4 Years + 10 months! (October 2019)

One of the funniest things that Vivi said this month was “Fine for you, not fine for me!!”  We were taking about something at dinner and whatever I proposed, she didn’t like.  I said it would be fine, and then she said “Fine for you, not fine for me!!”  It was so funny that she would be able to express that idea in such a succinct way.  She used it again in another conversation, but that time she said, “Good for you, not good for me!” 

Vivi was still my super-duper garden helper when it came time to pick our pumpkins.  We had a few dozen of them growing in our little patch!  After I pulled them or cut them free from the patch, Vivi carried them over to the picnic table.  She remembered that we had stacked all of our pumpkins there last year, so she felt like we needed to do it that way again.  She put some gloves on, like me, and helped me move most of the pumpkins and then she and Ryder arranged them.  A few days later, she helped me move most of them to decorate the steps and front porch.

Since there were a few Halloween events, Vivi had a few different costumes.  The first event was Trunk or Treat at Ryder’s school, and both she and Ryder dressed up as skeletons in the skeleton PJ’s.  Then Vivi had two Halloween parties and parades at school, so on day one she was a princess in purple and on day 2 she was new She-ra.  She liked the parties and parades, but for some reason she didn’t want to to the donut game, which she had told me in advance.  I’m not sure why she didn’t like that game, since she does like donuts, but both days she was not interested in participating.

On Halloween, Vivi wore her She-ra costume.  It was actually very warm that evening, so she didn’t need too much extra clothing over or under her costume.  She started out with a jacket, but that came off super quick.  Now that Vivi knows what candy she likes, she was sure to get those kinds when possible.  She came home with a ton of M&M’s and Hersheys.  As always, once we got to the end of our route, we pulled the kids home in the wagon.  Vivi had already been riding in the wagon on and off; she seems to love that part!  When we got home, all the candy was dumped out and sorted, then a few pieces were eaten before we got ready for bed.

Makig some Mommy and Vivi art

At school

With our pumpkins

At the tank museum

She made her own little tank

Halloween party at school

Walking with her trick or treat bucket

4 years + 9 months! (September 2019)

September means back-to-school, so back to school Vivi went.  She was not necessarily looking forward to going back to school, but she handled it well.  There were a few tears on the first day, but that was probably at least partly due to the fact that I brought her and leaving me is still a hard thing for her.  She was right back into the routine as soon as I left.  She stays for the whole day three days a week this year, so I think that she’ll have a pretty smooth transition to full days next year. 

It started to get a little cold in the mornings toward the end of the month, so I pulled some of their fleece foot pajamas out of hiding and she couldn’t be more thrilled.  All summer long, she kept asking me where they went!  If I left them in her drawer, she would have worn them almost every day, even the hot, hot ones!   We have also started pulling the pants out, with no complaints from her.  She changes several times a day anyway, so if she’s hot, she has no problem going to find something else.

The last weekend of September, we got out the Halloween decorations and started putting them up.  This year it was Vivien who was the most involved and the most excited to get everything up.  She helped unpack the container and then immediately started putting things out. 

A little end of summer fun

Fun pool day

First day of preschool

Some fun at the orchard

A serious shot!

Now that's a Vivi face!

4 Years + 8 months! (August 2019)

Almost every nice day, Vivi asks to go to the beach, which isn’t that surprising since she started asking to go to the beach back in January!  Most days either Janda or I, or both of us, will bring the kids down to the river.  We also started going to Good Harbor during the week when it’s not busy and they both love that beach too.  Vivi loves swimming and splashing in the water, but she also really loves to dig in the sand and to find little animals and just get muddy and sandy!  She is a total beach baby!

This summer a little girl, who is one of Ryder’s classmates, has been spending Thursdays at her grandmother’s house two doors down.  All three of the kids plays well together, but Vivien in particular has been very excited to have a little girl to play with.  She is always on the lookout for Olivia on Thursdays and has been playing with her doing activities that Ryder isn’t always that interested in.  It’s cute to see her playing with another little girl, especially since she is doing more of what she wants instead of (happily) following along with Ryder and the boys in the neighborhood.

Vivi is still obsessed with doing ‘activities’, which is a catch-all phrase for any art or science-y activity that I help set her up with.  She often pulls out the project materials from my storage area and begs to do something.  Now that she’s older, I can give her some materials and let her create how she wants.  One of the last days of summer, she and Ryder made their own activity.  I’m not sure what it started out as, but it ended up being squirt painting with eye droppers and paint they made for themselves out of old, mostly dead markers.  It kept them entertained for almost the entire day.  I even got in there and made a few paintings!

Vivien has been my super-duper garden helper this month.  Our tomatoes have gone crazy and picking them involves some gymnastics, so Vivi helps me by following me with the basket so that I can climb around and get the tomatoes.  I never have to ask her to help me; she always jumps right in and grabs the basket!

