the rosier rundown: The Twins are FOUR Years Old!

I can hardly believe it, but Gavin and Vivian are FOUR freakin' years old! This is insane. But not as insane as the exceedingly demanding, unbelievably frustrating, and incredibly deranged Terrible Threes were! Good riddance, Terrible Threes! We will NOT miss you! At all.

See what I mean? Ridiculous.

These days, it's pretty difficult to get a great photo of either twin because of their lack of desire to smile, refusal to look at the camera, and rejection of all directions given to them. But it's especially difficult with Mr. Gavin. We spent about 2 hours the other day at JMU's arboretum attempting a 4-year-old photo shoot, taking around 300 pictures, and then finding out later that we only got about 10-20 moderately acceptable pics. I think we got a couple winners. I just hope that they can step up their photo-taking game in this next year of their lives. {grin}

Getting back to their four-year update, Vivian and Gavin have changed a lot in the last year. Here are the top four things about each of them:

Vivian Grace:
Particular, Bossy, Funny

4. Vivian absolutely loves doing things that she sees me or other "big girls" do. For instance, you can easily catch her pretending to read a novel while wearing glasses or carrying her purse to the store and signing my name at the card swiper during check-out. She also wears lip gloss daily, asks if I can do her make up for her, and wants to wear cardigans often (I'm assuming this is because I almost always wear a cardigan or sweater). She does not particularly like wearing tennis shoes and would rather wear slip-on flats with no socks (something else I do on a daily basis).

3. She's bossy. Woah, is she ever bossy. She likes to tell all kinds of people what to do and when to do it. My mom says that bossy little girls usually turn into leaders and that I was a bit of a bossy kid (it's a shocker, I know), so I guess it's not that bad. But we still tell her that she shouldn't be telling her brother what to do on a daily basis. We'll just have to wait and see how this pans out.

2. Miss Vivian is a singer. Unfortunately, the poor thing can barely carry a tune. But she sure does try. She sings ALL of the time- in the tub, in the car, walking in the store, while playing with her brothers or by herself, or while eating dinner. It seems like she's constantly humming or singing a song. And she wants to learn the words to just about every song she hears. "Mommy, what is dat gurl singing?" is a common question of hers. In addition to singing all of the time and wanting to learn the words to songs, she also wants to know the sex of every singer we listen to. "Is dat a boy or a gurl singing dat?" The best part is that when she "belts out" a note, she tends to put her hand in the air and close her eyes. While I don't think she'll be on American Idol in 2027, she definitely loves singing and I don't think it's stopping anytime soon.

1. Vivi LOVES to write. She can't spell any words yet, but she sure thinks she's writing something. She'll write for days. A lot of her writing involves actual letters (her favorite letters being "V," "P," "L," and "W"), but most of her writing is a zig zag (up, down, up, down) going from left to right on the page. She fills up the entire page, by the way. At first (she's been doing this for about a year), we just thought it was cute, but then we realized what she thought she was doing. She thought she was writing her name. Think about it. Her name, "VIVIAN," is all lines. You could sort of draw it in just lines like this- "\/ \ \/ \ /\ /\/." She would look at her name, see the zig zag, and replicate it. It's actually quite brilliant (at least we think it is). She has since learned to write her name correctly, but the long, never ending zig zags continue to fill up notebooks, sticky notes, and random sheets of paper in our house. Give her a piece of paper and a pen/marker/pencil, and Vivian is ridiculously happy.

Gavin Charles:
Stubborn, Inquisitive, Helpful

4. Lately, Gavin has been testing his independence. He likes to push the limits to see how far he can go with us. It's a very common occurrence in our house to hear him blatantly say "No" to us after a request or for him to act like he just can't hear us. It's like he wants to break the rules to see what will happen (imagine that). It's extremely frustrating at times, but we understand that it's part of life, which makes it easier to deal with. Kind of. We also understand that like Vivian's bossiness, this too will pass. Hopefully.

3. Gavin is active. He doesn't like to sit still. He's an on-the-go kind of guy. He likes to be outside digging in the dirt, running around like a maniac, or climbing something. He's a "doer." He plays hard. When we go to the park (which is about 4-6 times a week), Gavin likes to find some older kids to play tag or hide and seek with. He claims that he likes to "run fast with them." He'll just go and go and go. Until, of course, he crashes (like HERE).

2. Gavin is "helpful." He wants to help us (especially Wes) with EVERYTHING! He means well. And he has good intentions. But, he doesn't always do what he's asked and he sometimes spills/breaks/bends/shatters things in the process of helping. Still, for the most part, he's really good at completing little "jobs" for us. For instance, he helps Wes take out the trash (and he's in charge of putting a new bag in the can), he puts the grocery bags in the "extra bag cabinet," he vacuums the living room rug, he washes the cars with Wes, and he'll go get Paxton a pacifier without question. He likes to do stuff and he gets bored easily. So, we try to go outside as much as possible and give him tasks through out the day.

1. Gavin wants to know how things work. This is nothing new. He's always been this way. He watches us do things (like use the dishwasher, fix a leaky pipe, turn on the hose, open a child-lock door, start the car and drive, use the vacuum, and operate Wes' carjack, to name a few) then he either figures it out how to copy us himself or he'll proceed to ask one of us a TON of questions about how it works. For a while, we couldn't even let Gavin see how the baby gates opened or were taken apart in fear that he would figure it out. He's very observant and very mechanical. For instance, Wes explained to Gavin how the carjack worked without any kind of physical demonstration. A couple of days later, Wes came into the garage to find that Gavin had jacked up his tricycle all by himself. That's Gavin for ya!

Their three-ring circus themed birthday party (that they are sharing with Paxton) is on Saturday and they couldn't be more thrilled. We have talked about it everyday for the last several weeks and they've helped get decorations up, goodie bags filled, and food choices made. I'll post more about what we did on their actual birthday (today) and the party later. Until then, here are a few more twin shots from the arboretum...