Savannah age 6

Sweet Savannah girl!

She thinks her name is "Savannah Elaine Banana Schauerhamer" because we sometimes call her Savannah banana. But she actually things her middle name is Elaine Banana and I cannot even handle it. It is so cute! That is how she introduces herself and every time I just can't even handle how cute she is. 

 Her imagination is amazing! The worlds her and her brother create are amazing. They play all day so well together and it is so incredible. She is a big follower (ugghhhghghg) with friends. She does whatever they want to do, and just wants to be part of the group. She will not play by herself. If Oliver is gone or doesn't want to play with her (which rarely happens but sometimes he wants to do his own thing) she can't handle it. She says she's bored and won't play alone. Because she will not play alone and wants to always play with Oliver they usually play with his favorite toys. So she loves to play with mega legos, legos and dinosaurs. They have so much! BUT if she were to chose, she would pick to play barbies, or dress up or jewelry. Oliver just won't play that with her so she plays with what he likes. She does dress up the dinosaurs in jewelry sometimes which is so cute. She does direct the play though. Usually boys grunt and bash things, and Oliver does do that when he plays alone, but because he has grown up playing with Savannah they play more with words and story lines.  Its fun to see them come together to play and both bring different skills and natural tendencies to the table.

She's our knot girl. She ties all the things in knots. It drives us nuts. She also ties her barbies and other toys up, like she's taking them hostage. It is slightly unsettling. 

She's my helper. She is such a little girl in that sense, she has a natural care taking ability. She tries to change Salem's diaper, likes to pick out her clothes and help her get dressed. She'll get her food. She also love to help the neighbors, especially Lara. She earned money this summer picking weeds, apples and rocks for the neighbors. 

She has amazed me at her reading. She works so hard and is such a good reader. It has been hard for her that her twin is such a natural reader. At first she felt really inferior, and intimidated. I am so proud that she has changed her attitude and now doesn't let his success keep her down. The opposite, in fact, she has worked hard and now is reading above grade level as well. Her favorite thing is to "pass off" a book with daddy. 

She has started to want to go on morning walks with dad. It is really cute and they love the time together. She likes to help mom cook and sew. She is so independent! She has long since liked to do her own hair and pick out her own clothes. It's so funny to us she is a very independent girl, and a total feminist, but is such a follower with peers. 

She's a feminist. A self proclaimed feminist. She has a meltdown if we are watching a show without a strong female lead. One day we were at the ER getting her wrist xrayed (biking accident with her cousins) and I told her she could take her mask off while we were in the waiting room, but once the doctor came in we had to put it back on. I said "when he comes in" and she responded, "it could be a she, mom. It could be a girl doctor." And you know what? It was a female doctor! She just naturally is a feminist and I love it! She keeps me in check too and helps me realize where I need to change. I'll joke with her "I'm your mom, I know everything" and she responds "you don't know everything. You didn't know how to garden, and you learned how to do that." 

She's such a trickster. She's constantly trying to trick me. "Mom! Someone is at the door!" when there isn't. Things like that. 

She doesn't like doing Upstart on the computer, she loves doing school with Mommy.  She loves doing school! She's such a smartie.

She has the best relationship with her brother and sister. We love seeing how much they love each other. 

Savannah, we adore you! 

Oliver age 6

Oh this little Oliver man. 

He is still our sweet snuggly guy. He wants to be touching us and snuggling us all the time. He will go up to random people at the park and snuggle up to them. He will hold an adults hand that is put in charge of him.  He and his sisters still snuggle all the time when they're on the couch. We love it!  He is so sweet and tender with Salem. She adores him!! They have such a special connection.

He has the best imagination!! He and Savannah just play with their toys for hours and hours and make the most imaginative things. His favorite toys are: mega legos, legos, dinosours, shark/ships. His favorite things are obviously, monsters, ghosts and zombies! He recently watched the new move Love and Monsters and now they like playing Love and Monsters, which is so funny and cute. He's still obsessed with Halloween.

He can be kind of a loner. He and Savannah play so well together. And they're learning to include Salem which is so cute. But he is ok playing on his own. Sometimes (often?) at a friends house or cousins house, he will go off on his own and do his own thing.  If we have friends over here, he again will go off and play on his own sometimes. When they're playing at the park, they will play games with friends now instead of playing on the equipment. He loves that and will stay engaged the entire time. 

His first love and passion is still technology. He is obsessed with video games! We don't let him play very often, but he talks about them all the time! He says his favorite sport is video games, and he wants to be a video game tester when he grows up... that might make me cringe and his dad proud, haha. If he could pick any activity to do, it would always be video games. I'm grateful that he has such a great imagination and can play all day and enjoy it. When video games aren't an option he doesn't ask and just plays so great with Savannah. We are trying to encourage and help that passion by introducing him to coding. He's picking it up really easily and really enjoys it. 

This kid is so smart. He basically taught himself to read. He's reading around a 2nd grade level. He loves to read! He's making huge progress with math and coding as well. He says his favorite subject in school is science. He begs to do his reading and math curriculum on the ipad (game based so totally up his alley, haha). 

If I'm cranky he has started to go out of his way to tell me he loves me and how wonderful I am. It's really cute and sweet. 

He learned to ride a bike this year, and we were pretty nervous but he nailed it. He did a great job and now he cruises around like a pro.  

His favorite foods are pizza and spaghetti. He doesn't like fruit - which I find to be so weird. He will eat bananas and apples and that is about it.  For veggies, he isn't a huge fan either. But he LOVES mushrooms! He begged me for months to make mushroom soup, so we finally did and he loved it so much!

He's such a typical little boy and is terrible at cleaning up, UNLESS he is earning video games, and then he is fast and efficient! He can never find anything. 

He's become our glass breaker. He "butt slammed" our glass storm door and shattered it. He was just in his undies and got cuts on his back and legs, but not too bad. We are so grateful he didn't get more hurt. Since then he's broken so many more things. Specifically cups. Some plates. A bowl in there maybe. Good thing Savannah has become our glass finder! :)

Oliver is our little goofball. He loves to make us laugh. He's always doing funny dances or singing funny songs to get us to laugh. If we start laughing, he keeps going to get us laughing harder. He loves to be the center of attention that way. He is oddly a  good break dancer! He has no formal training (haha) and does these moves and we have no idea where he learned them. We will have to put him in a class. 

One of our things we most want to remember about Oliver at this age, is just how sweet he is, especially with his sisters. I often find him and Salem sitting together snuggling. He loves to hold her hand. He and Savannah are best friends and watching them play is my favorite.

Oliver dude, we adore you!!