Our Baby at 4

Here is what Addie is like at 4:

She is one of the most girly girls I know.  She LOVES to dress up, wear clip-on earrings, my necklaces, and is constantly applying lip gloss.  Her Chucke Cheese ring even goes in the ring box next to my wedding ring every night.  She changes clothes a million times a day, from one dress up or church dress, to another.

 She is also obsessed with princesses.  It's hard to say which is her favorite because she loves so many of them!  She has so many sets of princesses to play with and she plays with all of them.  There are some for the bathtub, some that are small that change clothes, some that are small that can't change clothes, some that are barbie size that go everywhere with her.

 She is very fixated on modesty.  We've been trying to teach her how to dress modestly and learn to respect her body.  Man, this is a difficult concept to teach someone so young.  She talks about things being modest constantly!  Whether it's pointing out that someone isn't dressing modestly or wanting to rebel and dress immodestly herself.  We had to take her dress ups away for a week because she was getting a little too rebellious with them.  Since then, she's been very good about it.

She is very responsible, just as she's always been.  This girl is sooooo helpful to me!  I can't even count how many diapers or wipes she's run to get for me in a moment of need.  The other day Scott and I were being lazy getting out bed and she went in and poured bowls of cereal and milk for her and Bennett.  We went into the kitchen to find both kids happily eating their breakfast.  She loves to have grown up responsibilities. 

She is a very good helper, sometimes too good, for her little brother.  She is always trying to teach him things, like how to get in and out of his crib!!!! Those two are pretty inseparable.  Though she's mostly great with Bennett, she does love to taunt him with toys.  She'll have a toy that she doesn't really care about.  Bennett will show interest and try to get it and she'll instantly raise it up over her head and start running in circles.  He'll chase her in circles screaming to try to get the toy.  We're working on this:)

She asks a lot of questions and is constantly asking, "Why?"  Most of the time, she asks questions that are completely absurd that I can't answer or questions that are so deep that I have no idea how to explain the answer to such a young person.  She is very observant and is always asking questions about her surroundings.

She is an amazing swimmer.  I know I've talked about this before so I won't say much, but she's still amazing and loves to go to the pool all the time.

She is a social butterfly.  She really came out of her shell when we moved.  She loves going to the gym and playing with her friends.  She makes new friends every day.  She really wanted to invite all of her gym friends to her birthday party and couldn't understand that I have no idea who their mom's are, so I couldn't give them invitations.  Sometimes she lucks out and gets a play date during Bennett's afternoon nap.  This has made it so that nearly every day she says, "Who's house am I playing at during quiet time?"  She doesn't love hanging out with me all the time.

She is so excited for Kindergarten and riding the school bus!  She loves to learn and have 'school.'  Sometimes during quiet time I will teach her 'school.'  She loves to be the teacher.  Luckily she doesn't realized I've tricked her and when she thinks she's teaching me, I'm actually teaching her:)

She is a cuddly little thing.  Especially to me.  She's become a Mama's Girl and loves to give me cuddles.  She will always give me loves and kisses if I ask.  I LOVE when I'm tucking her in at night and she'll give me about 20 kisses on my cheek really quickly.  When she does it she says, "I'm spoiling you!"  Adorable.  Her other thing at bedtime is I always have to give her an eskimo kiss, then a butterfly kiss on each cheek.  Then she has to give me an eskimo kiss, then a butterfly kiss on each cheek.  Sometimes it's exhausting because it can be quite a long process and I just want to go relax, but I need to remember how much I'm going to miss those sweet kisses when she's grown up!

We love our Addie girl and love watching her grow up more and more every day!