Olivia at 4 1/2 years old

Olivia is 4 1/2 and super proud of being "so big" now! She absolutely loves being "41/2" instead of just being 4 years old now and tells everyone she can how old she is. She is 44 inches tall and weighs 45 lbs and wears size 5T or even some of Sofia's XS clothes. I love seeing Olivia wear Sofia's old hand-me-downs because we have so many great memories of Sofia at that age and they look so cute on Olivia! However, we learned a few months ago that we can't exactly advertise that her "new" clothes used to be Sofia's or they lose their luster in her eyes!

About a month ago she FINALLY started to strap herself into her carseat. It's a huge time saver and now I need to work on her unstrapping herself, although it is much harder for her to do. She also has started dressing herself, although getting her underwear on correctly is still difficult for her to figure out. She loves to pick out her own clothes and shoes and often likes to change clothes throughout the day. She still loves to dress up and we have several princess dresses that she loves to change into, especially when her friend Hannah is over for a playdate. Otherwise, she loves playing with Sofia but also gets pigeon holed into playing what Sofia wants to play. Sofia loves to play Star Wars and fight with light sabers, which Olivia gladly joins in, but I know she'd prefer playing with dolls and dressing up. Instead, she doesn't do either of these things much anymore unless she has a friend over. In fact, she hardly ever plays with dolls anymore. She loves going into her room, building up a big pile of books on the nightstand and "reading" by herself. She's good at memorizing stories and she'll have favorites for a few weeks and then switch to other favorites.

She continues to love going to Noah's Ark Tuesday through Thursday and is inseparable with Hannah during the school day. She plays with Hannah and Evan, although it sounds like she enjoys everyone in her 'owls' class. Her teachers, Miss Michelle and Miss Jane, are really awesome and Olivia loves going to school because of them and her friends. In the past few weeks, she has really started to enjoy sounding out words and learning how words are spelled. She also has started rhyming words together and loves it when they are used in sentences. She likes to write out her name, along with "Sofia" "Mommy" and "Papa" and always asks how to spell different words. She's also learning how to do simple addition problems and I love seeing the worksheets come home from school. Sofia also loves to go over simple math problems with her too.

Olivia just started soccer along with Sofia and joined the team Purplicious with Coach Ryan. She really enjoys it and is much more aggressive than I ever expected. She's really enjoying Coach Ryan too and is fun to watch. Every picture I take of her has her with a huge smile on her face. Hope she continues to enjoy it as the season goes on and learns how to play soccer.

Olivia loves having "morning juice" first thing in the morning and I always add it (and half water) to a character cup. She'll drink it and will usually want to wait at least an hour or so for breakfast. She isn't usually hungry in the morning and isn't really into eating toast, like Sofia is. Instead, she prefers Honey Nut Cheerios and yogurt. She enjoys peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grilled cheese, all kinds of fruit, bananas, loves salmon, broccoli and sweet potatoes. Of course, she loves anything sweet: cookies, ice cream, and gum! She really enjoys mint over chocolate flavors and could eat mint-flavored anything. At night we have a tradition where she gets into bed after story time and I ask her the following question: Who is the first person you'll see in the morning? Who is going to make you morning juice tomorrow? Who loves their little girl? To all of these she points to me. Then I ask her "Who is my favorite 4 1/2 year old?" and she points to herself. Then I hold up my hands and she goes through the "10 things she'll dream about" which includes mermaids, princesses, jewels, Grandma and Grandpa, Mommy, Papa, Buddy and Sofia, Aunt and Uncle, butterflies, ladybugs, flowers and chocolate chip cookies. She rarely varies from her 10 things no matter how much I try to get her to pick different things to "dream about" that night. Then, I kiss her and she's off to sleep. She hardly ever naps anymore, which means she is done by 8pm and will easily sleep 11 hours, if not more.

Our sweet girl at 4 1/2! I love her hair and love how much she enjoys having it braided, put in pigtails, pony tails, etc.

Sweet girl

Love this picture!

Olivia really wanted to wear her "fancy dress"!

Sweet girl having fun.

Our little Indian, Misty Moon

Picking dandelions

Olivia and her Princess Lea hair!

Fashion statement or staying warm?!

She still loves her thumb....

A lot....

With her Papa and sister

With Sofia and me

Her first self portrait!

Our little soccer girl!

There she goes (she nearly scored)!

Having some COLD fun with Antonio and Sofia!

With her sweet friend, Nicole

Go Pink Pirates and Purplicious!!

Today both girls had their first soccer games of the Spring season! Sofia has been practicing with her team, the Pink Pirates, on Thursday afternoons for just over an hour for a few weeks now. There are several new players of the team and it's been great seeing all the kids and parents who we've known from when Sofia used to play with the team. The new girls and parents also seem to be great fit and very nice. Olivia joined Purplicious, which is coached by the dad of one of Sofia's classmates who has a little sister just a little younger than Olivia, named Harper. Olivia had her first practice with her new team on Tuesday for 30 minutes directly after Sofia's piano lesson, so we were maybe 10 minutes late.

