Izzy turns 4

Izzy with her birthday balloons the morning she turned 4

Height: 43.5" tall. (97%)

Weight: 43 pounds (92%)

Physical milestones: Man, what can't Izzy do? I think what sets her apart for now is her fearlessness. As of this fall, she can ride a two wheeler.

I got a great picture, but she thought it was funny to whiz past me and Wes (who was sitting in a wagon). She still needs to practice stopping. 

Also this fall she took a few strokes in the pool in swim class with no flotation device or help.

"Mommy I am strong"

She is a fast runner and doesn't mind getting dirty.

Her fearlessness comes in handy when going to a local play area. There is a kid-like American Ninja obstacle course and even though you are supposed to be 4 in the room (she was about two months shy), she was rocking the obstacles like they were a piece of cake.

Language: Izzy can easily read all of the letters of the alphabet and has started to work on "sight words" at school (words like the, at, you, he, etc. although she needs a lot of practice). She loves to ask how to spell something and then will write the word down. Often in the car she will ask, Mommy what words start with the letter L?” (the letter varies). She is learning a bunch of Spanish words at school and can count to 20 in English and Spanish.

She still doesn't pronounce the "s" before a consonant so the word 'scary' comes out as 'cary' and our favorite for giggles, 'scooter' is still 'cooter.' Other funny pronuncations these days include 'squirrel' sounding like 'quarrel', 'sunscreen' is called 'suncream' (which makes sense), the 'Trolls' movie is 'Controls', and McDonalds is 'Old MacDonald' (as in the song).

Other times, she has us giggling for her odd phrases:

Izzy: Daddy, how do you climb over something that is too big?

CP: You use a ladder.

Izzy: Daddy that is good thinking in your brain.

Personality: She still loves directing people as a first born is wont to do. We were playing with her birthday balloons and she only wanted me to hit them a very specific way. She loves ordering Wes around now as well and for the most part, he will do whatever she days (if he understands it of course). She isn't scared of very much and a lot of the other parents use the line "Oh look Izzy can do it" to try to cajole their kids into doing something. LOL.

Loving the rollercoaster

Now that she is 4 the whining it starting a bit more. Unfortunately the tantrums haven’t stopped either and especially when she hasn't napped (which is most days), by the end of the day she is cranky and upsets easily.

Attitude for days

As she ages, she is definitely getting more competitive. She makes sure that she gets more milk than Wes every morning before school. She always wants to beat me up the stairs and will cry when she doesn't win. This competitive streak is all from me; I just need to teach her how to lose gracefully.

Favorite Toy: She continues to love coloring, using scissors/glue/tape/etc. For her birthday, Izzy got some junior Lego sets from friends and enjoyed putting them together, along with using her new Lite Brite.

Favorite Book: It continues to vary every night but she sometimes gravitates towards chapter books (a neighbor gave us a bunch of older books). I never know what she is going to be in the mood for. Thank goodness she has A LOT of 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 usually nap. Our routine is to get her upstairs to change into pjs and pullup, brush her teeth, and read her 1-2 books or 1-2 chapters of a book. I sing her two songs, and then it is often a fight for me to leave the room (aka she stalls). Generally she is in her room with a flashlight looking at books for a bit before falling asleep.

Eating: Izzy is an okay eater. More often than not she doesn’t eat a lot at dinner which I hope means she eats more at breakfast and lunch st school. She loves cherry tomatoes and will most every time eat carrots, cucumbers, snap peas, edamame, broccoli, peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, and various kinds of winter squash. If she had her way she would eat a lot of cheeseburgers, mac n cheese, quesadillas, and chicken nuggets....we of course don't allow that to happen all the time but thankfully she likes things like CP's homemade tomato soup, rice and beans, and all kinds of fruit (which we have for dessert at night).

Potty: Izzy's issue with peeing just a little bit in her underwear went away this summer after an annoying 4 or so month period. She hasn't had an accident in a while which has been quite nice. She wears pullups for naps at home (not at school) and for bed.


Clothes: 5T clothing and size 12 shoes. Izzy wears mostly dresses these days with leggings underneath.

Media: Izzy will watch about an hour or two of tv (total) over the weekend and pretty much no tv during the week. Her favorite thing to watch these days is Paw Patrol and will once in a while watch PJ Masks. As far as Izzy knows, the iPad and our phones are for watching a YouTube video or two but can do nothing else so she never asks for them (which is nice). She does like to look at a picture after you take one of her.

Big sister: Izzy continues to be an excellent big sister...unless Wes takes a toy that she wants. LOL. Her newest thing is trying to play with him and trying to pick him up (which is hard because he is heavy!).

Leading little brother

Birthday: The last half of November was all about Izzy. I got home from Texas on the 18th, then her birthday party with her friends at a local bounce house place was the 19th. My parents came over that night for dinner/leftover cake, but then also came over the weekend after Thanksgiving to celebrate (my sister and her husband were supposed to attend but couldn't). On the 28th we went to the doctor and found out Izzy had swimmers ear....the day of her birthday (29th) CP was traveling for work, but she was excited to see her birthday balloons and was supposed to have popsicles at school that afternoon....until I got a call that she had a fever halfway through the day. She did enjoy watching an inordinate amount of tv while she was sick though...

Getting sweaty at her birthday party

Last night of being three (and super excited about her Paw Patrol sheets from her grandmother)