An Update on Miss Viv

Well Vivvie is now 18-months-old!  Where is the time going?  She is growing up way too fast for my liking!  She is the epitome of fun & cuteness right now!  I wish I could freeze her just as she is!  Here are her latest stats from her 18-month checkup:

Length:  29.5" (4th percentile)

Weight:  18.8 lbs (Not even on the growth chart)

Head Circumference:  45.2 cm (15th percentile)



Yep, she's 18-months-old & STILL not up to 20 lbs.  Ugghhh, I think she'll be in her reverse-facing carseat until she's five.  Guess she's following in her mama's footsteps.  I wasn't on the growth chart my entire life--always just right below.  At least she's on the growth chart for height & head size, I suppose.  I think I was below the growth chart on those too.

Since she's 18-months-old, she's now officially old enough to go to nursery at church.  We've been sneaking her in there for several weeks already, and she's doing great!  She runs in & starts playing with all the toys.  Then we just have to sneak out & she's good to go.

Vivienne is quiet the little chatter box.  She LOVES to talk!  Oh boy, does she love to talk!  She is saying so many new words all the time.  I'd say she probably says at least 30 words, plus several phrases & small sentances. Her newest words are "cheeeeeeeeese" when you're taking her picture, "Coco" for Cohen, & "ouch!" when I'm doing her hair.  And, in addition to her real words she knows, she still speaks in her gibberish--or Viviennese as we call it--all the time.  She inflects her voice as if she's really saying something & you should be able to understand every word.  It's so cute.  She can go on & on in Viviennese for quite awhile!

She is an absolute doll & we love everything about her!  She is super girlie.  She loves to "talk" on the phone, play with her dolls & she LOVES getting her hair done--even when I hurt her...hence the reason she's learned the word "ouch."  Despite me pulling her hair, she still patiently sits there & watches me as I try to figure out what to do with her mullet that she has going on right now.  After her hair is done, she loves to look & smile at herself in the mirror while we all tell her how pretty she is.  Oh, by the way, the girl adores being complimented.  She is a total diva.

While she's very girlie, she's got some tomboy in her as well.  She loves to wrestle with her brothers & she can hold her own against them too.  She surprises me with how tough she can be--until she's sick of wrestling, then she can turn on the waterworks like no one I've ever seen before, just to make sure everyone within hearing distance knows that she's being tortured by one of her brothers.  She's also turning into a picky eater.  A really picky eater.  She likes mac n' cheese, chicken nuggets, ramen noodles, pancakes, waffles, Lucky Charms (but only the marshmallows) and...well, that's about it.  That's probably part of the reason her weight isn't even on the growth chart.  Hopefully, it's just a stage.

She is definitely the little princess of our family...and believe me, she knows it too!  We all love her to pieces & wonder how we ever survived without her.  Love you Vivvie Cakes!  But, can you do your mama a favor & please stop growing up so fast?!?  Thanks!  --Mom

First Day of School

Well, all good things must come to an end...and that includes summer break too unfortunately. The kiddos headed back to school last week.  Here's Connor & Aiden on their first day...

Notice anything different about Aiden?  Yep, he's missing his curls!  We chopped his hair the day before school started.  He decided he wanted to try it short again & here's the result.  What do you think?

I can't believe little Aiden is in 1st grade!  That means I have *two* kids in school all day!  My house has been so quiet.  It's definitely something that will take some getting used to.  Not that I'm complaining--it's amazing how much more I can get done with only two kids at home!  Here's Aiden with a couple of his buddies from his class waiting for their teacher (Mrs. Thorpe) to open the classroom door...

A few of my thoughts as he walked into his classroom:  I hope he can sit through over six hours of school.  I hope he obeys his teacher.  I hope his teacher has a lot (and I mean a LOT) of patience.  I hope he can do the lunchtime routine by himself without dropping food all over the floor.  I hope he can find Connor & their walking group when school is over.  I hope he continues to excel in everything he learns.  I hope he has a great year!

And here's my big 4th Grader...

You hear that?!?  FOURTH GRADER!  We're now in the *senior* grades of elementary school.  How did that happen?  Didn't he just start Kindergarten?  I seriously have no clue where all the years have gone.  Before I know it, he'll be in High School!  Ugghhh...high school.  I'm slightly nauseous just thinking about it.

A few of my thoughts as he walked into his classroom:  I hope Connor makes lots of good friends this year.  I hope he continues to excel at math, science & art.  I hope he can continue to improve his reading fluency.  I hope he doesn't have too much homework so that he can still feel like he can play & be a kid.  I hope that his teacher (Mrs. Johnson) is a good teacher & can help him become the best he can be.  I hope he has a great year as well!

The very next day was Cohen's first day of school!  He was so excited, and was a trooper when I forced him to take a picture while staring straight at the sun...

This will be Cohen's 2nd of 3 years at preschool because we decided to hold him back a year.  He is repeating the 3-year-old class & has his same teacher (Mrs. Covington) again.  Even though I have felt so good about holding him back & know that it is the right thing to do, I have questioned it a time or two when people seem to disagree with my decision.  All those concerns went out the window when I picked Cohen up the other day & Mrs. Covington told me how she can already see him excelling so much more this year just because he now has the confidence he lacked last year when he was the smallest & youngest in his class.  That made me so happy!

My thoughts as he walked into his classroom:  I hope that Cohen continues to excel this year.  I hope his confidence continues to improve & he can come out of his shell a little bit to show this world what an awesome kid he is.  I hope he can really grasp all the concepts he learns this year.  I hope he can make new friends easily.  And I hope he doesn't hate me for deciding to hold him back.  I hope he has a great year!

