Summer Fun

Here are a few pictures from some of the fun things we did this summer. Above, Tori, Megan, Anne and Claire are at Luke's birthday party. Below are some pictures of us at Kent Park Beach.

As you can tell from the pictures - Tori loves the beach. She had a ton of fun swimming and playing in the sand and never wanted to leave. It was a beautiful day - sunny, but not too hot.

James, however, was not a huge fan. He was having a rough day and was very tired. At the time we were working on transitioning to only one nap a day and it was pretty rough. I do think the crying pictures are actually really cute, though.

Above - Tori, Claire and Megan at a new splash pad.

Below- Tori and James on the slide at the pool.

Tori was trying her hardest to make sure she didn't go down too fast on the slide. :)

Tori and dad doing some work together. Lately, Tori really likes to type. I just open a blank Word document and she likes to copy pages from her books on the computer or type little notes to her friends.

Thanksgiving Swimming

When we went to IL for Thanksgiving we got to stay in a hotel with a pool. This was probably the first time I ever went swimming on Thanksgiving day. Once Tori saw that there was a pool at the hotel she was desperate to swim (we are very much missing the summer lately).

Tori and James had a blast. This was the first time James was ever in a swimming pool. It was fun that he got to wear the little swimsuit that his dad bought him shopping one day.

James got a kick out of just sitting on my lap splashing with his hand. He was really having fun and splashing pretty hard - we tried to catch some of it with this video.

Below is a video of Tori doing her favorite thing in the pool - jumping off the side into Dad's arms. She has it down to a science and knows exactly where she wants Dad to stand and loves it if she splashes big enough to get Dad's face wet.

After our fun trip to IL, when we came home I decided I wanted to do a little Thanksgiving dinner for just our family since I love to cook all the Thanksgiving food. It was also a lot of fun since my mom came back from IL with us and helped me make it. Above is a picture of Tori and James after Tori helped me set the table with the china, which she loves to do.

4th Bar B Que with friends

After the 4th of July parade, we went and had dinner at Andrew and Luke's house with a bunch of friends. The kids had a blast playing in the pool and sprinklers.

Above from left to right: Harrison, Anna, Tori and Tanner.

Above from left to right: Anna, Tanner, Andrew, Tori and Luke.

Above are all the dads playing bocce ball, from left to right: John, John, Jon and Richard. (Yes we know a lot of Johns out here, a few of the kids when they were younger thought that everyone's dad was just named John.)

Anna, Tori and Andrew having fun playing the piano while we were all getting ready to go see the fireworks.

Above is a video of Anna, Tori and Andrew singing Book of Mormon stories. This is one of Tori's favorite primary songs.

Tori's Orange Pool

While Grandma Margie was here we decided we would buy Tori one of those little blow-up pools, since she loves the water so much. Tori got to help pick it out at the store and was very particular that she get the orange pool, not the green one. She loves her pool and has already used it several times, even though I have to say the hose water we put in it is freezing!

Above Tori and John are blowing up the pool together (we have since purchased a little manual air-pump). Below is Tori with her favorite thing - the hose.

When it comes to water Tori could just fill up buckets and transfer water from different containers all day long. The think she spent the most time doing is filling her watering can up in the pool and then watering my potted basil and onions (I do have to say they are flourishing now). Though, I did finally have to tell her that if she gave too much water to the plants that they would die. The funny thing is a few days later Tori was filling up a cup of water to drink in the sink, and I told her that the cup had too much water and she needed to dump some out. Then she said, "That's because if I drink too much water I will die." I laughed and then explained that drinking too much water couldn't kill her, only plants.

swimming

Tori just loves anything having to do with water. A little while ago we discovered that our rec center has some indoor pool time for little kids on Friday mornings. So back when the weather wasn't quite warm enough for the outdoor pool, we tried it out. Tori had a blast.

She loves any sort of container that she can fill up with water and then dump out. She's pretty content doing that for most of the time. This time she found a star that worked very well.