The most memorable thing that happened this month was a scooter accident.  Vivi was outside scooting by herself when she fell and on the way down the handles of the scooter hit her face, I think.  She ran in screaming and there was blood everywhere.  I was catching the blood in my hands there was so much and when we got into the bathroom, she coughed and covered half the bathroom with blood!  Once we could really check out what happened, we realized that she lost two teeth, the two next to the front tooth on the right.  The front tooth was also damaged, but it stayed in her mouth luckily.  Once the initial trauma subsided, Vivi has been ok eating and everything, so we’re thanking our lucky stars that it wasn’t worse and that they were baby teeth!

At Good Harbor Beach

She loves her friends

On the scooter

Out for a walk

Taking her dolls for a walk

Activities!

At the Schooner Festival

4 Years + 7 months! (July 2019)

We did the usual fireworks in Gloucester and parade and bonfire in Rockport for the 4^th of July.  Vivien likes the parade, but she doesn’t like the non-chocolate candies as much as Ryder does, so she’s not quite as excited as he is.  I think what Vivi likes most about these two events is the fact that she gets to stay up late and be out when it’s dark, which is definitely a treat when you’re little!

This month Vivi has done tons of playing with her toys, gone to the various beaches and done other fun summer outdoor stuff, as well as ‘activities’ and sleepovers!  We went to the Museum of Science this month too.  The museum is very hands on, so Vivi had a fun time with all of the interactive exhibits.  Her favorite part of the museum was definitely the escalator, though!  It was her first time on an escalator and you would’ve thought it was an amusement park ride!  She and Ryder went up and down a bunch of times!

This month we took a long trip to Québec City.  We had to stop quite a lot, so it ended up taking 9.5 hours to get there!  Considering how long it took, Vivi did pretty well.  There was definitely some complaining and a lot of “How much longer?” but no major problems.  Before we went to the hotel, we stopped at a waterfall, Chute Montmorency, just outside of the Québec.  It’s a small nature oasis right in the middle of a city.  Though the park is on the small side, the waterfall was very tall- taller than Niagara Falls.  We parked at the top of the falls and walked over the bridge that is suspended across the top of the falls and then climbed down a huge staircase on the other side.  We took a gondola back up to the top, and then took another round trip on it for fun!  The hotel was a high point of the trip, of course!  There was an amazing indoor pool that the kids were excited to swim in both days. 

The second day, we went into Québec City, into the Vieux Port.  It was exactly what I hoped it would be, a European style city where everyone spoke French!  It was not at all what Vivien hoped it would be and she spent the majority of the day crying, complaining and insisting that we carry her!  She is usually very good-natured, so we were pretty surprised.  She did not complain when we stopped and got ice cream, nor during her nap on a sidewalk bench, but that was about it.  However, once we got back to the hotel and into the pool, she perked right up!  Of course! 

At Good Harbor Beach

Chilling in the hammock, always in her bathing suit

On the gondola at Chute Montmorency

On the rocks at Chute Montmorency

Look at the face, Chute Montmorency

4 Years + 6 months! (June 2019)

Vivien finished up her school year early this month.  Riverview gets out a school before public school, so she was done a couple of days before Ryder, but the same day as Janda and I.  At the end of the year, Riverview has a combined graduation ceremony and field day to close out the year.  Vivi had fun playing games with her classmates and then the teachers give each kid a little gift.  Vivi got a Paw Patrol book with mini figures and she loved it!

We went to Thomasland again this year on Father’s Day weekend.  This year Vivi was tall enough for most of the rides, but not the rollercoaster, which is too bad because I think she would’ve loved it!  She loves all the rides and has almost no fear when it comes to that sort of thing.  I think her favorite part of Thomasland was the bouncy house though; she played in the three story indoor playhouse until we dragged her out.  We had a picnic lunch and the kids had popsicles, so it was an all-around fun day. 

This month we took down the baby swing and hung up the monkey bar attachment on our swingset.  The kids have been doing different tricks on it, but Vivi’s favorite trick is to hang upside down.  Pretty soon she’ll be able to flip over!

Of course, since it’s June we went to Fiesta.  We mostly did the sporting events, because Janda and I both rowed this year.  Vivi is a great cheering squad; I could hear her all the way out by the greasy pole!  Vivi enjoys watching the events, but she enjoys playing by the water at Pavillion beach much more.  She spends most of the time playing in the water and the sand.  We went into the Fiesta briefly on the last night; we figured that they had gotten enough rides at Thomasland!  We let them do a couple of quick rides and get a treat- fried dough.  When Vivi and I were up on the top of the Ferris Wheel, it started to rain and they made us get off, after only one rotation!!  I was disappointed but I’m not sure she even realized that we missed anything.

What a smile!

Princess Vivi at a t-ball game

Last day of school!

At Thomasland on the carousel

At Thomasland on Flynn the firefighter

At Thomasland on the mini ferris wheel

A beach day on the river

On the ferris wheel at Fiesta

4 Years + 5 months! (May 2019)

Vivi still loves dance parties!  She dances anytime that music comes on and she requests certain songs; she prefers pop songs and female singers for the most part!  She loves to do dance moves, yoga moves and (sort of) gymnastics moves.  It is fun to watch her make up moves and try them out!