So, they're off!  We already have one week down, with many more to go.  We're back into our normal school time routine which is kind of nice.  And, I must be honest that I do enjoy a few hours of quiet time while they're gone.  But, it's really weird having both Connor & Aiden gone all day.  When Cohen, Vivvie & I sit down to eat lunch, it's pretty strange not to have either of the big boys there at the table with us.  But, I know they are in good hands & having a great time at school with all their friends.  Plus, there's only 173 more days of school until the next summer break!  But who's counting?!?  That's not too far away, right?  Love you boys!  Hope you have your best school year yet!  --Mom

Hangin' Out with the Cousins

While Connor was on his trip to San Francisco, Ashlee & her kids came down to spend an afternoon with us.  We went up to their house earlier this summer (I forgot to take pictures so that trip never got blogged about), so we decided they needed to come down to our neck of the woods for a day before school started.  When they first got to our house, we fed everyone some lunch & then hit up the splash pad...

The kiddos had a blast playing with each other.  The game of choice for the big boys was to float their shoes down the lazy river...

And then catch them before they reached the drain at the end...

They literally played that game ALL.DAY.LONG.  All day!  They just chased sandals up & down the lazy river.  Oh well, at least it wore them out!

Ella decided to try out the actual splash pad--for about 3 seconds, then she was done & headed back for the river...

Cohen showed off his water-karate skills...

Viv chilled in the shade with Aunt Sosha most of the day (that's what we all call Ashlee, if you didn't know)...

It was a fun day.  It's always fun to see these guys because they live an hour away, so it doesn't happen as often as we'd like...

And, yes, that was a mega hint to Ashlee that we would like them to move closer.  After all, this little gal pictured below isn't going to ever have a sister, so the next best thing is to hang out with her one & only girl cousin as much as possible, right?

It was a fun way to end the summer!  Thanks for coming down Sosha & kiddos.  We'll have to do it more often next summer!  --Lindsay

Connor's Trip to San Francisco

Connor is one heck of a lucky boy!  His grandma & grandpa took him *by himself* on a little vacation to San Francisco for four days right before school started!  How awesome is that?  Mike's dad is a pilot for Southwest Airlines, so they can fly for free whenever they want.  He's also on medical leave right now to have some work done on one of his shoulders.  He was in between surgeries this month, and they had some free time so they called us up & asked if they could take Connor to San Fran for a few days.  Lucky, lucky boy!  He was so lucky, in fact, that he even got to sit in the cockpit with his grandpa (after the plane had landed, or course.)  How many kids can say they've done that?  There are some serious perks to having a pilot as your grandpa...

After landing, they went & checked in to their hotel room.  Connor was obviously very excited to be there...

They got there in the evening, so there wasn't enough time to do very much.  They grabbed some dinner, then did a little swimming in the hotel pool (both indoor & outdoor) and called it a day.

They next day, they headed out to the San Francisco Science Center.  Connor loves science, especially animal science (which is what most of this place ended up being), so he was in 7th heaven here.  Here is Connor & Grandma looking at some fish...

There were lots of "stuffed" animals there as well...

Connor got the chance to learn about & pet this snake...

And go to all sorts of other demonstrations that taught him about the different animals.  This one was about fish...

And speaking of fish, they got to see the fish be fed.  If you look closely, you can see that there is a diver in there feeding (and being swarmed by) the fish...

Connor also got to go to a penguin show...

And learn about these cute little tuxedo-wearing men...

Connor really loved it.  He is such an animal lover & he really enjoys learning new things about them.  We have Animal Planet on in our house ALL.THE.TIME.  He just eats that kind of stuff up!

After they finished up at the science center, they headed down to Pier 39 for the evening...

While there, they played around in the Hall of Mirrors.  Connor loved it...

After that, they went to a magic show.  I guess the magician was great & Connor is *still* trying to figure out how he did all his tricks.  Then it was back to the hotel for some shut eye.

The next day, they started out with a trip to the Exploratorium...

There were all sorts of fun hands-on science experiments for him to try out...

Connor wanted a picture by this vortex because he wanted to show me how cool this "tornado inside a tube" was.  Hmmm, maybe another meteorologist in the family?

Not quite sure what's going on in this picture, but it was hilarious so I had to throw it on here...

Connor really liked this exhibit where you had multiple shadows in different colors...

All three of them worked together to build this cool shape out of blocks...

Pretty neat, eh?

Connor was also able to make "the biggest bubble ever..."

Connor says this place was called the Coliseum and was right outside the Exploratorium.  That's the extent of what I know about it, but it looks very pretty--and very Greek...

After that, they drove across the Golden Gate Bridge.  It's a must if you're in San Fran, right?

And then they took a trip out to Muir Woods, or as it's more commonly called--The Redwood Forest...

I've never been to the Redwood Forest, at least not that I know of.  I've only sung about it in patriotic songs ("from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters" jog anyone's memory?)

Connor & his grandparents...

Look at these monstrous trees...

Some of them are at least 600 years old...

Here's Connor *inside* a hollowed out redwood log...

And hiding in some branches...

And pretending to be a bear or something...

After Muir Woods, they took a little trip out to the ocean.  It was a tad cool for a swim though...

Then called it a day & headed back to the hotel.

The next morning, they got some breakfast...

Then did a little more swimming, and then headed for the airport...

And flew home.  I think Connor was a little tired after all the excitement of the past few days...

What a fun experience for Connor to be able to have with his grandparents!  He got to go on a vacation without the rest of his family & spend some quality time with his grandma & grandpa.  Pretty darn cool, if you ask me!  I'm sure it's a memory he will always remember!  Thanks Rick & MaeJae for taking him.  He had a great time!  --Lindsay