We love having Erica - we have some of our greatest highs of parenting and, of course, some of our lows. Erica has really grown up into a little girl this past year. We are beyond the toddler stage and it is fantastic.
She is potty trained and is mostly dry every night. She speaks very well and is very inquisitive. She wants to know about everything, including things like death and cavities. She asks, "why" a million times a day. And "what if..." questions, for example, "what if you don't love me", "what if I don't get bigger", "what if (fill in the blank with the opposite of whatever I was just talking about)".
She goes to preschool three times a week and does one activity a week - either gymnastics or ballet. She LOVES both. We just finished up her ballet class and you can see videos of her recital here and here. We will start gymnastics again soon and she is very excited.
She is a great big sister to Sadie. She is very patient with her and they play well together. She is very tolerant of Sadie destroying a lot of her things. Sadie idolizes her.
When she is well-rested and in a good mood, Erica is so funny and a great kid. She listens and minds well. She is a fantastic artist, which she definitely inherited from her dad. She is a bit of a drama queen and very girly. I am a little worried about how that will play out when she is a teenager. She is a really great girl and comes with a lot of intensity.
We decided to throw her a real birthday party. She had about 15 friends over. She is a great friend to others. She is sensitive to their needs, she shares and apparently, according to her preschool teacher, she is popular at school. I guess there have been a few tears shed by other students if they can't sit by her.
Erica's party consisted of games (planned by Troy) - such as pin Pascal on Rapunzel's hand and throw water balloons at Erica's dad.
Then we let the kids decorate their own cupcakes. We had a rainbow selection of frosting, candies and a dog to clean up the mess. Thanks to my brother and wife who helped with the cupcakes.
After cupcakes, Erica opened presents with lots of little helpers. I think this was her favorite part.
When she opened our present, she said, "These are the biggest ballet shoes I've ever seen."
We let the kids wind down with the movie, Tangled. All in all, I think it was a successful party.
1 comment:
i just can't get over how alike our girls are. happy birthday erica! we had a party for kapria, and i am obviously way behind you on posting about it. but erica's looks so fun! I love that troy helped plan it. and the games he came up sound perfect for 4 year olds. what a good sport!
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