All About Victoria

This girl.

This beautiful, amazing, generous, stubborn, talented, challenging, driven, deep soul.

I am constantly in awe.

She loves ice skating. She is extremely cautious, can't seem to learn how to bend her knees, and likes to complain about the cold/uncomfortable skates/anything else she can find. But she still loves it.

Off skating with Uncle Adam ...

She can be very sensitive, so I am often careful not to laugh at her, including when she said this:

For this one, I could laugh out loud, because I was safely at work when I got this email from Lou:

Although she screams when you ask her to clean her room, she does this to the silverware:

That persnicketyness comes from her mom.

(I too get overwhelmed at cleaning a whole room. I sorta get it, V.)

She has always loved creative outfits like this one, complete with a "Frozen" tiara on top of the hoodie. (Thanks Nina and Chunglunds!)

She has ALWAYS loved baking. So when I asked her to put Christmas cookies on the cookie plate, where she could organize the goodies? Perfect job for her.

She knows her momma well. Here was her characterization of me one day -- purse slung over her shoulder, coffee cup in hand.

She can now spread stuff on toast by herself! This was a big deal.

She is slowly getting less shy in public. Here she is at the Children's Museum:

She loves her American Girl dolls:

And dress-up. And being silly.

She loves giving gifts. In January she decided on the perfect birthday gift for Auntie Karen. All on her own, she thought of going to the painting place and painting a mug (cuz Auntie Karen loves coffee) that would be black and pink (cuz those are her favorite colors). She even remembered a shirt Karen wore with a heart on it, and had me help her paint a similar shirt on the mug.

Sometimes she gets annoyed by the puppies, but sometimes she wants to play. She loves when Piper will agree to play tug.

Or shake for treats.

She also loves baby dolls, and will spread them out all over her room.

Every one of her ten zillion dolls has to have their own bed.

Usually, play time is better when her brother joins her (until they start fighting, which thankfully is rarely!). On this particular morning, I had asked them if they wanted to go out to eat, and they said no -- they wanted to stay home and play.

She is getting to be a great speller. Of course, she knows all our names. Including the dogs. Lately we have started having her spell rhyming words -- for instance, I'll say that "big" is spelled b-i-g, and will ask her to spell dig, fig, pig, etc. I love it.

She loves to do "tricks."

And Mommy always has to photograph them ;).

She knows how to use all the iPad apps, and to take photos of them, so I often will look in the Photos app and see images like this.

Or on my phone, where I will find 80 copies of virtually the same photo:

Her creativity knows no bounds. Here she made a kennel for one of her dogs out of paper, an egg carton, and tape (she's getting wayyyy too good at using tape!)

She became the first person in the family to write on a Caribou chalkboard. I was sorta proud because I've never done that.

She loves gymnastics, and was proud of learning to climb on the high beam all by herself:

Along the lines of spelling ... one morning she and I got doughnuts, and she surprised me by recognizing the door handle -- "Mom! D! For Doughnuts!"

Yes, V, you're right!

Turns out there are "D"s everywhere!

I'm biased. I'm just so proud of her.

And I love seeing her excitement over something as simple as a doughnut with sprinkles.

She loves handmade things, like this tooth pillow from Granny Gail. Yes, it probably won't be long before she gets a loose tooth or two!

Her art is often multimedia ... for Grandpa's birthday card she layered several papers, and added a tag and twine.

She loves easily, and with her big heart, there are some things she simply must bring home with her.

I understand. I couldn't resist buying the lamb for her.

She loves to help, and loves growing things and taking care of plants. This year, she is keeping me on track for starting seeds and watering them.

So. Blessed. Every. Day.

Easter

Victoria was enthusiastically on the Easter bandwagon this year. She started asking about coloring eggs two weeks before the big day, and after a week I had caved to the requests (hoping the eggs would still be good by the time Easter came around!). We had to use LouLou's eggs that V had helped gather from the chickens:

 

Daddy boiled them for us and we started our coloring. Alex joined in for a little bit, but seemed to be mainly interested in his Batman car and superheroes (or as he says it, "superheryos").

Also, hi Anna in the background!

The bulk of the coloring schemes were decided by V, with execution assistance from Mommy.

And yes, my daughter is nearly naked. It seems to be her default preference lately. And it makes for easy clean-up!

The final designs ... Victoria colored eggs and designated them for certain people. She "gave" eggs to everyone. She is a generous artist!

Next on Victoria's list was seeing the Easter Bunny! She asked so nicely and was so excited when she saw him. Gone was our shy little girl of past years. She ran right up for hugs and high fives! 

Then, she came up with all sorts of "good ideas" of what the Easter Bunny could hide, what he could put in her baskets, etc. (Isn't that a good idea, Mommy? and I to go whisper in the Bunny's ears on her behalf  ... LOL). Alex was hanging out nearby the whole time, listening carefully and talking about Easter, but only getting close enough to wave to Mr. Bunny. No picture for him!

A week before Easter, we were at my parents' house for my dad's birthday, and my mom gave them Easter "baskets" ahead of time.

Piper cuddles in and Molly gets a dog's-eye view of the goodies! Shy Anna takes the back row seat.

Instead of baskets, they had hats.

Just because it's cute, I'll add this picture of my bro givin' some loves to P-dog.

The next Easter celebration was at daycare!

There was crafts, an Easter lunch menu, and an egg hunt, which the kids had requested be conducted indoors instead of out.

