Izzy at 3.5 years old

Height: Tall!

Weight: ~38 pounds

Language: Izzy can correctly recognize all of the letters of the alphabet and numbers up to 10. She makes up her own songs constantly and has started to try to rhyme words. She loves to ask how to spell ("pell" because she still doesn't pronounce the "s" before a consonant) words. In the car she loves to ask me to say different words that start with whatever letter she chooses ("Mommy what words start with "m"?).

Helping with chores

Personality: We like to call her the "Little Dictator." She loves to give orders to everyone, often telling people that she is the teacher and they need to listen to her. She can still be shy at times when meeting new people.

Favorite Toy: Anything related to her "art projects." She has markers, construction paper, stamps, crayons, stickers, glittery glue, etc. and will make all kinds of stuff for us. She loves to get home and use her kid scissors to cut construction paper so that she can glue different pieces (she says she is very good at making "quares"- squares).

Playing bumper cars with Wes

She also is a big fan of her new big girl bike. She was doing so well on her balance bike that we went to a consignment sale and got her a real bike. Friends have suggested taking off the pedals so that we don't injure our backs helping her stay up on the bike while she gets used to the new bike weight and balance, so we will do that for a few weeks before she is hopefully ready to go with the new bike (the bike is a little too big for her so she may not get to use it until next year).

Favorite Book: It varies every night. For a while she wanted to read "Frog and Toad" stories (something I loved when I was younger), Rumpelstilskin (the ending is so gory- did not remember that!), Rapunzel, various stories from a rhyming book, etc. Last night it was Clifford books.

Sleeping Habits: These days she goes to bed around 8-8:30 and wakes up around 6:30-7. She sometimes takes a nap these days- it really depends on her activity level earlier in the day. On days where she has swim class or has been running around, she will go down hard for her naps.

How I found Izzy sleeping during a nap

Eating: Izzy is a fairly good eater and thankfully enjoys eating fruits and vegetables. One day she came home from school and told me that she didn't like broccoli anymore because her best friend didn't like broccoli. I told her that was not a thing and that she shouldn't stop liking something simply because her friend doesn't like it. She says that her favorite food is mac n cheese but most times when she orders it at a restaurant, she doesn't eat a lot of it. She still likes to drink milk with her meals, but otherwise drinks water.

Potty: Izzy was having problems for a while where she would be doing something and wait until the last minute to go to the bathroom, resulting in a small amount of pee in her underwear. She has gotten better, but still has accidents every once in a while. She wears pullups for naps while at home and at night. She has recently been getting up in the middle of the night saying that she has to go to the bathroom (she gets us up to help her)- which is a good sign that she is waking up but not so good when her parents are tired!

Clothes: 4T clothing and size 10 shoes. Izzy wears nothing but dresses these days with either leggings or shorts underneath, depending on the weather. I have gotten her to wear tshirts only two days in probably the last two months- one was an tshirt that had bugs all over it (she wore it for the letter "i"- insects- to show and tell) and a tshirt that has the sun and planets because she was excited to show her preschool teacher. Her favorite thing to wear is a Hanna Anderson twirly dress.

A borrowed dress from a friend- little chance she will get one of her own

Media: Izzy will watch about an hour or two of tv (total) over the weekend but we have a strict no tv policy during the week. Sometimes it is a movie, otherwise it is Daniel Tiger. She never asks for our phones or ipads and it is a rare, rare occasion where we would let her play on them anyway (for instance a plane ride but we haven't gone on a family trip in a while).

Big sister: Izzy continues to be an excellent big sister...unless Wes takes a toy that she wants. LOL. She loves to jump in front of Wes to make him laugh.