Her Royal Highness, Vivi Jo Otto

In honor of the Royal Wedding yesterday, Vivi and her daycare buddies had Princess Day!  Ellen found a vintage tea set and made all sorts of amazing goodies and princess crafts (I honestly did not want to leave when I dropped her off yesterday).  Of course, Princess Day required formal attire...and heaven knows, Vivi's closet rose to the occasion.

Here she is, sparing a glance for her adoring public before carrying on with her very important business...

She was a bit put out when I announced that there was not an accompanying tiara.

And here, attended by her faithful hound.

Even though we brought a back up, more casual outfit (you know, for weekends at the palace and the like), she stayed in her princess dress all day AND DID NOT GET IT DIRTY (which is really a testament to Ellen's magic, because home girl did NOT avoid the pink cupcakes).  Happy Princess Day, all!

I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles...

I have had events the past two nights, so Vivi is getting some quality Daddy time.  She loves hanging out with Russ, and they always find something special and fun to do...like hanging out in our sunny breakfast nook and learning to blow bubbles on a Saturday morning!

"First, you stir up all the bubbles and get them ready."

"Then, you blow like a BIG WIND to make the bubbles!"

"Then you can try to catch the bubbles!"

Hurray for Daddy Days!

Hi Ho The Merry-O...

...it's the Vivi in the Dell.

Vivi found Noah's fabulous hat while she was roaming around GrandMary and GrandPapi's house, and immediately took it as her own.  While it makes Noah look like a cool little hipster, it made Vivi look like she was about to go and chase some cows out of the North 40.

Poor Noah almost didn't get his hat back.  And when Vivi protested its return, clamping her hands down on the hat and shrieking "Nooo!  Vivi hat soooo booteeful!"  he was a really good sport about it.

At this rate, we are going to have to open a haberdashery. 

Happy Easter, Everyone!

So today is obviously Easter.  And we Ottos have a tradition.  

Fuzzy Bunny ears.  I bought them for Vivi last year (matching her Easter dress, obviously) and was so delighted with the results that I decided  to make it a tradition.  Unfortunately, I totally goofed and forgot to get the rabbit ears picture while she was still in her Easter dress.  Undaunted, I felt we could still get a more casual bunny ears picture.  Vivi, however was...shall we say...skeptical.  So I tried to show her how fun it was to be a bunny.

She was clearly not buying it.  So we got Russ involved.

Stiiiiilllll not buying it.  So we handed her a toy snake and asked her to pretend it was a carrot.  This for some reason got her a little more in the mood to be a bunny.

So we got a nice family Easter photo.  Kind of.  Given our past failures, I'll take it.

Like Meatloaf says, Two Outta Three Ain't Bad.  Happy Easter from the Ottos!

In Which We Ignore the Play Structure...

So, after a few brief forays down the slide, Vivi wandered a few feet...and it was if the giant play structure ceased to exist.  She found...sand.

And once she found sand, it was as though the rest of the playground did not exist.  She was so, so excited about all elements of sand.  She picked it up and let it fall...

...she dug and dug and dug...

...and then she decided that as much of the sand that she could move needed to be up on the little brick wall.  This involved quite a bit more digging and moving.

And while Noah ran all about the GIANT playground and enjoyed the slides, climbing, and everything else that I had hoped would wear Vivi out...we dug and moved sand on to a wall.

So, I'm thinking...paleontologist.  Archeologist.  Something along those lines.

'Cause we did this for like 45 minutes.

Slip Sliding Away

Like I said...April began with a few teaser days early on.  Russ was traveling at this point, so Vivi and I joined Aunt Kate and Noah at a nearby park.  It was the first time Vivi had really been to a park, and things were...a bit confusing for her.

"What do you mean it doesn't work like this?  What the heck is going on here?  How DO you work this thing?"

I had to step in and attempt to explain things to her (if you look closely, you can see our matching double cowlicks).

"Aha!  Wonderous invention!  Success!"

She very much enjoyed her afternoon.  I cannot wait for a summer full of playing at the park!

Please for Sunshine?

Despite a few teaser days early in the month (more on that later), it has been gray and gloomy here in L-town.  Vivi has taken to staring out the door in a forlorne manner, preferably while wearing a booteeful hat.

The hat, for some reason, seems to connect her with the sun.  She will give a hefty sigh, and ask "Go ou-side, swing?" in a voice that suggests that she already knows the answer.  When we inevitably say no (it actually snowed here on Friday, yo!), she frowns, then goes looking for her pink hat.  We have several, but this one seems to be the favorite.

In other bizarre, weather-related news, she is TOTALLY FREAKED OUT by short sleeves.  She plucks at them frantically yammering "sleevesdoon, sleevesdoon, sleevesdoon!"  When I tried to explain short sleeves to her she literally cocked a Scarlett O'Hara eyebrow at me and stared at me as though I were trying to trick her into doing something really ridiculous.  Internet, I will not make you suffer her horror when we put her in shorts.

Please for sunshine!  Vivi is ready to play outside!

Or to go fishing.  Or to a Dave Matthews band concert.  Or to go chase the pesky neighborhood kids off of the damn lawn.  Not sure which this picture suggests...