My 4.5 Year old!

This is kind of a random blog post. I was looking through my old posts from a couple years ago and I loved reading the update posts. This is kind of like Rena's "baby" book so I like to document stuff that I can look back on years later and remember what she was doing at the time! Rena is officially 4.5 years old this week! The time is just going by so fast. Seems like she just had her 4th birthday and now she's already talking about her 5th birthday party! Mommy isn't ready to think about that yet since it means she's getting older wayyyy too fast! Just thought I would share what she's up to at 4.5 years old and some random pics from the past couple weeks too.

- Rena's favorite toy right now is playing Barbies! She's obsessed with Barbies and has quite a few of them now. She loves to dress them up in pink and purple outfits. She's getting a few Barbie gifts from us for Hanukkah/Christmas which I know she'll love. She really likes the Princess and Popstar Barbie collection and movie...she could watch that movie all day long. And I got her the app on my phone and she sings along to the music videos and knows every word! It's too cute! :)
- She still loves her swimming lessons! I really thought we would stop doing the lessons once school started but it's the one thing she looks forward to all week! So we're still doing the lessons and she's getting very good now. I think she's going to have her float test soon and then she can be "promoted" to the next class. We're so happy she's found something she loves to do!
- Rena absolutely loves school this year! I think it's because of her new teacher Ms. Nadya. Rena is really comfortable with her and just loves going to school. She even asks to go on the weekends too! She keeps asking why the school has to be closed on the weekends! :)
- She does and says the funniest things lately. The other day I saw the school was serving bean burritos for lunch so I told her I would pack her lunch since I figured she wouldn't touch those! She said that she liked them...but she just told the teacher to take the beans out so she could have a tortilla burrito! Haha. I told her I was still packing her a lunch since she needed to eat more than just a tortilla for lunch! And another funny thing, anytime I make a right turn on red she freaks out that I wasn't supposed to go since it was a red light. She doesn't really get the concept of right turn on red yet. ;)
- Rena is still a pretty picky eater but she is getting better about trying new things. She's always asking us what she's eating and will sometimes surprise us and actually want to try it. They studied the food pyramid at school and told them to color in what they like to eat. The top part of Rena's pyramid (with junk food, sweets, etc) was all colored in! She also colored in the cheese, yogurt, and cereal. I asked her why she didn't color in the pasta since she loves that...she said she wasn't sure if it was plain or had sauce on it! Lol! And I told her she could have colored in the fruit too so she did that at home. And she said she likes eggs but couldn't color it in since it was already white! The whole thing was so hilarious to me and she couldn't understand what was so funny about it. Needless to say...I saved that food pyramid in her school box where I keep special artwork, papers, etc!
- She's officially riding her bike (with training wheels) on her own. She's slow and still needs the occasional push uphill, but we're so proud of her. I caught her on video and need to figure out how to upload that on here!
- She loves helping me with chores now and is getting better about picking up after herself too. She's very organized and meticulous and knows exactly where all her toys go. She gets upset if things aren't exactly in the right place. I wonder where she gets that OCD from... ;)

Riding her bike all on her own!

Rena and her friend Ella playing at the park.

Rena loves the big girl swing and tells me not to push her anymore...sniff, sniff!

She got brave and went down the big steep slide at our park!

She got a new mega coloring book from Sam's and loves coloring in it. She'll ask me to color with her but then tells me exactly which colors to use on each part!

Rena got a new dance bag since her old one finally tore. She got a glitter pink one to coordinate with Ella's purple one, and Rena said she told the teacher about their matching bags!

It's finally cooling down in the nights so Rena was excited to wear her long sleeve Sleeping Beauty PJs

I knew even before we had kids that our rolling dining chairs would be trouble...and I was right! Rena spends half of dinner getting on and off the rolling chair and playing around in it. I'm surprised it took her 4 years to realize how "fun" they are! :)

I don't post a lot of bath pictures but I had to post this one...swim teacher Barbie was teaching the baby princesses how to swim in the "pool"! I love watching Rena play in the bath since she's so creative with all her toys!

We went to a fun birthday party at Centennial park for Rena's classmate and she had a great time!

 

Rena likes wearing a jacket to school and apparently likes to keep it on all day so she's wearing pink or purple instead of just her uniform! :) Of course my child would find a way to beat the system! Ha!