Three and a Half!

Hannah Elizabeth! You are half-way to four today! I feel like you are still changing so quickly and I don't want to forget some of the things you have learned to do in the last six months. You have grown tall, I think. Can you tell I'm not a scientist?! I can just tell that your dresses are shorter than they used to be. Your hair is growing pretty long in the back. I'm dying to cut it though! Mostly because of the "bangs" you cut yourself a few months back. But you assure me that you don't want to go get your hair cut because you want to "look like a princess, NOT a boy". We'll see...one of these days I will convince you.

You have transitioned from wearing pull-ups at night to wearing underwear. I am so proud of you! You almost always wake up once or twice in the night which I must admit I'm not crazy about(mostly because you won't go potty alone in the night)...BUT you rarely have an accident at night. I also blame your 6:15am wake up calls on a full bladder too...

You have mostly given up your nap....but I can usually convince you to take one if we need you to stay up later. If you don't take one you could easily be fast asleep by 7pm.

You have the most INCREDIBLE imagination! You can play for hours and hours and hours with your dolls, stuffed animals, random junk....whatever! You never cease chattering. EVER. I think this must be a girl thing. I don't know.

You begun to read 3 letter words. You sound them out very carefully. It is so fun to see your face light up when you hear yourself say the word and you understand the word in front of you. In fact, the other day, you said each word (ex: mat) and then used it in a sentence, putting it in context, to show me that you understood what that word was (ex: I like to take a nap on my mat). I found it quite amusing!

You love, love, love when we read aloud to you. You will study the pictures in books and listen carefully to stories and are full of questions about EVERYTHING. Sometimes you ask me so many questions that I just want to go crazy. I wish I had the patience to answer them all. You especially love to have your Bibles read aloud. For a while, you would always ask for the same story over and over (Jesus walks on Water or Jonah and the Whale). But your latest thing is that you want to read a "new story" out of your Bible every night.

You still love princesses, sparkly things, long skirts, tutus...anything extremely girly. You love to pick out your own outfits and get dressed all by yourself.

You do NOT like to brush your teeth...I don't know why. You never have. You also aren't crazy about having your hair brushed...although I usually just tell you to count to 10 and by the time you get to 10--I'll be done! It works most of the time.

You adore your sister, Natalie and can't wait to spend time with her if she wakes up later than you in the morning or after nap time. You can be pretty mean to her often snatching toys out of her hand or shoving her to the ground. But you also can hug and kiss her and play sweetly with her. You always tell me that you want to teach her how to "go pottty" and lots of other things. You like to call her "Nat" or "Sweetie".

You are our treasure, Hannah Elizabeth! We love you so much and are so blessed to be your parents. Look out 4 years old--here she comes!