Vivian is FIVE!

Vivian had her 5th birthday today and we had a great, simple day with her!  She woke up to balloons and gifts.  She was most excited about her new stuffed animal unicorns and her Hatchimals.  Her birthday breakfast choice was pancakes, strawberries and whipped cream (yum! a girl after my own heart!).  To fill her day, Vivian chose to go to school over anything else.  It's her normal school day, and she truly loves going to school.  She loves the art projects and recess and hanging out with her friends, especially Peyton, Luna and Lanna.  I joined her for school lunch, we shared donut holes with her class, she left school early with me and we spent fun 1:1 time at Starbucks.  After picking up the big kids from school, all 5 of us went to the park, Old Market Pub for dinner, DQ for dessert and finally a movie to end the day.  Vivian went to bed with her new stuffed unicorns and her big Hatchimal, trying to warm it up in hopes that it will hatch soon ;)

At 5 years old, Vivian loves... setting up her Barbies and little plastic animals in her dollhouse, working on any kind of art project and playing pretend games with Antonia.  She also loves kitties and unicorns.  She entertains herself a lot, but loves it most when her siblings are home to play with her.  She also loves playdates with friends Brynn, Gracie, Harrison or Sammy.  Although she doesn't love food all that much, she does have a few favorites... milk, cheese, strawberries, ice cream, bagels, cereal and applesauce.

Vivian has always had and continues to have such a sweet soul.  She loves to make people feel better.  She makes others feel better with a big, genuine hug.  Speaking of, she loves hugs in general and shares them easily.  Vivian has also learned to fight back this year in times of sibling strife, so she can also yell or give off a tough look, but she happily and easily says I'm sorry and moves on.  

Vivian has been busy this year with phonics at school, plus sports - soccer, gymnastics and swimming.  Although she's not very interested, we are working on incentives to get Vivian to read her BOB books.  She can slowly get through them with help, but is not smooth at putting together sounds into words yet.  Sometimes she struggles to remember all of her letters and all of her sounds, although she knows many of them.  She can count to 100 with little help and sometimes practices simple single digit addition.  Regarding academics, she does really enjoy doing pre-k workbooks and writing letters.  As for sports, Vivian is always excited about soccer, even though she mostly hangs back from the ball in games.  She did score one goal this season, which was pretty awesome for her.  She smiles through swimming and gymnastics practices, but would probably rather not go to them if she really had a choice.  We think she's going to be a ball sport girl, as she likes to practice dribbling a basketball, kicking a soccer ball or playing catch.

We love you SO MUCH Vivian - all the time, everyday, no matter what - and are so blessed to be your parents!  Mom & Dad

P.S. Vivian is 43.5" tall and close to 40 lbs.  She wears size 5 clothes and size 11 shoes.

Antonia is SEVEN!

Antonia turned SEVEN last week!  I love her big front teeth these days and lots of other little gaps as she continues to loose so many teeth.  It's such a representation of seven years old and 1st grade.

Antonia continues to be our little firecracker!  She lives much of life on a roller coaster of high highs, which include the biggest smiles and the biggest hugs and the sweetest sister guidance, and low lows, which include frustration and crying and irrationality.  But I see a softness in her as she ages, with less of those lows and more maturity overall.  She'll share even when she doesn't want to or calm down more quickly than before.  

Our girl continues to be full of JOY.  She gives the biggest hugs when she wakes up in the morning.  She is typically excited about school.  I hear joy from little stories, like an extra recess or cupcakes at lunch.  Life is exciting for Antonia.  On her birthday I joined her for a birthday celebration at school.  Her 1st grade teacher, Mrs. B, did an amazing job of the class celebrating Antonia for the 30 minute lunchtime.  All of her classmates could contribute to a poster about Antonia, and they described her as "very funny," "super friendly," "very kind," "honest," and "enthusiastic."  They know her well!  And a few kids, as well as her teacher, emphasized that she "loves to learn."  Life is exciting for Antonia, as seen by the enthusiasm she puts into learning.

We are still searching for a true hobby for Antonia to love.  She enjoys gymnastics and soccer and reading and math.  She is interested in learning Spanish next.  But her love of these things isn't whole hearted.  Hopefully with continued participation, she will grow to enjoy these more and more each year.  We have been trying to convince her to try basketball or softball, but she's frightened of catching a ball and tells us she wants to try cheerleading instead.  She does love friendships and being social, even if social situations scare her sometimes.  She gets a lot of joy from friendships.  She also loves fashion and likes to be "cool."  Wearing sunglasses is really cool these days, as is listening to Taylor Swift and Dove Cameron.

