Celebrating our Favorite 4 Year Old!

A few days before her birthday I asked Olivia what she wanted to do and suggested a few ideas. She decided she wanted to go to the zoo for the day. So, we dropped Sofia off at school and returned home to make sandwiches and pack water and snacks before heading down to the Dallas Zoo. Originally I was hoping we could meet up with CK, but he was in Odessa for the day so we hung out at the zoo longer than we normally do and had a good visit.

Once we parked and were inside the Dallas Zoo, I asked her what animals she really wanted to see and where she would like to go first. I always like to start off with the Giants of the Savanna to see the elephants, zebras and feed the giraffes before it gets too hot for them to be out and active. She said she wanted to watch the dinosaur show "like last time" so we had nearly two hours before it started. We headed over to the Savanna and saw the lemurs, warthog, elephants, zebras, ostriches and giraffes. Unfortunately the giraffes weren't feeding since they were doing work in their enclosure. We were able to watch the cheetah, who paced around and walked right up to Olivia. Such a beautiful animal!

After the Savanna, we stopped off by the elephant play area so Olivia could climb onto the metal elephants and run around. That is Sofia's absolutely favorite spot in the whole zoo and Olivia enjoyed having it mostly to herself. After playing for a bit, we headed over to look at the flamingos and the birds of prey, which are all such gorgeous animals! We then headed over to get a good seat for the Dinosaurs Live show. Since it isn't summer or a weekend, the zoo is full of mommies with their 3 and 4-year olds and usually a small baby in a stroller or strapped to their chest. There weren't a lot of kids at the Dinosaurs Live show, so we got a good seat in the shade and Olivia ate half of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich while we waited for the show to start. The show was fun, but not as long or involved as the last time we saw it with Sofia. After it was over, we were all invited back to "meet the dinosaurs" and get our pictures with them, which Olivia really looked forward to doing. She held the baby dinosaur, stood in front of the T Rex, and sat with me in front of the triceratops and smiled so cute. She brought her big Ariel baby doll that has bright red hair and held it when she stood in front of the T Rex, but it just looked like something bright red.

After the dinosaurs, we headed up toward the reptiles and amphibians. Olivia loves the zoo, but her very favorite is visiting the snakes and alligators. We walked through and found all of the snakes hiding in their enclosures and then visited the alligators. The zoo has two alligators together in an inside room enclosure which always makes me want to break them out and free them. They look miserable - as miserable as alligators can look. Olivia loves looking at them though. After that, we headed to the Giants of the Jurassic play area where we got a Dippin Dots to share. It had become a pretty humid day and it felt good to enjoy something cool. Olivia then looked for dinosaur bones in the sandbox and the dinosaur nest.

After, we headed back to the entrance where Olivia rode the merry go around before heading back to our car and heading home. Olivia was asleep after about five minutes. Once home, I made Olivia's birthday cake which is similar to one my Mom used to make for me when I was little. It was a strawberry jello poke cake with cream cheese frosting. Once CK got home, he frosted it while I made dinner. I made a turkey noodle casserole to use up smoked turkey breast from Monday's dinner CK hosted at the house. It turned out to be really good, although Olivia wasn't a huge fan unfortunately. After dinner, we sang Happy Birthday to Olivia and enjoyed her delicious cake with vanilla ice cream.

After birthday cake, it was time to open presents! Olivia had presents from her sister, my Aunt and Uncle, my college friend Sian and her family (who ALWAYS seems to remember all of our birthdays), and us. With a little prompting from Sofia, Olivia decided to open her present from her sister first, which was a Fancy Nancy Mermaid book and a paint your own animal figure set. After, she opened the present from Aunt and Uncle which was two mermaid books that we are sure to become favorites of hers. She opened the gift from us, which was a box of new clothes and a My Little Pony house, since the girls love to play with their little My Little Pony figures every day. Then she opened the gift from Sian and her family which was really for both girls to share. The box was full of all sorts of goodies - movies, books, pens and activity sets, and a huge stuffed mermaid, about the size of Olivia! So sweet and she loved all of her gifts! Unfortunately, I'd put the camera on manual when I made the video of us singing Happy Birthday and forgot to put it back on Automatic focus, so all the photos of her opening her presents are out of focus. What a fun birthday and we are so excited for what Olivia's 4th year has in store for her!

We are ready to explore the Dallas Zoo!

Ring Tailed Lemur

Love the Warthog

Checking out the zebras

Watching the cheetah

So beautiful!

A little play time in the middle of the zoo

Our sweet 4 year old!

Watching the Dinosaurs Live show

She's entranced!

Backstage with the T Rex (and her Ariel doll)

Holding the baby dinosaur

Olivia and me with the triceratops

Another chance to play

Watching the boa constrictor. She loves looking at the snakes

The little alligator - another favorite

Digging for dinosaur bones

Pretending to be a winged dinosaur on it's nest

Enjoying a little cold snack in the hot sun!

