four and a half!

here i am again, writing you a blog post. I don't know how half a year has flown by! I feel like time is moving faster than ever. I often get to Friday and say, "Wait. wasn't it just Monday?!" our family is so busy. so many wonderful things filling our days.

This year, you get to do VBS for the first time! I am so excited for you- you are for sure ready! we haven't done any formal preschool or anything, so the only "drop-off" childcare you've had is at the church nursery for church and heart for mom's. You get pretty sad at drop-off time.. so we will see how you do with a 3 hour vbs drop-off. but you've seen your siblings do it and you hear all the awesome activities they're doing, so I think you'll be super excited! I might take Zak and put him in the SHARC childcare and just enjoy a few mornings to myself to catch up on computer work or reading ;)

you LOVE to wear dresses. and only dresses. and really fancy dresses are your favorite. i got you one that is clearly too big for you at goodwill pay by weight because it had Elsa on it and I'd say that is your favorite one right now. it isn't very cute and all the tulle came off around the bottom after one wash haha. your other fav is a very fancy dress that was handed down from cousins that they wore to be flower girls in a wedding. it is off-white with a pink sash around the middle and flowers on top and it is falling apart, but you choose it so often! you love to dress yourself and get quite upset if i pick out your clothing. you often take out all of your dresses, rummage through them on the floor, and then leave them there ;) but we are working on you putting away your own laundry, so you do pretty good picking up clothes when i ask. you also get sad when you outgrow clothes and I throw or give them away. it is always emotional for you when it was a piece of clothing/shoes you liked.

yesterday, you asked me if you could wear the clothes that birth mom gave you anytime not just when she was visiting. i said of course, so you wore a cute Guatemalan skirt with a little white tank about half the day. i love that you love them! we haven't seen birth mom in a few months, so we gave her a video call last night and you enjoyed talking to Michael. It is hard because she doesn't know English and you don't know Spanish. I'm not sure I can really teach you to be super fluent... we really need to work on it! i know your poor birth mom is learning bits and pieces of English, and I am sure Michael will be fluent in English once he starts school. Dad took you to the 4th of July parade and you saw a group of people on horses and walking wearing traditional native clothing that reminded you of birth mom, so she has been on your mind since then. and we talked about her while out in the backyard picking blackcaps the other day- how she used to pick berries for Ita and you seemed really interested in that and talked a lot about what hard work it was! it is pretty special to get to share that part of your history and culture with you. i know before long, that is something that you'll delve into more on your own and I won't always be a part of it- and I just want you to know that we encourage you to embrace that part of who you are! It is sometimes hard to think about you loving your birth family or someday wanting to spend holidays with them over us, etc. but i try hard to keep my mind open to all of it. however you want to pursue your Guatemalan heritage, we will do! it is a beautiful piece of who you are and I love every single bit of you!

your hair is crazy right now. you gave yourself a haircut a while ago resulting in bangs and now you want to grow them out and they are always always in your eyes. we say "train your bangs" to remind you to keep them tucked behind your ears or use clips to put them back but you often forget haha. you love to have your hair up in a ponytail and want me to use very specific scrunchies. you have the best hair- not too thick, not too thin, so easy to manage!

you really wanted to do gymnastics, so we finally got you in! grandma sandee got you a leotard for Christmas, but we only got you started in May ha. you loved the first few classes and then said, "I think I want to quit now. I want to do ballet!" but we got you switched over to be in the same class as your friend Frankie Ferrara and I think you'll stick with it now that you have her. You are so cute in your class. you are kind of naughty sometimes- not waiting for the teacher or starting on something when you're supposed to be waiting patiently. you are aggressive with your forward rolls ;) and you love to shout "Look at me, Teacher!" I often find you making sure I am watching too. Your sisters are doing classes at the same time as you, so it is kind of challenging for me to watch all 3 of you and keep Zak and Zeke occupied. we'll see how long we keep doing it ha...goal is through October and then we'll take a break when we head to Mexico on our vacation!

you are a huge helper! you LOVE to help! your favorite lately has been picking cherries. you climb way up the ladder and I pull a branch toward you and you go to town! It takes a bit longer, but I hope it really encourages you to have a good work ethic and take pleasure in doing work as you grow! you also love to help with cooking and baking and often pull a chair over to watch me and try to offer your assistance- that is so hard because then zak does the same and it is really hard to cook and make sure no one burns themselves ;) you also love to "babysit" Zak- twice now I have paid you a quarter to push him in the swing while I clean up after dinner and you both love it. i will certainly keep doing it if it makes us all happy haha. you always lose your money, but it makes you happy to earn it anyway. we need to buy you a piggy bank! oh! and you have awesome cutting skills- like really awesome! as i printed your preschool curriculum, there was a lot of cutting out pieces for games, etc. and i gave them to you and you totally did it all! you're so awesome!!

