Sofia at 4!

Our little girl sure is growing up, and it seems that she changes every few days into a more "grown up" little girl. She's so much fun to be around and CK and I always remark at how happy she is and how much she enjoys whatever it is that she does. I was concerned that of all of her activities she's participated in, she hasn't really picked a favorite or even voiced how much she enjoys doing any specific thing, but she literally just enjoys it all.

Although she's growing up so quickly, she's certainly still a creative toddler who absolutely loves making up stories or living within her own world, but also knows that her stuffed animals aren't real. She still spends hours pushing her Thomas trains around the wooden track while making up some elaborate story about what they are doing, where they are going, etc. She also will crawl around on all fours (even up and down the stairs) when she's a "frog," "puppy," "horse," or any other animal that she so often is. Of course, I'm then "Mommy animal" to whatever she's acting out at the time. Her other favorite animal is "baby duck" which she'll often play that she's in an egg (she'll use a blanket as the shell), and I have to "hatch" her out of it and then she's a baby duck who follows me (mommy duck) around.

Since watching the Royal Wedding a few months back, she also remains very interested in the "prince" and "princess" and often wonders when we hear bells tolling if that means another prince and princess are getting married. She will always point out the photos of the prince and princess on the magazine covers at the grocery store and loves looking through them.

For months she's been in love with "Beetle Bugs" (Volkswagon Bugs) and will point them out as we drive or even when one is parked in a parking lot She's got incredible vision for her Beetle Bugs! On the rare occasion that we see an original bug, she'll point it out but then say "That's an old one." She also will point out every Jeep Cherokee that resembles ours and call it "our car" or any car that looks like CK's and say "Papa's car." She's very observant of these three types which is pretty interesting.

She went through a phase recently where she had a favorite dress and would want to wear it over and over for days. Luckily the favorite dress changed each week so we could actually launder it, but now that she has a whole rack of dresses that she can pick from she doesn't seem to have a favorite that she wants to wear over and over. For months now she'll only wear dresses, which makes sense since it's so hot here and dresses are comfortable. I wonder how long that will last once it gets cooler outside.

She's still very excited about "baby sister" and gives my belly lots of hugs and kisses each day. When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday a few weeks before, she said she only wanted her baby sister to come out so she could play with her! She also has asked if she can crawl down my throat and play with baby sister. Other times, she asks what baby sister is doing - whether she's sleeping or moving around or eating...it's very cute and I love how interested she is.

Our big girl at 4!


With all of her animals