The Lee Family: 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.