Our FOUR year old!

As of yesterday, we now have a 4 year old! 

We had a very nice day.  The kiddos and I visited our local Barnes and Noble bookstore.  The children's section is so inviting with a train table, stage for storytelling, and lot's of chairs to sample new books in.  They always have so much fun.  So for her birthday, Kayla picked out two new books {Winnie the Pooh and a Splat the Cat book} and a spiffy double-sided Pinkalicious jumbo floor puzzle.  Then we went to lunch at Jason's Deli.

Kayla is growing up just to darn fast!  I look at her now and see a young girl.  The baby is gone {although she of course will ALWAYS be my baby} the toddler is gone.....we have just 1 more year together and then she'll be off to kindergarten. 

From age 3 to 4 Kayla has grown into a very loving and protective big sister.  She likes to tell people 'that's my baby Gavin' and 'you have to be nice to him!' when she sees other kids pushing him around.  She's truly never met a stranger, young or old.  She wants to play with every kid on the playground and smother every baby with kisses.  Of course not every moment is peachy and sibling bickerments arise that need intervention.  But overall Kayla is very thoughtful of her little brother.  Kayla loves doing crafts; building, coloring, painting, cutting, decorating, you name it.  She also loves being active; running, jumping, climbing, kicking, and throwing.  Right now she's having a blast in swim lessons and looking forward to soccer starting up next month.  Nap time is mostly a thing of the past.  We still have a daily mandatory 'rest' time from about 2-4pm in her room, and occasionally she will fall asleep for about an hour.  Kayla enjoys doing 'homework' from our preschool workbooks and can write her name and identify just about every letter and number 1-10.  It's fascinating to see how her 'coloring' and 'scribbles' have turned into actual recognizable pictures of people and animals.  We have countless depictions of our family of four + 1 cat taped to our art wall.  Of course our days aren't always rose colored.  The biggest challenges with our four year old these days are overcoming the 'sassiness' and 'back talk' that comes with getting older.  It's an ongoing battle, one that I don't aim to lose ;).

Happy Birthday Sweet Kayla!  We LOVE you!