Sophie's Birthday

Today was Sophie's 4th birthday so we first picked up Bridget and then got Jillian from school.  They got to take Sophie to Petco to pick out some birthday presents for her.  That was no easy task as they had to check out all the animals there, except the reptiles, and also look in all the dog aisles.  They ended up with a collar that had a "bling" crown on it, a ball, a sack of little treats, and two huge bones (one for Mocha too).  Then after a stop for ice cream at Dairy Queen, it was home to try to get a picture.  Surprisingly, Sophie was the hardest one to get to pose this time.

GBOP

Uncle Dan and Aunt Robin gave the kids a GBOP (Great Big Outdoor Playball) for Christmas, but we weren't able to use it until now when the weather was nice. It's too big to use inside; in fact, it wouldn't even fit through the door. Daddy inflated each of the sections using the air compressor, and then handed it over to the kids, with some warnings about keeping it away from pointy things. They rolled around inside it in the backyard for a bit, but we decided it would be way more exciting to go to an open field where we could push it around at high speed. We took it to the RA Long field, and each kid got many chances to ride inside it while everyone else pushed. They bounced around inside it pretty good, and kept begging for more. Even Tor liked flopping around inside it.

Basketball Shorts

Tor is thrilled when he gets to wear a basketball shirt.  So now he has basketball shorts to match and  when he first gets them on he runs to everyone to show them his shorts, especially Brock and Ty.  It seems that when he has on his whole outfit he does a lot of shooting too.  If this was all he had, he would wear the same outfit every day.

Baths, Escape, and Football

 This bath time Friday was an hour and 10 minutes long.  They played and played.  They are a little apprehensive of having the jets turned on, but finally they wanted them on after an hour.  They like it afterwards because the jets make lots of bubbles that they can hide things in or pretend it's whip cream.  One thing I forgot to add:  While they were in the tub, Mommy called, so I told Bridget to come to the edge of the tub to hand her the phone.  She took it and immediately put it under water.  End of conversation with Mommy.  Papa took the phone to dry it and Heather called back to see what happened.  After drying out, the phone did work again.

 Tor asked me to open his backpack that's full of tools.  He promptly took it outside to the fence and worked hard on trying to cut a way out to escape.  He made a face of disgust when it didn't work.

After Daddy got home, they had a spirited game of touch football, except Tor didn't get that concept. It was girls against boys and I'm not sure who won.  When Tor got the football, he would run and run all over.  Great fun.

Weekend School

Jillian was adamant that Bridget have school on Sunday, saying that she hadn't been to school in over a week. Bridget responded that she didn't want to go to school -- she wanted to play. Eventually, Bridget gave in, as she usually does under Jillian's constant demands and pressure. Jillian made up a page of some assignments for Bridget to do, set up a desk and chair in their bedroom, and got her to work. This picture shows Bridget doing her studies, while Jillian stands by to help out.

Hiking

They all love this nice weather.  As soon as Jillian got home from school Thursday we went on a hike in the woods.  Jillian even saw a snake on a path she was taking but kept on going.  She is fearless in hiking as well as everything else.  She made her own trails through brush and stickers and didn't have a clue where she was going.  Meanwhile Bridget obediently follows her anywhere, with my help getting her over obstacles, and Tor just forges on in last place, keeping up without a complaint and loving it.  They found some abandoned things, a big oil barrel and a big scoop from a big rig, that they were fascinated by and wondered why people were littering.  Finally we came out where there was a wide path home and they were tired kids.

The sand box is all set up now and I had a big bag of almost every animal so they spend a lot of time making habitats for most of the animals.  I really enjoyed looking at all the creations.

"Sweetie pies"

 This is the door alarm that Jillian made me for my birthday.  She came up with it all on her own and while she was making it in the kitchen, I wasn't allowed there.  She put bells, snowflakes, and a cross on it.  She even wrapped the cord around to hang it.  She was trying to put it all together with glue but finally Papa helped her out with the glue gun.  I am so excited when they make something special.

 Bridget spent a lot of time on this card.  It has the play fort, slide, and scooter in the picture.  The bottom part was a maze for me to follow to get from one side to the other.  She is a very clever girl.  She also spent time making me a crown to wear with a tree, stars and a rainbow.  She is getting good at writing her name too.  It was also a very special present.