Ahhh! Someone is being hunted by a T Rex!!

Selfie!

Riding the merry-go-round before heading home!

She was completely worn out!

Papa at work frosting the birthday cake

Laughing at something Papa said. Love this picture!

Cutting into her cake.

Serving up the birthday cake

Presents!

Opening her gifts

Fancy Nancy book from her sister

A HUGE mermaid from Sian!

Setting up her My Little Pony house

Olivia turns 4!

Our little one is 4 years old and we just can't believe that she's growing up so quickly! She is now 42 inches tall and weighs 41.5 lbs, wearing 4T and 5T clothes. Just recently it seems like most of her 4T dresses are just too short. Thankfully, our little Olivia LOVES wearing leggings with every dress and skirt so "no one sees her underwear." Even when it is 100 degrees outside, she wants leggings and socks with her sandals. We joke that she must be British or German since she only wears sandals with socks. Olivia loves to wear either skirts or dresses and absolutely lives in her three mermaid shirts, two Frozen shirts and her butterfly shirt with sequins. Although she literally has a drawer full of clothes that were originally Sofia's, she doesn't even touch about 80% of them. She has her favorites, especially her shoes and has to pick out what she's going to wear for the day. I don't even suggest shoes, because she know exactly what she plans to wear for the day. She used to like her hair in either one or two braids, but now likes a simple ponytail, which is nice because it takes me about 30 seconds to put up.

Olivia absolutely loves mermaids, Ariel from The Little Mermaid, princesses, and My Little Pony and literally thinks she is going to be a mermaid when she grows up. She's told me that she'll get her "mermaid tail" when she turns 8. Not really sure where she gets that idea, but I love her passion for it all while a part of me is sad to know that reality will catch up with her at some point. She also loves dress up and pretending and is great at making up stories while she plays. She'll spend hours playing with her mermaids/dolls or My Little Pony characters and will talk and sing the entire time making up a pretty complex story. She also has what she calls her "pile" of books that she keeps on her little table next to the rocking chair. She's very protective of her book pile and will often go into her room and "read" the books from this pile. Or if we read a story at night from her pile, it must go back where it was and not on the floor. She loves being read to and goes through times where she has a few different favorite books, but for the most part she enjoys listening to one of us read any of the books in her room.

When she wakes up in the morning, the first thing Olivia wants is "morning juice" which is a special blend of juice that I get from the grocery store. Sometimes she wants orange juice or apple juice, but usually she wants her morning juice which I usually dilute with water. She also wants it in a character cup and has to pick it out herself (it's usually Ariel from the Little Mermaid). Much like her Papa, she doesn't seem to be much of a breakfast eater and usually eats a small amount a few hours after her juice. Sofia and I love our breakfast just about as soon as we wake up, but Olivia doesn't join in and likes to eat later.

She still loves to swim and pretends she's a mermaid as she dives down to the bottom of the pool. She's set to start school at Noah's Ark after Labor Day and will go three days a week, which we are hoping is a good fit and good prep for kindergarden next year. Luckily, she will be going with her friend Hannah, so I think she'll feel comfortable going into the classroom for the first time.

Olivia is easily entertained and easy to laugh and just a fun little girl to be around. She likes to go and do things but also loves to stay home and play My Little Pony for hours with her sister while they make up stories together about all the horses and what they say and do. She has enjoyed these past two weeks with me while Sofia is at school, but I know she's so excited once Sofia is home so they can play together. She really loves playing and being with Sofia and is generally up for whatever Sofia plans. She's also become quiet a good story maker and we love to listen to her talking away and creating.

Olivia does have a few sweet little quarks. She is a sensitive little girl and if she gets her feelings hurt, either by her sister or by getting corrected by CK or me, she will run into her room and lay down on the floor on the far side of her bed with her blue blanket and her "crying towel" which is actually her pink hand towel from her bathroom. We aren't sure where she got the idea but she's very attached to it when she's upset. She also uses the same area for naps and will often disappear into her room for me to discover her later asleep in her favorite spot, despite the fact that she could just as easily climb into bed. She is a bit of a squirrel and uses the window ledge in her room to hid her "treasures" behind the curtain. She will add a favorite book, or a drawing by Sofia, little mermaids, keys, etc. In fact, a few months ago she added a key to CK's 100-year old dresser (without me knowing). Sofia looks at Olivia's treasure shelf at times and found the old key. She decided it must go to a castle and wanted to bury it in our backyard (she did ask me first and since I didn't recognize the key, I told her it was fine). Fast forward to a few days ago when CK was trying to get into his dresser and couldn't find his key! Then it all fell into place and I told him the story. We ended up borrowing a metal detector from a friend, thanks to Facebook, and found the key! So, I now check her little treasure shelf for other things that have gone missing and CK has hid his key!

