Happy #4

How is it that my little baby has just turned 4?! Time flies. 

Nana was here visiting the weekend before Ashlyn's birthday. We went out to dinner at a local restaurant (local meaning Jerome, which pretty much means Mexican!) The awesome servers there brought Ashlyn a Happy Birthday Flan with a candle, and sang to her while she got to wear a sombrero! If you can't tell, she loved it. Didn't care for the flan though. That's ok, the adults loved it!

We invited Morgan's family to meet up with us at Thousand Springs (in Hagerman) that Saturday for a day of swimming. We all met up there and Ashlyn had a BLAST swimming around in the shallow section and playing with her cousins. Then everyone came back to our place for dinner and cake. Ashlyn's wish as she blew out her candles was "to play in the grass." (???? whatev) So cute. Her cake request was "red cake with yellow frosting." I was happy to oblige....with a red velvet cake mix and yellow frosting. Done, and done! Glad she's easy to please! She was SUPER spoiled by both sets of grandparents and parents, so many presents! 

I have been meaning to write down some of the cute things she does lately. No better time than this post!

-She says "I'm getting really, really hungwy!" With emphasis, whenever she hasn't eaten in like, 2 hours.

-Her absolute favorite activity is drawing pictures and "writing lists" in a little notebook. She has been going through one of those little small-size 5 star notebooks a week. She'll draw picture after picture and tear each one out and "give" it to me or Collin, or whoever is around. I can't even count how many hours she has spent doing this. I typically get about 20 pictures a day.

-She's really into arts and crafts in general. Loves anything painting, stickers, coloring..... I can't say she exhibits any prodigy-type art talents but I love that she likes to do it so much. I try to come up with some fun little art projects to do during our preschool time and that is always her favorite part.

-She has become very expressive about her feelings. She'll say, "I'm sad, that hurts my feelings" any time something doesn't go her way. Usually something like having to turn the TV off or get ready for bed. That's usually followed by "you need to say sorry!" That sorry concept... it's getting there but still a work in progress! It's pretty funny. She'll also say "that makes me very, very happy!" or even better, "I'm delighted!"

- Is a TV bug, still. I limit her TV time so much, but she would watch for hours and hours if she could. Her favorite shows lately are Daniel Tiger, the Cat in the Hat, and Caillou. She has also been requesting Disney movies, especially Disney princess movies, lately. And it's the lame (in my opinion) ones like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. So weird?! She's not into princessy stuff at all, but always wants to watch those. I think it's because she's realized they're a lot longer than a PBS show.

-She can handle playing board games now! We gave her Memory and Candy Land for her birthday, and we can actually play them together. Her attention only lasts so long, but it's fun!

-She absolutely LOVES to look at books and be read to. Besides the TV thing, she'd insist that I read her stories all the live long day if I could. She loves it. During "quiet time" she usually ends up spending most of her time reading books. Warms this mama's heart!

-Her favorite things to play with are cooking in her little kitchen with all the play food Grandma and Grandpa gave her for Christmas. Add in the little tea party set we gave her for her birthday, and she spend a lot of time cooking me meals and bringing them to me. We also have lots of picnics.

-She is as wiggly as ever. As I type this she's watching a TV show while I'm sitting next to her and she hasn't sat still for more than 30 seconds. How you can watch TV bouncing around on the couch and hopping around on the floor and rolling around is beyond me, but that's how she's always rolled and it continues! She doesn't sit still for long (unless she's working on an art project).

-LOVES to help me cook in the kitchen. She can actually stir up cookie or pancake mix now so it's more fun to have her help. And she loves it!


-She's finally potty trained! Yes, we started in August and I barely feel like I can say that in January. There are still probably bi-weekly accidents but she has come so far. It was just not something she was interested in for a long time, no matter what I did. She does so good now. And actually, speaking of that subject, she knows the whole little potty song from Daniel Tiger, and sings it LOUD AND PROUD whenever we're in a crowd. Oh yes.

-She loves Taylor Swift's 1989.... I got it for Christmas so we listened to it a lot in January. Her favorite song is "Welcome to New York," which she insists is "Welcome to the Ark." She actually knows most of the words and requests it whenever we're in the car.