Now that the weather is nice again, Vivi loves to be outside.  She runs out all the time, especially when there are other neighborhood kids out playing.  Vivi loves the swingset and now she can swing on her own, so sometimes she heads out and swings on her own.  I’ll look out the window and see her swinging away, having a great time!  She also loves to help in the garden and check to see what’s growing and what has bloomed.

At school this month, Vivi had a Mother’s Day breakfast.  I was able to go because I had a prep period at work, but it didn’t go like I had expected!  Vivi loves school and she usually does well at drop-off, but she cried the whole time during breakfast and wouldn’t get me any food, which is the point of the breakfast.  Poor Vivi!

Vivien can write her name, and also my name, so most of the art that she makes has both of our names on it!  She presents me with a couple of new pieces of art each week.  She is so proud and it is so sweet!  She has also drawn a bunch of pictures of the two of us, and also the whole family, with hearts, which she gives me to hang up.  

Smiling at a t-ball game

On her way to school

Always helping me cook

The first beach day

Some Mommy art

What a cutie pie

My smiley girl

4 Years + 4 months! (April 2019)

Since the weather has been getting nicer, we took Vivien’s pedal bike out this month.  She probably could have ridden it last year, but neither she nor Ryder wanted to move up to the next bike.  She was happy on her push bike, so that’s what she stuck with.  This year we convinced her to give the pedal bike a try and after a couple of lessons, she was riding up and down the street with Ryder!  They had to learn to share the road in a different way, especially as Vivien was building up her skills, but it all worked out and she’s cruising now!

This month we went swimming at the Marina pool a couple of times and Vivien loves the water.  She’s not quite ready for swim stroke swimming, but she does a great job keeping her head above the water, moving around from one spot where she can hold on to another and she has no fear of jumping in.  She was jumping in of the side of the pool and also asking me to throw her and then catch her.  Both of those involve her plunging under the water and she’s totally ok with that; in fact she loves it! 

Vivien found a new show to watch on Netflix this month.  She mostly gravitates towards the shows with cool looking girls in the preview, but luckily she is pretty picky about the plot.  Some of the shows are completely ridiculous, and she usually asks me to turn them off or change them.  This month, she found Lolirock, which is only a little ridiculous.  It’s about teenage girls who become pop stars but are really princesses from other planets who have to fight against evil to get back to their home planets.  Vivi loves when they change into their super-hero princess outfits and when they have concerts.  It’s really cute to watch her watch the show.

Vivi loved being home for April vacation and definitely wasn’t quite ready to go back at the end.  She seems to like school, so I’m not sure of the exact reason, if it’s the freedom of home, or the extra fun of vacations or just that she loves to be with Mommy.  She always wants to do everything that I do and she only wants to hug and kiss and cuddle with me, and unfortunately, I’m the only one who can do anything right according to her, so she wants me to do everything! 

Learning some t-ball

Easter

What a face, even when banged up!

She loves the cat ears

Striking a pose for Ryder

Swinging

4 Years + 3 months! (March 2019)

This month Vivien has been very into taking my jewelry and wearing it around the house, or packing it into her many little cases and bags.  I have very little jewelry, all of it costume, and I never wear it, but she found it on a little stand in my room.  Even though I probably won’t wear them, there are a couple of pieces that I do care about so she has to be careful with those.  There is a third piece that I know I will never wear, so I gave it to her to keep in her room and that made her happy.

A few months ago, Ryder picked out a show on Netflix (Miraculous Ladybug) that I thought seemed silly and uninteresting and I was happy when it didn’t really catch on.  Fast forward a few months and Ryder and/or Vivien somehow got it going again and now all us of, especially me, are into it bigtime!  It’s a superhero show set in France and both Ryder and Vivi like to play Ladybug- there are two main heroes, so it’s perfect or them.

Vivien continues to be 100% into art activities.  I don’t think a week has gone by without Vivi asking to do “an activity.”  Her art spot, which is inconveniently her dinner spot, is almost always set up with newspaper and art supplies.  She likes to draw and color, but her preference is the messier and more interesting activities.  I bought the kids Bingo daubers and Vivi loves to use them.  She also still loves Play-doh, pay sand and slime, especially homemade. 

Vivien knows that I have a stash of dolls from when I was younger in a bench in our bedroom and she convinced me to give her some more.  She has most of my old Disney princess dolls now, except for a few special ones.  Unfortuntely two of my Jasmine dolls lost their heads, but some of that was probably due to their age in addition to her lack of a gentle touch.  Luckily I had three, so the remaining one has outfit choices!  Vivi loves to dress and redress the dolls and set them up around the house.  She imagines scenes for them and it is fun to listen to her talk to and for her dolls!

Getting a ride

All dressed up in Mommy's stuff

Enjoying the snow

Look at that smile!