Caroline Grace, 3 Years 7 Months

I had meant to do a 3 1/2 year update...but life got in the way so 3 years 7 months will have to do.  It's hard to believe that my little Caroline is closer to FOUR than three - didn't I just have her??  Time certainly has flown by.  I am constantly amazed by this little girl.  She is pretty fluent so new words aren't popping up as quickly as they used to - she knows them all by now!  She does say some funny things:

When I say it's dinner time/bed time/pick up time/etc. she replies with, "ummmm....I can't do that right now" or "I'm not so sure about that."

When she's excited about something, she will jump around and do this cute little dance and say "oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah!!!"

She reverses the vowels in safe keeping and often asks to hold things for "seef kaping."


She is still doing ballet and choir and loves them both!  We won't be doing soccer this spring, but we may add gymnastics or art or something else fun.  She loves school and is thriving.  We got her fall evaluations back a few months ago and she had almost all the highest marks you can get, except in letter recognition.  We have worked on it (as well as some phonics and basic spelling) and she now knows all the letters (all uppercase and most of the lower case), can spell a few words, AND she can make most of the letter sounds and figure out a word that starts with that letter.  She can count to 40, probably higher but that's usually where she stops.  She knows about 15-20 of the states on a US map without us prompting her.  She is incredibly smart and I couldn't be more proud.

Finally, after 3.5 years, we have her sleeping at a good place.  She will go to bed when we tell her and she will stay in her bed and sleep all night.  Now, she doesn't even start getting tired until 8:00 so it's not until after that, but hopefully with a new earlier morning routine and once her activities and school start back that time will get earlier.  I am hoping for an 8:00 bedtime.

She is still not a great eater, usually only eating one good meal a day.  She loves pancakes and waffles, bacon, hot dogs, pizza, pickles, steak, all things that are sweet, most pasta (except macaroni and cheese), chips and cheese, tacos, fruit, broccoli, salami, and a few other things.  She HATES eggs.  She is wearing a size 9 or 10 shoe and wears anywhere from a 3T to 5T.  She needs 5T for length, but for waist size she can fit into 24 months!!  She is a super tall, super skinny little thing!  Maybe she will be a super model one day?  I would like to retire early so this may work out well...

She is a social butterfly and loves her friends.  Her favorite friends are: (I use this term loosely, these are just the friends that she asks to play with/asks about the most often...and it could be because I am friends with the parents in most cases) Sydney, Brooklyn, "other Caroline", Charlotte, Maggie, Jack, Sam, Raughley, "baby William", Chambers, Cohen, Rosemary, and AP (not our AP, a girl in her class).  She makes friends where ever she goes!

She loves Ann Parker and often plays mommy to her.  I hear her say things like "don't be scared," "it's okay," or "just hold my hand," all the time.  She is very protective of her sister when we are out in public.  When we go to Publix she always asks for two cookies so her sister can have one.  When we are home, just us, it's another story.  She doesn't always like to share her toys or me.  We are working on that...but it's a hard lesson to learn.

Her favorite things to watch on TV these days are Paw Patrol, Team Umizoomi, Sofia the First, Doc McStuffins, Super Why, with the occasional Mickey, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and Henry Hugglemonster thrown in.  Her favorite movies to watch are any of the Tinkerbell movies.  We took her recently to see Frozen in the theaters and she LOVED it.  When we walked out she said, "THAT WAS AWESOME!!"  She also requested I call her Princess Onna and that I call Ann Parker Princess Elsa.

She is very sweet, always giving me hugs and kisses and telling me how much she loves me.  She is also our happy girl.  She is usually singing and dancing her way through life with a huge smile on her face.  I hope she is always this happy, but based on some of her mood swings I think the teenage years will be hard (kidding....not really...).

Here are some pictures from our recent mini session with Simple Color Photography.  I am still in disbelief that she is this big!!

Seriously, could she be more gorgeous????  The correct answer is no, she is the most beautiful three year old to walk this planet.