Before bed I love to tell her that I have a favorite 8 year old and she's my favorite 3 year old, so the day before she turned 4, I told her she would soon be my favorite 4 year old. I continued by telling her that she would continue to grow and would always be my favorite 5, 6, 7, etc year old. She got very quiet and then was a little sad when she said she didn't want to grow up and be my age. When I asked her why she said "because when I'm your age I won't play with mermaids and My Little Pony." and for days after, she would point out other things that she wouldn't do when she's "my age" and grows up. Every time I assure her that she'll grow up and be interested and able to play with things that she enjoys.

Right now, as school is about to start for her, we don't have her involved in any activities although I'm thinking of getting her involved in gymnastics or something. We meant to sign her up for soccer, which started last Saturday, but somehow I never did it even though I had it in my mind that I'd signed her up. Sofia isn't playing soccer so maybe it's a good thing that we don't all have to go to the soccer field. I do want to see if she likes it in the Spring though. I think she'd enjoy it and I love the idea of a team sport and teaching the enjoyment of activity. She's growing up so quickly and is such a delightful little girl! We are so lucky!

Looking at the mermaid she painted with Sofia before Father's Day

Sweet girl with her sweet smile

She takes up most of the chair now

Her shark "Gills" and mermaid doll

Olivia's treasure shelf (the curtain is usually closed so they are hidden)

Olivia's favorite place to nap!

The key to the castle....

First Day of 3rd Grade!

The first day of school is here and I'm in disbelief that Sofia is going into 3rd grade!! Since we were in Florida last week we missed the "meet the teacher" night so we were looking forward to meeting Ms. Feaster, who is a brand new teacher out of college! Sofia hasn't been very excited for school to start partly due to the early mornings but also because school is a bit boring to her. After I read off the names of the kids in her class this year (that my friend Christy forwarded to me on the "meet the teacher" night), she said "Oh great! I'm with all the kids who need things repeated three times before we move on." Of course, that isn't true but I am a little sad that she won't be in class with Alexa this year, since Alexa's Grandpa volunteers twice a week and is such a great source of help and one of the kindest men. Sofia has been with Alexa every year so far, so I guess it was bound to change. Several of the kids in Sofia's class haven't been together since Kindergarden, so it should be an interesting year. She keeps asking CK and I why they don't just give her a book of all the stuff she needs to learn and let her learn at her speed. Of course, she would be great at learning in that style, but obviously most kids aren't.

CK and I woke up at 6am and I got showered, dressed and made Sofia's lunch before I woke her up at 6:40am. When I left her room last night, she said she was tired and turned off the light as I left, but once I was in her room this morning, I could tell she'd stayed up reading. Books were all over the floor by her bed. Needless to say, it took a lot of cajoling to get her to open her eyes and even longer to convince her to get up and dressed. She'd picked out her "first day of school" outfit the night before and finally got dressed and headed downstairs. She had toast with jam and a yogurt for breakfast before we took a few quick pictures of our girl! Olivia wanted to be in the picture, as well even though she has two more weeks before school starts for her.

We parked at the neighboring church and walked to school only to find that the front doors wouldn't be opened up until 7:35 and a huge group of parents and sleepy kids were waiting. The doors opened and we slowly creeped into the school along with everyone else. Sofia was hoping to stop and say hello to Mrs. Livingston, but then remembered that she's moved back to Colorado and was a little sad. We passed by the 2nd grade classes and made it to 3rd grade and Ms. Feaster. At fist, I thought Ms. Feaster may be an older sibling of one of the kids. She looks SO young! She seems very nice and we look forward to getting to know her. Since it's such a busy day, we only met her and wished her a good day as we left.

Sofia's 3rd grade class is set up differently than 1st or 2nd in that there are two long tables with kids sitting down both sides. In the past two years, the kids have been grouped together into clusters of 4 or 5 kids to smaller table groupings. We found Sofia's seat and she put her backpack and lunch in her cubby before sitting down, when I was able to get a quick picture of her. She's sitting across from her best buddy from Kindergarden, Allen Jones. Of course, I'm sure they will be moved around a few times throughout the year but Allen is a great kid to be across from! We gave her one last hug and headed out the door. She didn't look very excited, but I think she'll be fine once she gets home from school and will have enjoyed seeing her friends and playing.

We headed downstairs and talked with one of Sofia's classmates' parents for a while before saying goodbye to each other so CK could go to work and Olivia and I could go home to feed the dogs (we are dog sitting our neighbor's dogs). Hoping for a fun first day of 3rd grade for Sofia!

Breakfast for our 3rd grader!

This is how she REALLY feels about school....

...and this is what we send to family and friends!

The girls with their Papa! Love this photo!

The girls (and an uninterested Buddy) with me.

Our big 3rd grader!

With Olivia

Our first walk into school

At her seat and ready for class to begin!