Morning

Vivien wakes up between 7 and 8.  She likes to be taken out of her crib by Daddy (who is very nice to get her and let his whale of a wife stay beached), have her diaper changed, then say "Where Mama?" until Drew brings her back to our bed so she can snuggle with us for awhile.  Sometimes she'll cuddle up and go back to sleep, sometimes she'll lay there and pat our faces and point out our eyes, noses, mouths, and ears, sometimes she'll talk to her stuffed animals, and sometimes she'll climb all over us till we banish her from the bed.  When she gets tired of waiting for us to wake up, she will go to the door and bang on it till we get up to let her out and feed her.  I usually will take her out of her pajamas for breakfast to save myself some laundry, but if I do it too soon before the food is ready, she will take off her diaper.  I've decided to photograph her in retaliation.

Yesterday we showed her how to fold her arms during the prayer, and today when we all sat down to eat she folded her arms on her own and said "Ready?"  When Drew goes to school, she says "Bye Daddy!" and waves at him.  

I've moved all her clothes down to the bottom drawers of her dresser so she can choose what she wants to wear when it's time to get dressed.  She really likes the purple leggings Grandma Paula got her for Christmas.  She'll point to them and say "poh-poh."  

She has recently developed a fondness for pillows.  She calls them "piyoh-s."  She likes to help me make our bed in the morning because she gets to pick up the pillows (which are as big as she is) and walk them over to me.  When we are finished, she likes to get on the bed and sit in the middle of them like a nest.  

  

We try to go for an outing in the morning in hopes of tiring her out so she'll take a nap in the afternoon.  When she sees me getting ready to leave, she will say "walk?" or "go!"  She will get her shoes out of the closet and bring them to me ("shioo").  Today we went to Matthews Beach Park.  It was a gray day, so we had the whole park to ourselves.  There were seagulls, ravens, ducks, pigeons, and squirrels galore.  

We had to sit and watch them for awhile.  She likes to listen to them and then imitate them.  She does a very good raven impression, though I'm not surprised :)

Vivien will now take you on a tour of the playground equipment.  We start with the Merry-Go-Round.  She likes it, but was confused today when she'd start walking straight towards me and end up somewhere else.  I like how she stomps her foot.

I couldn't get a video of her going down the slide because her rain jacket made her go really fast and she needed two handed catching at the bottom.  You will just have to believe me when I tell you that she loved it.     

I'm going to need to invest in a Shammy to take to the park with us--everything is always wet, and my sleeves can only hold so much moisture . . .

Cape Disappointment

This weekend we drove down to Cape Disappointment, which is on the Washington side of the mouth of the Columbia River.  It was about a three and a half hour drive.  We went this way:

Vivi did very well--she talked to herself and played with sleepy bear and puppy (the one Nana gave her) and read books, then when she looked tired we turned on our CD of classical lullabies and she went right to sleep.

Here is the park, and all the places we went:

Cape Disappointment is where Lewis and Clark finally made it to the Pacific and they have a museum about them at the park, so we started there.  

My three favorite parts of it:

-An exhibit on the dugouts they made to float down the Columbia River.  There was a 1/2 scale replica of one which looked absolutely impossible to navigate.  We got to try loading a suspended miniature canoe with as much "luggage" (blocks) as we could without tipping it over.

-An exhibit on how hard it was to find enough food to feed everyone.  There were pictures posted on the wall of all the different animals they ate, scaled to what they would look like from 100 yards away (their accurate shooting range).  We had to look through binoculars to read the labels on the picture that said how many people the animal would feed, then we sighted them with a rifle mounted on the railing around the exhibit.  It took a lot of hunting to feed a company of 33!  

-A replica of Lewis's "traveling library," including references on navigation, botany, medicine, Indian tribes they were likely to encounter, etc.  There were also a few replicas of the actual journals they kept on their way.  Pretty fascinating! I wish we could've gone on a field trip there when we studied Lewis and Clark in American Studies.  

Vivien sort of liked the museum.  She mostly liked to run into the room where they were showing a video for all the people too lazy to read the information and distract them with her singing and dancing.  

They also had a room in the museum about "The Graveyard of the Pacific."  There's a giant sandbar at the mouth of the Columbia river that makes this stretch of the coast particularly treacherous, so there were exhibits on lighthouses, the improvement of rescue systems, and a map of all the shipwrecks.  The room had a beautiful view of the ocean, but we were there at sunset so the blue-eyed people in the family were not able to enjoy it much.