Antonia is still the tallest 1st grade girl at her school.  I'll have to update this with measurements from her yearly check-up in May.  She is leaning out as she gets older, thus looking even taller to me.  Although I'm surprised that she doesn't devour even more chapter books, these days she has been reading Juney B. Jones and Nancy Clancy lately.  She also likes working on math problems for the fun of it.  Recently she had me throwing math problems at her for a half hour, all negative number math, like 35 minus 82.  She's working on simple multiplication and division in Rocket Math.  Antonia's writing has been fun to read this year, as she is very expressive in her writing and seems more gifted than me already at putting a story onto paper.

Antonia and Vivian spend A LOT of time playing together.  They keep busy with their "American Girl" dolls (which are actually Target's Our Generation dolls ;), playing school or family, playing their made up game called "Lydia and Lily," or pulling out Paw Patrol or doll houses.  They can play for hours together with ease, but sometimes sisterly challenges arise.  When Antonia wants to be alone, she is typically flipping through clothes or toy catalogs or writing in her diary.  When Jacoby is playing with them, they usually find Legos in common.

Recently Antonia's school raised money for Leukemia and Lymphoma, and the school encouraged the kids to raise money themselves by doing chores at home.  Antonia was totally into this idea and asked for chores all week.  She ended up doing the dishes for us most of the week and she did a great job and was proud.  I really need to get the kids some more chores! ;)

Antonia, we LOVE you SO much!!  We are proud to be your parents and LOVE watching you grow up.  You know how to give us a run for our money, and meanwhile we know you're growing up to be a strong girl and never a wallflower.  We love your JOY and the sweetness that you can show to all of us.  We are proud of the hard work that you put into school and your love of learning.  You are AWESOME!  

Happy 7th Birthday!!!

Oaks Park Tradition

For the kids' birthday, they received a coupon book in the mail from Opa and Kathleen, full of activities they could all do together!  The kids felt spoiled, and it was such a thoughtful gift.  The kids "cashed in" on their first coupon this week, heading to Oaks Amusement Park with Opa and Kathleen.  Plus, since we are staying in Eugene this week, more joined the day - Leticia, Genevieve, Willem and Meleesa.  We planned for a full day at the park, and we fit in a lot of rides, especially rides for the smaller kids - the carousal, Frog Hopper, kids' roller coaster, tug boat, etc.  Willem and Meleesa were great sports, going with the younger kids on rides.  I think the most fun for the older crew was the Rock & Roll ride (I loved it last year too!).  The craziest kid ride was the shaky, jolting roller coaster - yikes!  Vivian loved ALL of the rides, and had no fear, even if she was by herself.  After lunch though, all of the rides shut down when the electricity went out.  That was a bummer, since we had plans to go on big rides for the big kids next.  But we all took a ride down the giant slide, and then headed off after a great day.  We visited our new house (cabinets are going in and the floors are mostly stained, yea!!) and then hit up Yo Delish for frozen yogurt.  Thanks Opa and Kathleen for spoiling us all once again!!

(More pictures to come... :)

Antonia's Kindergarten Graduation

Miss Antonia graduated from kindergarten on June 9th, and we are so excited for her to be a FIRST grader!  Antonia has grown so much this past year.  She kicked off her first time visiting Mrs. Looney's classroom last summer with her head buried into my shoulder and unwilling to speak to or look at her new teacher.  But within no time Antonia was her outgoing, uninhibited self.  Antonia really became a social butterfly this school year.  She seemed to be friends with all the girls in her class, and even some of the dreaded boys ;)  She was surrounded by friends each morning when we would walk into her classroom, especially her friends Davina and Teckla (see the picture of Nia below with friends Anna, Teckla, Davina and Alice).  She loved having playdates this year, and begged for sleepovers.

The 2016 Forest Hills kindergarten grade had ~70 kids, split into 3 classrooms.  (Our Nia was the tallest girl throughout the year :).  This was the first year of all full day kindergarten at the school, and all the classrooms came together for such a cute song presentation on graduation day.  Next we all went to the individual classrooms for awards, where Mrs. Looney spoke about each kid.  Antonia received the "Problem Solver" award, and her teacher described Antonia as able to solve any academic or social problem that comes her way.  Next we learned about Antonia's thoughts from her year...

This year I learned... "to do math, and draw feet and hands and arms."
My favorite thing this year... "was being Star of the Week."
I will be a good role model for next year's kindergarteners... "because I am good at following the Three Bs (Be Safe, Be Responsible, Be Respectful)"
My goal is 1st grade is to... "be better at math."

Afterwards the kids had an ice cream social... in the rain no less!  Even though Opa couldn't join us this year (he was in Holland), Kathleen was able to make it and she played a congratulatory voicemail from Opa for Antonia.  It was great to have Kathleen, Grandma and Grandpa there to celebrate Antonia's fun day.  Jacoby couldn't join us since he had class, but we ran into him at recess and I was able to grab a picture of the three kids just like two years ago here.  Afterwards we celebrated more at Starbucks.  What a great elementary year for Antonia and a fun morning to celebrate!