, wide, empty road out front. On the first attempt, Tor went several yards with Daddy running alongside before tipping over. After several more tries, Tor was pretty much able to ride quite a ways by himself. He was still a bit erratic, turning suddenly or just not pedaling. But, he was very proud of himself, and Jillian and Bridget were cheering for him the whole time.

Beach Trip in November

Even this late in the year, the weather was pretty nice at the beach (not too cold, just a little rain). So, we were able to make at least one trip to the beach, where we found some very large sand mountains that the kids climbed ... before having to leave due to a very high tide. As usual, we had our after-beach ice cream, at Aidelaide's. Much of our time was spent inside the cabin, sleeping in late, watching videos, playing UNO, and relaxing while the kids came up with their own games. We did manage to spend some more time outside when we went biking to the library (and Tor learned to ride without training wheels!) and when cooking hot dogs and s'mores over the fire (though we did get a little wet). There was also the usual trip to the Astoria pool that was super-crowded this time. All in all, a very nice relaxing pre-holiday trip.

Bridget's Hair Style Contest

Bridget invited everyone to a Hair Styling Contest in her room. We had to come up with some wild hair, and then Bridget would judge the winner and runner-up. She finally decided that Tor's twin pigtails (which were supposed to look like ears on Batman's hood) were the winner, and Jillian's high bun (like Princess Leia) was the runner-up.

November Outside and Tunnel

 As soon as they had their snacks, they all headed outside to play before it got dark.  Climbing this tree was the last thing they did as it was pretty dark by then.  Daddy helped Tor sit in the tree as it was pretty high to climb by himself. 

After dinner Tor got all the chairs and lined them up for a long tunnel and then he made a bed on the top.  I helped him put blankets around the tunnel.  He thought it was pretty cool.  The girls also tried it out but he kept chasing them away since it was "his" house and tunnel.

People Drawings

This was something new from Tor - - drawing people with faces and bodies. Before, it's just been scribbles that only he knew what they were. He drew these at Grannie and Papa's house.

Puzzles

 

 

 

This morning Tor did Play-Doh for quite awhile-Star Wars ones of course.  Then I asked him if he'd like to do a puzzle.  These are somewhat easier since the picture is printed on the front so he just needed to find the matching pieces.  He started out slow but it didn't take him long to get the hang of it and soon he was looking for certain pieces to match.  Then he did another one like this one.  There weren't any more of these so we did small regular ones.  He now knew what to do.  All in all he must have worked for about an hour and a half.  Pretty good.  He's not ready yet to do them on his own but it did keep us both busy.



 He was pretty proud of his finished puzzle.

Bridget got ambitious and started making giant hearts on the driveway.  Then she drew and colored a turkey at the top and wrote "Happy Thanksgiving".  She wasn't too happy with the dogs and kids
running and riding over her picture but she pressed on.  She wanted me to take and print a picture with her in it.  She mounted the picture on a paper and made a card to give to her teacher.  Very nice!