CK headed with the Stearman to Houston for the airplane's annual inspection, so I was solo getting the girls to the soccer fields for their 11am (Olivia) and 11:30am (Sofia) games. Sofia got dressed then helped Olivia with her clothes, shin guards and socks while I got ready. The girls wanted their hair to be done like a "Twi'lek," a character in Star Wars. Essentially they had two low ponytails that were at the back of their head, rather than on the side. They looked absolutely adorable and soon we were off to the soccer fields. Thankfully the fields they would be playing on were not too far from each other.

We arrived at Olivia's field minutes before her game started - oops. She joined her team mates and sat on the bench at the kick-off for the soccer game! Within just a few minutes she was in the game and completely into it! Looking back over the pictures I took, I was struck by the huge smile on her face. She had so much fun and was pretty focused on the ball and getting to it. At this age, it's 3-on-3 with the coaches on the field to help tell the girls which way to kick the ball, etc. It was possibly the cutest thing ever to watch those six girls run around after the soccer ball and they all did far better than expected! After watching her for a few minutes, Sofia and I headed over to her field so she could warm-up before the start of the game. For the rest of their games, I went back and forth between the two fields. Sofia played goalie for the first part of her game, but didn't see any action since the Pink Pirates' offense is so strong. She ended up sitting down on the field! Meanwhile, Olivia was in and out of the game and did great. I missed a big chunk of her game and arrived just as Purlicious and the opposing team were giving each other high fives. She ran to me and told me that she scored 3 goals!!! Not sure if that happened but I know she got very close in the first few minutes of the game. I asked her if she liked Coach Ryan and she said "He's the goodest coach ever!" She had so much fun and really enjoyed the game.

We returned to watch the last 20 minutes of Sofia's game and Olivia ran around kicking her ball along the sidelines while Sofia played defense in the back field. She did a great job and seemed to really enjoy the game. It was so fun to enjoy the day watching the girls play and visit with the parents I haven't seen in a while and meet new ones.

Two girls are ready for some soccer!

Olivia with two of her team mates and Coach Ryan

Making a new friend on the bench

Getting some last minute advice from Coach Ryan

And they are off!

Sofia as goalie getting some pointers from Coach Jeff

Coach Ryan with his girls

Off she goes with the ball

She almost scored!

The team getting a few pointers at the half break

Love this picture!

She's off after that ball

Sofia with the promise of some possible action....

The end of Olivia's game

Happy soccer player!

Pink Pirates at the half

Our littlest soccer player

Post-game selfie

Go Sofia!!

The end of the game!

Valentine's Parties

Both girls had their Valentine's parties at school this week. Olivia had her party on Thursday and we brought heart-shaped donuts for her class party. Earlier in the week Olivia brought a pink papered covered cereal box which her class then decorated as an owl in class. On Thursday, they passed out their valentine's to each other. Each had "To my friend" and Olivia signed them for her 11 classmates. Parents weren't invited to the party, but their class gave us each an adorable little Valentine's photo. Olivia had a great day and party.

On Friday, Sofia had her Valentine's party at school and I was able to go. That morning, I woke up just before my alarm went off realizing that we'd never made a Valentine's collection box for Sofia's party. Of course she wanted a Star Wars-themed box, so I frantically printed off several Star War's pages from Pinterest and had Sofia cut and glue them onto a cereal box. It actually turned out pretty cute and it was done and ready before 7am. Sofia also wrote out valentine's to each kid in her class.

Before Sofia's party, Olivia's friend Hannah came over for a playdate and then Casey and I took the girls over to Adventure Kids while we headed to Allen and Sofia's party. As always, Sofia was so excited that I'd come. The party was from 12:30-1:20pm, so each kid was able to make up their own ice cream sundae. Of course, Sofia added everything: fudge sauce, crushed up Oreos, and two kinds of sprinkles! The kids played Valentine's bingo and "pin the lips" on a face one of the parents had drawn. Sofia played bingo but wasn't really into the "pin the lips" game. Instead, she and George horsed around with necklaces and other little gifts the all got. Then the class played limbo, which again Sofia had no interest in playing. Then, it was a "girls vs. boys" snowball fight, which they all loved doing at the Christmas party. Sofia really loved tossing the snowballs at the boys and just as they were done, I gave Sofia a hug and Casey and I picked up our little girls. When Sofia got home from school, she had a Star Wars valentine's box full of candy and valentines. The girls had a ball opening up all of their valentines and deciding which candies to eat.

Then, as an added surprise, the girls received a box full of Valentine's goodies and candies from their Grandpa and Grandma! I cut it open for them and put it on the coffee table so they could open it together. They had so much fun looking at everything!

Olivia and her Valentine's box

So proud of her owl box

The class project - love it!

Close-up of the box

Painting fingernails on their play date.

Sofia and her sundae

Valentine's Day party selfie!

Snowball fight

Sofia and her Star Wars box

Getting into the box to look at her Valentine's

Opening the box from Grandpa and Grandma

Opening their cards

Happy girls!!