We were not supposed to climb in the boat, so I made Drew stand on a chair behind it.  You were fooled, weren't you? You thought they were in the boat.  That's how good of a photographer I am.  

  After the museum we went for a little hike over to the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse.  Vivi hikes very well downhill.  Or maybe it's just that her momentum is so great that she can't stop and pick up every rock and pine cone she sees.  

Her new favorite thing is to yell "YYYYYYYAAAAAAAH!" with as much intensity as she has when she is squeezing Rice Chex into powder.  Here she is in the middle of saying it.  

She was trying her hardest to get off of Daddy's shoulders so she could run the wrong way.  

The most scenic beach we saw the whole weekend, but it was off limits--property of the U.S. Coast Guard.  

The other side of the scenic beach.  I got this picture on the first try! 

View of the Lewis and Clark center from the lighthouse.

Vivien was far more interested in the puddle she found than the Pacific Ocean, and Drew was looking particularly handsome in his Columbia shirt by the Columbia river.  

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse

That night we ate dinner at a fun restaurant in Long Beach (a town a couple miles north of the park), then attempted to roast marshmallows over some very damp wood at our cabin.  We fell asleep to the sound of croaking frogs and fog horns from the ocean.  

The cabin.  There was a table and chairs, a futon, bunk beds (with a full size mattress on the bottom), and a heater in the corner.  Bathrooms were in a building right behind us.  It was very easy to clean up when we left!  We slept in our sleeping bags and took the pack-n-play for Vivi.  

Our view of Lake O'Neil from the cabin.  

Eating breakfast

Welcome to Waikiki!  In the morning we went to Waikiki Beach, which is apparently named for a Hawaiian sailor whose body washed ashore after their ship wrecked on the infamous Columbia sandbar in 1811.  Despite its dismal history, it was very pretty and it would probably be fun to swim there in the summer.  

You can see the lighthouse we hiked up to the day before on top of the sea cliff in the back.  

Driftwood surrounding Waikiki Beach.  It was VERY slippery!  

Then we drove over to Benson Beach and walked all the way to the North Head.  We saw a HUGE eagle that Drew (after some research when we got home) decided was a juvenile bald eagle.  I didn't get a picture because I was standing there gawking at it with my mouth open :)

Playing with the sand

The North Head Lighthouse

We thought the stripedy sand was pretty cool.

Gnarly driftwood

Mom was appreciative of Vivien's meandering pace as we walked along the beach.  

Off to see the waves! 

Odds and Ends

I was feeling guilty after I talked to my sisters on the phone today because they were looking for pictures of Vivien on facebook and I'm afraid there are few to be found there.  I probably won't start posting more on facebook any time soon, but I do want you to see her (because she is very cute) so I thought I'd remedy my guilt by starting a blog for you.  She's been a little camera shy lately so I haven't been able to capture many smiles on film, but here's a little taste of what she's been up to.

Physical Feats

She loves to play with her Daddy!  Drew is training her as a trapeze artist, I think.  Grandma Paula, you probably don't want to watch this one.  

We go explore lots of parks while Daddy is at school.  This is the path to Meadowbrook Pond that's a mile or two from our house.  She is getting much better at walking in specific directions, but she still has to stop every time she hears a raven or a dog.

This is one of her favorite things to do right now.  She stands on the drawer and hoists herself up so she can see what's happening on the stove.  It is not one of Mom's favorite things for her to do, for obvious safety reasons.  

 Adventures in Eating

I am including this picture so you can see her funny bite marks.  She bit the banana in the middle with her top teeth and the bread with her two little bottom teeth.  

 A representation of Vivien's mouth right now.   I would have a hard time eating carrots too.  

The other day at breakfast she just wasn't getting enough cream of wheat with her spoon, so she tried to drink out of the bowl and got a face full of mush.  

She really likes to push herself back from the table with her feet.  Unsurprisingly, she is frustrated when she can no longer reach her food.  I do like her stabilizing toe though :)

 Valentine's Day Feasting

I bought a heart-shaped pan at Target and made us a Pepperoni and Red Pepper Pizza with Rosemary Garlic crust, a Caesar Salad with "hearts" of Romaine . . .

. . . and some chocolate dipped strawberries!

Vivi liked them especially well and used the chocolate to style her hair.  

We hope you all had a Happy Valentine's Day and we love you very much!

P.S. from 2017  I played in a concert around this time with the Northwest Symphony Orchestra.  See look:
 

We played one concert at the Holy Rosary Catholic Church in West Seattle.  It was kind of awkward seating with that railing and the steps and my big pregnant belly, but always fun!