She's also allowing us to put bows in her hair now. We had some selfie fun with bows when we were at home for three days straight potty training, and now she's warmed to them. The super bow incident may have helped.
She's also learned that if she titlts her head just right, she can see her bows in my phone when it's in selfie mode. I shamelessly take advantage of this to take pictures of her admiring herself.
Most days she's just the mango queen.
But some days she decides she wants to be a cheerio eating robot.
She has also discovered Doc McStuffins, and her toys get regular chekups.
She had her own three year old check up, and she passed with flying colors. It was an adventure taking her and one of her three year old buddies downtown in full rush hour traffic. They did great though, no accidents :-) Part of the reason the traffic was so bad was because of the genius way they stop on-ramp traffic. I finally got a picture of the sea of cars being stopped by one man. He's kind of hard to see because he's behind the yellow taxi, and he blends into it, but he has a helmet and a reflective vest. The vest means he's in charge. We sat there for several minutes.
One of my friends got an even better traffic stopping picture the next month. This one is what they do when a VIP is coming and doesn't want to get stuck in traffic. Basically, they just close the highway.
Traffic jams are better with friends. Elena is very lucky to have lots of friends. She plays with one little buddy at least a few times a week. They are adorable together.
She's also willing to go outside her comfort zone for friends. She'll do things like take off her shoes and get in the sand box (lasted less than five minutes).
She lasted longer with the friend who let her take a ride on her kiddie ATV. Her friend even gave her a push.
She's also fine playing by herself.
Of course, the friend she loves the most is her big sister.
Vivian has also been growing up beautifully. She still loves singing, and she loved La La Land.
She's still goofy though. She insisted on trying out the mechanical bull at the International Family Fair.
She's also happy to dance the night away at the Girl Scout Sock Hop, fueled by hamgurgers.
This year's Sock Hop was particuarly special because Jeff's Dad and Stepmom came to visit, and Grandma Goerss came with us to the dance.
In addition to dancing, Vivian is still enjoying basketball, but the biggest development is that she has discovered a love of swimming. After a lot of pushing and cajolling her high school swim teachers and I finally convinced her to try out for the swim team. She made it, and she has been loving it. She's gone from two 30 minute lessons a week to three hour long practices. Her form and speed have significantly improved, and she participated in her first swim meet.
Seeing her name up on the board was a thrill, and I got a special kick out of the fact that there was just enough space for it to say Vivi Goerss. She even got a personal best in backstroke (her favorite stroke) and free style. She was so excited she almost flew out of the pool at the end of the race. She celebrated with a special treat of berry salad.
She was so pumped, she insisted on going to regular swim practice after the meet, and when the coaches let the kids knock off early to play pool games she asked her coach to give her more laps to swim. She said she dreamed about swimming that night. I think it's true love :-)
We still need to get Elena swimming without her "circle", but we have a few months left for that. Still, it's impossible not to be sad about our time here coming to an end. Vivian and I were leaving the school at sunset the other day after an activity, and I got this picture.
This has been such an incredible place for our girls to grow up.
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