Caroline is four and a half!

Those half years are really important!  I want to take a few minutes to remember exactly how she is right now!

 

Caroline requested just one picture with her girl Rapunzel!

 

*Caroline is the most talkative, confident, unique, creative, funny, rambunctious, intelligent, energetic child I have ever known.  It is an honor to be her mom!!

*The things that come out of her mouth are ridiculous.  I try to post at least one thing a day on Facebook to help me always remember.

*She lives to help other people.  She lives to have a job, to help, and to mean something to someone.  Right now her chores are to feed the dogs, pick up Cam’s toys at night, and get the mail.  We also have a box in her room that she fills up every night with the clothes, shoes, and socks she is going to wear the next morning.  She then knows her job is to go potty when she wakes up and then get herself dressed.  This works really well (most mornings)!

*We went to Disney World this summer and she got to meet almost all of the princesses.  She still loves Elsa, but her very favorite will always be Rapunzel.  She just LOVES her long, blond hair. 

*Right now she is completely obsessed with She-Ra.  We started watching them on Hulu and she watches at least one a day.

*She is also into Shopkins big time right now and she still has her Itty Bitty collection and her Magic Clip princesses.

*She has had a Nabi for a while now and she gets 30 minutes of YouTube Kids every day.  While on there she watches videos of people opening toys – Shopkins, blind bags, Magic Clips, etc.  She would watch those videos for 24 hours in a row if we let her!

*She LOVES being a big sister.  Sometimes she does too much and we have to reign her in, but she loves to make Cam laugh, she wants to help as much as she can with him, and she is genuinely excited and proud when he does something new.

*Even though she loves Cam, she does get quite annoyed with him often – already.  She makes it very known that she is tired of his crying and fussing (even though it may have been her crying and fussing 5 minutes before).

*She is a bossy little thing.  She likes to ask why and make sure she fully understands something before she completes the task at hand.  We are trying to get her to do better with doing what she is asked because an adult asked her to do it.  She doesn’t have to be ok with it or fully understand.

*She without a doubt meets and exceeds the 350+ average number of questions per day.  She is so smart and really does just want to understand what is going on around her.

*This is her last year of preschool and, bless her heart, she is counting down the days until kindergarten.  I hope it lives up to her expectations!

*She learned how to swim this summer.  She was a little hesitant at the beginning of the summer, but we got a pool for the backyard that was big enough for her to completely go under water.  We worked on blowing air out of her nose while she was under water and she practiced that in our little pool.  Then Jason’s parents got a pool and within the first day she was jumping into the water and swimming to us.  She can swim under water anywhere she wants to go and she can kick with her head above water to get places, also!  We have a little fish!

*She is starting dance this week.  We felt like she hadn’t done anything organized yet so it was time to do something.  Her dance teacher is the mom of one of my students and I am very curious to see how she does and if she likes it!  She already knows how to do first position (thank you, Peppa Pig) and we have been working on the fact that she needs to do what she is told and not say, ‘I know how to do that’ just because she has seen it on Peppa Pig!

*She is so tall and lean.  She is in size 6 clothes because of the length.  I hope we can get her into something that she likes to do so that she can keep being tall and lean.  I would love for her to be as healthy as she possibly can be.

*She would complain about her back and legs hurting after running.  We started to question if she had tethered cord like Cam and just didn’t have a dimple on her back.  After asking the doctor about it she referred us to a physical therapist who did a complete evaluation on her and said that she was perfect for her age.  She has full range of motion and runs and walks just fine.  Glad we can get that idea out of our head!

*We try to say our prayers every night before bed and it is the sweetest thing.  She usually prays for things around her room, but she makes sure to also pray for anyone sick or hurting.

*She can be a little bit selfish (what first child isn’t), but we are working really hard to help her learn and gain empathy so that she thinks about other people.

*She still gets furious when she sees trash on the ground.  We have picked up trash several times to help make her feel better!

 

Our girl is most definitely one of the biggest lights of our life.  We love her for her and we love that she isn’t afraid to be who she is.  I pray with all of my heart that she holds on to that in this big, mean world.  It is such an honor and a privilege to be her parents and we are so glad we get a front row seat to her growing and learning every day.  We love you, Whack Job Sandwich!