Haircuts for the girls

The other day Valerie, out of the blue, said "I want bangs". This is the first time Valerie has made any strong statement about how she wanted her hair. The girls hair had been becoming more and more unmanageable anyway, so it was time. This was also Olivia's very first official haircut. The hairdresser put up with a lot of happy commotion and was so sweet- making sure she got all of their names right away (including Ethan, who did not get a haircut).

News alert on Ethan, this will come as a relief to all of the grandparents: he suddenly became modest this week and no longer wants to be in his birthday suit in front of others. I may have mentioned this in previous posts, but he has a serious passion for reading right now. He likes graphic novels best. He's also really enjoying baseball. The coach rotates him to many different positions, which makes it fun. In this week's game, he got two outs playing first base. Steve will have to tell you the rest b/c I was chasing Livy around almost the entire time (so energetic!!!).

In other news, we asked Olivia last night which name she prefers to be called, "Olivia", "Livy" or "ZZ": it was clearly Livy. She says it so sweetly too. She also has learned to say "Yogurt" instead of "Neenut". And when she wants to put on her Lion costume, she says "I want to put my roar on".

Valerie has been doing really well with her school work. She is getting tons of A+s and her work looks very neat. Some friends at school gave her some bracelets made out of these little rubber bands and she has been really into making them. Her reading is also coming along nicely- she was reading Stellaluna last night on her own (just for fun!). Valerie also likes Daisy's so much she's sometimes just wearing her girl scout vest when we are out and about. Last weekend Valerie had a soccer game and played sweeper (defense) and goalie. She did a great job at both positions- basically fearless even though most of the children on the field are a lot bigger than her.

Ethan and Valerie are doing really well with their piano lessons. This teacher really seems to give them just the right amount each week and they are enjoying playing the short pieces he has assigned. I definitely will post some videos of this soon.

Julia, lately, is going through a stage. Seems like she is redefining 4 as the new 2 (at home only- she is a model student at school). She wants a lunchable very badly though, and I am hoping to use that to bribe her into getting dressed by herself etc, and reducing the whining. She just needs a little more TLC- so we are trying to give her that too. The other night I realized, I just needed to rock her, like I do Olivia. She just melted.