O Family and More: Fantastic Four!

The girls turned FOUR last Tuesday! Four seems kind of the last year of being a little kid to me. Once you hit five, you're just a kid. These girls are still little in many ways but in other ways they are advancing rapidly. Caroline still has trouble pronouncing her "r's" in the cutest way and they both still say a lot of things that aren't proper English like "be's why?" for "because why?" or cutted or twoth for second. Colin seemed to go straight from baby talk to very correct pronunciations and English. We love their interpretation of our language! They still just seem kind of babyish to us - they are much littler than Colin was at their age and are still very cuddly (especially Julia).

In terms of advancements they both recently learned how to pump on the swings by themselves. They got big girl bikes for their birthdays and Caroline can already ride pretty well with no training wheels. Julia is much more timid and doesn't have the desire to try as much although she has and is getting better. Caroline took a tumble her third or fourth day with no training wheels and is now a little bit more reluctant to ride without them. We'll just let them go at a pace they're comfortable with.

They played soccer in the fall and spring and are signed up for a soccer camp this summer which they are most excited about. It will be their first summer camp experience. They just finished their first year of preschool and they really took to it. They loved going to school and had a great year. Their teachers said that they did really well with making friends with other kids and didn't always stick with each other. Their handwriting has improved by leaps and bounds this year. At the beginning of the year I don't even think they could write their names and now they are writing full thank you notes. They love to get pieces of paper and doodle and write letters and numbers. And they're even starting to sound out some simple words!

They are into Shopkins, Calico Critters, and Ninjago (Colin influence) lately. They're definitely more into Disney princesses this year too, especially Frozen. We had a family birthday party for them on the 14th and poor Julia was coming down with strep throat (although we didn't know it at the time). She was a trooper though and hung in there for the fun. She wanted a Frozen theme and Caroline wanted Minnie Mouse so rather than insisting that they agree on something, we did both themes for their party! I didn't go all out but I had some decorations for both. I think they enjoyed themselves.

As for some stats, here are their latest from their 4 year check-up today:

Julia:
37 lbs (65%)
41.5 inches (83%)

Caroline:
36 lbs (58%)
41 inches (76%)

Colin at age THREE:
39 lbs
42.75 inches

Man, he was (and still is) huge! He is easily the size of a third grader now.