It has been quite the year with this girl. There is never a dull moment with the Vivikins.
She always wants to wear dresses...and not just any dress, she has to pick it out and I never know what she will pick.
Gabonese dress?
Slip? And no, she refuses to wear it under a dress. It must be worn alone. I don't let her wear this one in public...have to draw the line somewhere.
This is a dress up dress that is way too big for her that she insisted on sleeping in.
And here is just one of the dresses I wore as a toddler that my mom saved all these years. Vivi has totally justified Grammie's hoarding tendencies...at least this once.
This is another favorite dress. She also loves this bouncy donkey we have and will sometimes take it to bed with her. One morning she came out of her room bouncing on the donkey with the sleepiest face. It was pretty funny.
She and Porter can actually play together without fighting. They sure are cute. Porter is quite the gentleman with Vivi and she enjoys being treated like a princess.
She's learning to be nice to Josie and can be when she decides to. She loves to go outside and Josie will just tag along. Vivi calls her "my dog".
During school she usually likes to see what kind of messes she can make. Here she left half eaten strawberries all over the counter and was so proud of her mess.
She and Eliza are best buds. The other day I told them that they were best friends like Aunt Tiffy and I were growing up. To which Vivi replied, "I have a best friend named Strawberry".
Vivi loves to ride her balance bike and has gotten really good at it. She rides it all around the house and leaves it in the most inconvenient places: doorways, closets, in front of the stove...she has a gift.
We're entering the phase of awkward smiles and they crack me up.
She loves music and makes sure to practice her piano and violin (for the longest time she would ask where her violin was and we never knew what she was talking about. Until one day she was blowing on the recorder and told me she was practicing the violin.)
She also loves to play on Mariah's ukulele and came to me and asked me to take her to violin. She so badly wants to be all grown up like "the kids" (which is what she calls her older siblings).
And now for some of the cute things she has said the past year.
- She used to call ice "ice cream"
- She loves when anyone will chase her, which can be a problem at times.
- For the longest time she would randomly say, "oh no, a bear!" and seemed to be legitimately scared. Which probably came from reading Going on a Bear Hunt.
- She went through a phase where she would say "I by you", when she wanted someone to sit by her. She also wanted to be sitting by me whenever she ate.
- She used to say "OK!" in the sweetest, most enthusiastic way. Sometimes even when she didn't want to do something and was crying she would say "oooookkkkaaayy" with her said little voice.
- She used to say "kank you" and it was so cute.
- Vivi can be very persistent when she is trying to figure out how to do something/get into something. When she figures it out she'll say, "I did it!"
- For the longest time if we told her she couldn't do something or have something she wanted she would say, "awe!" in the most disappointed voice.
- "I want Jesus Christ Amen" is how she used to ask to say the prayer. She now will pray for the cows...we're thinking it must be our neighbor's cows that she can sometimes see out of her bedroom window. Don't worry Mark, she's looking out for you.
- For a while she would say "oopadaisy" and I was so sad when she stopped that.
- "Thank you mom for dinner" and "this is nummy" is something we would hear a lot during dinner.
- One day she came to me and said, "I hurt my thumbkin" showing me her thumb.
- Vivi loves to wear a crown but she often calls it a "queen" which gets a little confusing sometimes.
- One day she was playing with her doll while I was holding Asa and then walked up to me and said, "mom, lets switch babies." She loves Asa, but doesn't quite know how to always show that love. Asa is pretty patient with her.
- When Asa woke up sad from a nap: Vivi: Mom, he's sad Me: Yes he is sad, what can we do to help him? Vivi: He needs space...pretty sure she's heard that before...maybe multiple times every day.
- One day while snuggling Tanner she said, "Mom, I'm sitting with my dad-girl". And then when Tanner wasn't feeling well she said, "Mom, I'll hold my daddy" and then went and sat on his lap.
- Vivi doesn't always love going to bed so I try to get creative to make it less painful. Sometimes we are doggies, or elephants, or her favorite is when she is a wildcat that is scratching me as I frantically carry her to her bed. Or she likes when I pretend that she is super heavy and I can barely lift her.
- One morning Josie snuck into the girls' room and woke Vivi up. I asked her, "Did Josie wake you up?" To which she quickly replied, "Yeah, because I'm a doggie". We often have to tell Vivi that she is a doggie that can walk on her hind legs to keep her from crawling around in public.
- Every once in a while she'll say, "hey mommy guess what? I love you!"
- After playing with a little girl during her siblings' basketball games she went to the little girl's mom and told her she wanted her daughter's backpack of toys for her birthday. No biggie. Vivi doesn't know a stranger and calls random children she sees "my friends".
- Vivi is your typical toddler and is either happy happy happy, or furious. She started calling her siblings a name that I do not like, but got confused and started calling them "turtles" instead. Which doesn't bother me one bit so now all our kids say "Don't be a turtle" instead of the other word. Love those happy mistakes. She also calls us "poopy pants" and "booty bums" sometimes.
We can't wait to see all the funny things Vivi will do and say this year. She is keeping me young, or aging me...depends on the day. But we love this girl!
