Whats New With Jill?

Jill recently started a cub soccer program. Tucker and her go every Saturday morning. It is for preschool aged kids and they do some warm ups to fun music. Then they break into groups and rotate between small games and stations to work on basic soccer skills. The first day she cried a little during the game part. I am not sure she is ready for that. She loves the drills though and practicing with the ball. 

 Cooper is always a little down because he wants to play soccer too. I try and kick another ball around with him but its not the same as what Jill and Daddy are doing. He had to use my coat as a blanket here.

                                                   Practicing in the backyard. 

 One of her favorite parts was buying her soccer outfit. It has numerous shades of pink involved.

 She also started another year of preschool. Here she is on her first day of school. She is a funny little girl and continues to love to help and try to please. The other day she actually changed Cooper's diaper. That was awesome.  

She usually is very nice but sometimes she really knows how to make you feel bad.  Not really on purpose I guess. For instance, the other day I planned this fun day at the zoo with the kids and one of our neighbors. While there she informed me "looking at animals is not really fun."  Then on the way home she asked what was for dinner and I told her pizza.. she replied " Oh good, I was worried it was shepherds pie." That was an improvement over the last Shepherds Pie comment she made which was "ok well, I will try not to throw it up." She usually hates anything I cook actually. The other day I made a lasagna and she told me while I was still making it "I am not eating that because I don't like the way it LOOKS or the way it TASTES." At least she is honest ; )

Play Time!

We had some fun time in our lazy days leading up to preschool starting again. We made Jill and Cooper "room mates" and just kind of turned Coop's room into a playroom area for the kids. As you can see in the first few pictures a lot of playing goes on in there. Jill describes Cooper's coloring just as "scribbling" and you can kind of see why in the pics. He colors with an iron fist and with total ferocity. Kind of funny. He loves it though.
He has started doing more quiet play which I LOVE. He will sit and play with blocks for a little while. This past week while Jill has been at preschool he has started a new tradition of playing under the table with his little trucks loading and unloading them and making them go "beep beep" at each other.
The last picture here is of the kids cuddling. The week before preschool started Cooper insisted on starting everyday cuddling under a blanket and watching the Grinch. Jill was happy to oblige. The Grinch is pretty much all Cooper knows about Christmas at this point. If anyone says anything about Christmas he is quick to tell them Cismas Ginch.

My Birthday

I had a fun birthday this year. Tucker was able to take the day off school so the night before we drove part of the way to Chicago. We stayed in a hotel in Indiana. Tuck and the kids gave me a nice new camera and the Hunger Games movie. Pretty sweet. Below you can see my practice with my new camera. Its got a sweet zoom.





On our way in we decided to stop and see a little bit of the city. I had never been to Navy Pier before so we went to check it out. The kids and Tuck enjoyed the carousel. We looked around and visited the stain glass museum. Later that night Tucker and I enjoyed a dinner date and movie. The next day we also got to visit Crystal Lake's own beach which was really nice. We all had a great time.