you are a bit of a whiny girl sometimes. we are working hard on using your words and a calm voice vs just whining. i blame Johanna ;) she always treats you like a baby, literally saying, "Poor baby!" whenever anything happens and you eat it up haha. we are also working on asking nicely for something like, "Mom, could you please get me water?" vs. "I'm thirsty." You love to just sit there in the mornings in just your dress saying, "I'm cold!" and then crying because I'm not bringing you a blanket haha- like just ask! or better yet, go get one yourself lazy bum ;) and you've started saying, "No one cares about me!" and "no one loves me!" when we ignore your tantrums. oh 4 is fun... ;)

You LOVE all your siblings. you play so well. the girls include you upstairs in the Barbie room, you play Legos with Zeke in the side room, you play beautifully with Zak- although he loves to take your stuff and you cry and he knows he can get away with it, so we are working on you standing up for yourself! you love to play pretend and often spend time playing dolls and in the toy kitchen. you looove to color and cut paper! you love to look at books- and you want about 20 books on your bed during a rest or bedtime. and water. you better also have a water bottle. and a nightlight! but better yet, leave the lights on ;) haha i love you so much, you sill girl. I feel like I am ragging on you, but i am just teasing so we remember all the silly little demands you would make at this age and just how you were at 4 years old. you don't often take naps, even though you really need to some days. but if you ever do take a nap, you'll be up til 11pm. it is wild! and you wake up by 7ish regardless of when you went to sleep. you stay up until all your siblings are ready for bed and during the summer, that is pretty much 8:30 because I can't seem to get it done any earlier ha. just not enough sleep for a 4 year old, you know? maybe that is why you're a whiny girl sometimes ;) anyway, the point was that you are so much fun to play with and you get along with all your siblings!

you love to sleep with Johanna in her bed. I am trying to discourage it because she will leave her lights on and be up reading or working on a project in her room til 10pm or later and it is hard for you to go to bed like that, so you'll be up super late too even though you didn't nap! so I am trying to make you sleep in your own room, but it is a treat for you to sleep with Jo (&Sparkle kitty). Jo will give you "learnies" when you don't listen to her or if you get out of bed after she is asleep and get out all of her Calico Critter stuff haha. I didn't know she did that until she mentioned it one day and I was kind of horrified, but I do understand that she wants to teach you not to destroy her room while she is sleeping ha- she said they're like a really light indian rug burn. we told her not to do that anymore ha.

you have gotten stung 2x already this summer! you love to run around the yard barefoot and you stepped on a bee the first time. you were a baby about it ha 2 nights in a row, you woke me up saying it hurt and you refused to walk the first day. the 2nd sting was on your finger because you straight up tried to pick up a bee! that one didn't seem to hurt you too badly, cuz you really didn't complain about it. hoping for no more stings this summer sheeeesh! (Zeke has had 3, Jo 1, Zak 1 so far..)

You're a bit of a picky eater. you looove fruit, milk, carbs, anything sweet pretty much. you want milk with every meal- and you ask for "chocolate milk combo" which is half milk, half chocolate protein drink. kind of fun ;) you often run off playing during meals and we are working on sitting down until finished eating. it isn't going too well though ;) lots of picnic meals out at parks or the zoo, etc. where you're running around while eating, so just picking my battles, you know?

Currently, you are watching Sofia the First and Elena of Avalor during most tv times. Jo&June watched both of those series several times through a few years ago and they wanted to experience it with you and Zeke. you're both eating it up! so fun to see all 5 of you watching t.v. together-all snuggled up on the couches, cuddling!

what else? you all of a sudden had a bit old spot on a back molar and i hated our old dentist, so i took you into a new dentist and they said your enamel had come right off, but no cavity and just filled it. i think from chewing ice, maybe? so strange. you love to chew ice, but i said no more! you are often very hard to understand- not sure if you'll need speech therapy like Zeke (thanks, Covid), but you get so so frustrated when people keep asking you, "What?" your big sibs also love to talk right over you and I have to remind them often that you're talking and to please wait patiently. you get soo mad when people talk over you haha. but you're feisty and you can stand up for yourself! you are super strong and always surprise me at parks with how fast you run and climb! you love a good park playdate! you'll play so hard! oh- and you loooove to bring me flowers. just about every day, you'll bring me a bouquet of weeds from the yard. you brought a mix of pink, purple, and yellow the other day and it was so cute. you got me a huge one of all pink last night and a dandelion bouquet in the morning, so they're both sitting on the stove. i am the luckiest mama to be soo loved by you!

i asked Zeke to describe you to me to think of what else i could write and he said "friendship. love and care. cuteness. easy to make friends with." cutest! he loves you so much. all of us love you so much. you are such a gift to our family and we are so thankful for your life. You are full of JOY and giggles and you delight in the world around you. it is so special to get to view life through your eyes and to hear all your little thoughts and feelings. you are so precious, my little daughter! and i am so so thankful i have known you the past 4.5 years and I can't wait to see where the next 4.5 years take you!

Love, Mama