Victoria adding eggs she found

Victoria was adamant about bringing her Easter dress to daycare. When I hesitated because I was worried about her spilling on it, she said, "well mama, of course I won't wear it until AFTER breakfast!" So she packed it away in the daycare bag, and made sure it was on before the "Easter party" started.

Alex turned out to be an incredible egg finder too!

There were 96 - yes, you read that right - eggs.

Including one under the cupboards in the kitchen that took a whole group to get out:

(and which ended up being an orange. Ha.)

Look at how cool, fun, colorful, and pretty the eggs are!

We had decorated for Easter, including these cute bunnies the kids created last year. I love 'em.

And then, we were ready for Easter! Victoria worked hard the night before writing a note for the Easter bunny:

Dear Easter Bunny,
Hide our baskets
Hide jelly beans
Do not hide chocolate
Vic Alex

Ummm ... I'm not 100% sure what's behind this note, but my theory is 1) she really wanted the Easter Bunny to hide more stuff than he has in previous years, and 2) she has been well taught that chocolate can be disastrous for the dogs?? Love it.

On Easter morning, Victoria was the first one up.

V, tapping me furiously on the shoulder: Mom! Mom! Can we go look for our Easter baskets?

Me (half asleep): No. Wait for everyone. Your brother is still asleep. Daddy is still asleep.

V: But mom! mom! The Easter bunny!

Me: ok, here's what you can do. Go downstairs, take a quick look at the living room window, and see if your baskets are still there or if the Easter bunny hid them. But that's it. Then come back upstairs and tell me.

V: MOOOOMMM ... I already did that.

Me: Oh.

(Of course she did)

So, downstairs we went, and the first basket they saw was Mom and Dad's.

Then, the hunt was on!

An egg hidden by the tv.

Mommy made a minion egg for each kid.

Alex's was in the cupboard!

Haha, Toria's was in the bathtub!

We hung out for awhile before church. A-man was clearly tired!

The kids donned their adorable Easter outfits, and Mommy oohed and aahed. Can you see why? 

Sitting next to each other, with V's arm around her little brother? It was all her idea.

Man, I just LOVE how close these two are.

There was an Easter egg hunt at church. The eggs had little toys like this lamb and green alien dude.

The kids enjoyed the children's sermon ...

We got to take home one of the lilies. So fragrant!

On to Grandma and Grandpa's ... for yet another egg hunt! The kids saw eggs right away (you can't fool them) and could barely wait until Mom and Dad got in the door to go off searching.

Total egg hunts for the day: 3. Total egg hunts including the one at daycare: 4.

I decided to wear a scarf that had been my Grandma Marge's. Totally something she would've worn for a holiday.

Here we are dividing the goods ...

We didn't get more pics of the whole family, but we enjoyed a delicious dinner with my parents, Adam, and Megan, and one of the dessert offerings was this "Easter egg" fruit pizza:

I absolutely love the celebration of spring, the egg hunts and candy and all the kid fun. I adore how cute my kidlets are in their Easter clothes. One other thing I loved this year: getting to explain the "meaning" of Easter to the kids. It started with Victoria asking WHY we would go to church on Easter, which was a super interesting question to me as an adult. But to the kids, Easter has never been about church or Jesus. All they have known/paid attention to is the celebration of spring, the fun and games. So, when Victoria asked that question, I felt I had to answer in a way that was fairly complete, not misleading, and that reflected my values. It was a fun challenge to choose my words in a way that conveys historical accuracy and yet that she could understand. I carefully explained how the people before Jesus's time had spring celebrations, and how after Jesus's death the members of the early Christian church chose the (pagan) spring festival as a time to reflect on Jesus's death (which almost certainly did not happen on whatever day we happen to celebrate Easter in a given year). We talked honestly about how Jesus died -- nailed to a cross -- and about the emperor who sentenced him to death. Then we got to the "resurrection" part of the story. Resurrection is tricky for me. I'm not sure that I believe in a literal resurrection -- it doesn't jive with the logical part of my brain, but the part of my soul that still believes in magic and miracles still wants to believe. I explained to Victoria (with Alex casually listening) that everything I had told so far in the story was fact, things that we absolutely know are true. And then I explained that Mary went to Jesus's tomb and couldn't find his body, that in the days and weeks that followed, people said they saw Jesus in visions. And, that a lot of people in our faith tradition of Christianity believe that Jesus went to be with god. Victoria repeated back that some people believe he went to be with god, but others don't believe that? I said yes, that's true. We know a lot about the historical Jesus, but there are parts of the story where people have to decide for themselves what they believe. She thought about this quietly for a minute, while I sat in silence with her. I love letting my kids think about their opinions and formulate their own questions, and so often I feel like an amazed spectator in watching how their brains work. After a minute or two, she declaratively stated that of COURSE Jesus went to be with god (don't you think mom? ... to which I non-committedly replied, "that is a possibility"). She actually had a reason for this conclusion, which unfortunately I don't remember at the moment. But, she believes in the resurrection. If she is at all like her mama, her opinions will change over time (about this and a million other things) ... but it is very important to me that they not be spoon-fed "easy" answers, like I sometimes felt in the church I grew up in. I want them to know that it's ok to think about big questions and to search their hearts for their own truth. I am so grateful to be their mama, the one who gets to help teach them how to celebrate spring joyously, how to take pride in finding all the Easter eggs, and to be the one who is a companion on their spiritual journey.