Addison Mae - 4 years, 3 months

This precious girl of mine is so grown up, yet still my baby. She has been such a helper as I get more and more pregnant and can't do a lot of things myself or for her brother. She's also been an excellent helper with the new house, including stripping wallpaper and painting!

She is absolutely loving being a Butterfly at Warm World and adores her teacher (we all do!) I think it's been a little more challenging this year in terms of making new friends and some of the social/emotional aspects, but all in all has been a great experience for her. She is so incredibly smart and loves that they have science once a week and continue to have music and chapel. She loves to memorize the Bible verses and obsesses about which letter they are focusing on each week. (Reminds me of no one I know!!) On any given day she can tell you who will be taking the Bear Bag home and who will be the Handy Helper for the day. She is so like me that it's frightening! Her teacher is constantly telling me what a kind helper Addie is to all her friends. Sometimes that means all her "nice" is gone when she gets home from school, and she's definitely always exhausted on school days. But I get it - they work so hard at school. I loved going to Mom's Day, but I was totally worn out by the end of the morning, too!

Addie was a total soccer star this fall, scoring goals in nearly every one of her games. She's also gotten incredible at playing defense, stopping several potential goals just as they were about to go in the net. Future goalie? She was also pretty helpful at assisting her teammates score goals (although there were usually tears after the game that she didn't score the goal herself!) She has really figured out the game and her skill amazes me. She's also done really well at gymnastics, although I think the "big" gym intimidates her a bit. Several coaches have praised her abilities, and her listening skills and hard work to me. I love that she's learning some good foundation exercise skills.

Addie also loves her music class, especially now that she gets to go in by herself. She loves to sing and make up songs, and of course be the teacher's helper. She also goes to brother's class with us, and she's a big helper to all the little ones.

She's excited about having another baby, and I know she'll be such a big help. We're excited to be the only two girls in the family, and I hope that means we'll have lots of fun dates and time to ourselves as she gets older. I know she won't always want to hang with her mom, so I'm going to try to take advantage of the fact that she still likes me!

Weight: 33 pounds
Length: 40 inches

 New things:

• Recognizing all her letters and many numbers, especially since her class works on the calendar every day. She can count to 100 and is starting to be able to recognize more and more multi-digit numbers.
• Writing anything she wants to when she asks us how to spell something.
• Recognizing a lot of words on signs or that we write. Also working on some simple sight words at school.
• Conquering the high bar at gymnastics and getting more confident on the big balance beam. Also getting better at her handstands and cartwheels. 
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Likes:

• Being the Handy Helper at school. Also getting to bring home the Bear Bag, be the special helper in chapel or getting to recite the verse
• Getting to bring home and decorate the letter of the week. And preparing her word every Sunday for the letter of the week
• Showing me all her papers from school immediately upon getting in the car and noting which ones are "very important" for me to read
• Being in charge of Hutch. When he agrees to it.
• Snuggling. I hope she'll always want to snuggle with me.
• Crafting. Cutting. Drawing. Writing. Glueing. 
• Watching any Disney princess movie
• Watching OSU on TV and asking lots of questions about football
• Stripping wallpaper! Who knew??
• Going to restaurants
• Having her toes and fingers painted. She was thrilled when I took her for her first "real" mani pedi recently. She also loved going to her first tea room and having a fancy lunch
• Helping me cook or bake
• Watching Fixer Upper with mama on Tuesday nights
• Sleeping in our bed. She's a stealthy little ninja and still sneaks into our bed a few nights a week. 
• Halloween. And a lllllllll the candy that came with it. She was a darling Elsa, complete with ALL the required accessories. She also really loved helping her daddy carve the pumpkin and was totally in charge of pulling all the gooey stuff out of the pumpkin - I am HAPPY to relinquish that role! They trick-or-treated at every single house in our neighborhood.
• Helping decorate for the holidays.
• Talking about what she wants for Christmas, particularly from Santa, and asking when we're going to see him and his elves at his workshop ;)

Dislikes:

• Brother messing up her stuff.
• Not being the star or center of attention.
• Being patient.
• Sleeping alone.