The wave

Torin loves to wave. When we are at church, he loves to stand on Jared's or Dani's lap looking back toward where people are sitting, make eye contact with someone and wave.  He loves to be held in a parking lot and say hi and bye to all the cars and people as they are coming and going. He loves to wave hi to strangers as they pass by him as he sits in his high chair in restaurants.

Torin's wave doesn't just mean "Hi" or "Bye."  Here are a few other things that are reasons to wave for Torin:

"I want that" - When he wants something (especially food, or where he wants to go while being held), sometimes he will point at it (with his whole arm) then start waving. Other times, he will just stare intently at something and start to wave at it.  Other times, he will open and close his hands, or he will put his hands together (like a clap), which means "more."

"Goodnight" - When he is ready for bed and he has finished his milk, we start to tell him "night night," at which point he starts waving to anyone he can see. Once we lay him in his bed, he continues waving until he can't see us anymore.

"Thank You" - We think that sometimes the wave means "thank you."  There are times that he starts waving at us after we give him something - he will first wave, then turn his attention to what was given to him.

We LOVE Torin's wave. We encourage it and have found ourselves waving much more than we used to.  

Summer activities

Summer 2015 was a HOT HOT HOT summer! There were so many weeks in the 90's-100's. In between the heat waves, and even during many of the heat waves, we managed to have a lot of fun this summer. With all the heat waves, we took lots of opportunities to go to the water pads and cool off

Jacob and Claire did their first tennis camp. While it wasn't without a few bumps, the kids both had a fun time and seemed to learn some new skills.

Dani brought the kids to the library a few times for various activities, including reptile day. Dani, conveniently, had to hold Torin and didn't get to get close enough to touch the giant creepy snake!

We ate a lots of different places, including plenty of trips to our new favorite Carte Blanche. One trip, we took the kids to on a bike ride in downtown Portland, then made our way to the Waffle Window and followed it up with a delicious crispy rice bowl from Carte Blanche.

One of the hottest weekends of the year, and while Jared was running in the Cascade Lakes relay, Dani took the kids to Fun in the Park. The kids enjoyed the different booths, but really loved the Star Wars booth, where they got light sabers made of pool noodles and did battle to the Star Wars characters.

After Fun in the Park, they went to a local farm and picked 15 pounds of peaches - Yum!

There were a lot of trips to parks, including the newly re-designed Murase Plaza playground.

The kids spent a lot of time playing in the back yard with the Bowles kids

and eating LOTS of popsicles!

The one activity that was not as hot was the ward picnic (and it was super rainy), but the kids loved their face paint.

It was a great summer!!!

Snuggling his way to bed

One of our favorite parts of the day is getting Torin into his bed. He was given a little stuffed hippo for his birthday, and he LOVES it!!! We give him his pacifier, then give him his hippo, and he gives it a big hug. Totally heart-melting!

A new way to ride

Part of Kate and Liam's birthday present was a tag-a-long bike so we could all ride together as a family. It takes a little bit of improvising - attaching Torin's trailer to the tag-a-long bike. Jared and Liam gave it a try

and then later in the week, the whole family took it for a ride to the Korean War Memorial park for a concert in the park.  Over the course of the summer, we took a number of trips to town to get frozen yogurt or to watch concerts. Everywhere we went, we drew lots of attention and comments!

Kate and Liam turn 4

For Kate and Liam's birthday, Nana and Papa rented a bouncy house for the kids. The rain held off just long enough that the kids got plenty of time bouncing around in it.

They got to open presents outside. with the cousins.

One of their favorites were the cute dress-up costumes - and they played dress up the rest of the day. Liam wanted to wear his pilot costume on the flight home.

It was so much fun celebrating their birthday with cousins at Nana and Papa's house!

The Stats

Kate:

3 feet 4.5 inches (60%)

35.0 pounds (50%)

Liam:

3 feet 5 inches (55%)

49.0 pounds (90%)

Playing with cousins

We started the 4th of July with a trip to watch the Montgomery City parade. We swam for a while and had a poolside dinner with friends, and then 

Taylor, Andrew, and Jared's cousin Parker put on a fireworks show in the back yard. Liam was particularly entertaining to watch as he enthusiastically watched the fireworks. As it got darker, more and more people found their ways into the pool to enjoy the show. It was a great way to watch a fireworks show!

As always, we spent lots of our cousin time in the swimming pool, playing games, having contests jumping off the diving board, watching the Christensens do flips off the diving board (Lydia tried a full flip for almost an hour!), 

climbing on our aunts and uncles, and floating in the hot tub playing make believe games.

 

There was also lots of time just floating around. While we may not have pictures of Liam swimming, he actually did really well this week - though he definitely didn't want to jump in!

Torin especially loved the pool. Every time he was outside, if he wasn't in the pool, he was trying to get into the pool. He definitely preferred playing himself rather than being carried around or floating in the pool. He loved playing on the top two steps, walking back and forth, climbing up and down, throwing balls and playing with buckets and other pool toys. It was so much fun to watch him play and enjoy the pool!

These two little girls were inseparable, playing for hours at a time, often times completely out of site under the stairs.

For evenings and rainy times, 

and when we needed a break from pool time, we found plenty of fun in the basement playing pool, pop-a-shot, and ping pong!

We found a perfect short for Andrew - the front said, "ask me about my goat," and Andrew was happy to oblige!

Torin got to have lots of Nana time and hung out with Camie for a while as she was teaching Dani about doing family history on FamilySearch.

The boys played a new game Jared got (with some drama!) - Spikeball - and loved it!

It was such a fun week to have all the siblings and cousins together at Nana's!