Jadealicious

I have a 4 year old!! I can't believe how fast the time has flown. I look back on baby pictures and feel like it was just yesterday. Jade has been such a joy in our lives! She is a very caring little girl who hates to hurt feelings or have feelings hurt. She is Mommy's big helper whenever I need her to be. She loves to help cooking and baking, setting the table, and with Megan. She even likes to help pick up toys. She likes things organized (just like her Mama).

Jade started preschool 2 days a week this year and has already learned a lot. She can identify most capitol letters, about half lower case letters, can count to 15 without help, knows all colors, can spell her name, knows what town/state she lives in and was born in, knows what town her Grandparents live in, knows where Dad works, knows shapes (circle, square, rectangle, diamond, oval, heart, star, crescent, triangle, etc.). She can talk very well and clear. She is able to pronounce all letters. Although she is initially still pretty shy, I think preschool has helped her socially quite a bit. Jade still needs "warm-up" time with people, but has really started to open up to people.

Jade continues to be a Mama's girl and wants me for most things, but has really started to be ok with Dad and Grandparents doing things. This sure helps me out quite a bit!! She also is starting to do more things on her own. She can come close to dressing herself on her own, but still wants help. She can put on her own shoes (we don't have lace up shoes yet), she is able to get all her snow gear on alone but needs help zipping and putting 2 mittens on. Is able to brush her teeth (I help so they get brushed good) and goes potty alone. She has been completely potty trained for almost a year including at night. She has had just 2 night accidents!!

Jade gave up napping a week or 2 before her 4th birthday. She would still go right down for a nap during the day, but we had been having a really hard time with her at night going to bed for a few months (probably close to 6 months!). She went from needing one more drink of water, going potty one more time, needing to tell us something, wondering when we were going to bed, etc. to just saying good night to both of us and going to bed. She also used to get up almost every night in the middle of the night to go potty and now she usually sleeps all night. We would have probably taken the nap away earlier, but I was scared that she would have night terrors again. She's had about 4 of these and they are really scary to me. So, she is now sleeping from about 8:30 - anywhere from 6:30-8. On days she wakes up at 6:30, I have her try to go back to bed...more for me than her. Most of the time she's up around 7, which is great especially on days she has preschool. It gives her an hour before we have to leave.

Jade is still not the best eater and that's probably my fault for not making her try new things and making her eat what's on the table. She has gotten better about trying things but so far hasn't loved anything right away. She is not a big meat eater. She will eat most pasta dishes. She eats spaghetti, grilled cheese, chicken nuggets, mac n cheese, tator tot hot dish, pancakes, waffles, breakfast sausage. Sides she likes are chips, crackers, French fries, yogurt, strawberries, grapes, watermelon, pickles, apple sauce, etc.

For her 4th birthday party, she chose a Pinkalicious theme. She loves those books and that made decorating easy for me! Everyone invited to the party had to wear pink. We had both sets of Grandparents and Great Grandma Elgin at our house for the party. We served different appetizers for food as it was a 3 o'clock party. We had fruit and vege pizza's, spinach dip with bread, and a meat and cheese trey. We had pink lemonade to drink and a pink cake from the local bakery. Jade got a tea set, clothes, books, cupcakes and cake set, Legos, games, a princess for her dollhouse, playdough set, etc. for her birthday. I wish we had a group picture, but I couldn't figure out how to work the timer on my camera. Maybe next year we will have to start inviting friends...

Height: 43"- 99%

Weight: 42lbs - 89%

Jade's Favorites:

Color: pink

Thing to do: paint, crafts, puzzles...she doesn't do just one thing ever. She does a good job of playing with everything

Food: Grilled Cheese

Animal: Horse...not sure why, we aren't big animal people so I never know what she'll say for this one

Song: Go Tell It On the Mountain or Joy to the World - she just learned both of these for her school Christmas program and has actions that go along with the songs.

Movie: Inside Out - We just rented this one as a family and watched it a couple times

Show: PJ Masks on Disney Jr.

Candy: Sucker

Toy: Building blocks (Lego's) Again, her favorite here could really be anything, she plays with all her stuff.

Best Friend: Megan! I love this answer so much!!

Megan is 20 months!

Time flies when you're having fun right? So it's been 8 months since the last update on Megan so lets see what all I can remember.

What She's Doing?
Megan is our busy body, always on the go. She is not destructive with her play, just busy. Most of the time she wants to do whatever her big sister is doing. She loves playing princess and singing and dancing with Jade. Her favorite show to watch is Sophia the First. In fact, we really don't get to watch anything else anymore. She just started watching full shows around 18-19 months, which does make traveling better. She just recently starting wanting to use my phone for games and movies. So far she hasn't messed anything up, but I still really would prefer her to play with other things. She continues to have a temper on her. She knows what she wants and if she doesn't get it she lets you know. She has many time outs throughout the week where she just gets alone time in her room. This used to work really well, but now she can open the door herself so comes out before she's done with her "fit." The girls love playing in the basement together. They have tents set up, they go to the movie, feed babies, go to the park, go swimming, etc. It has been really fun watching them interact. Yes, they still fight and argue about silly things, but I try to let them work it out even with the tears. Megan understands just about everything we say to her and she's getting better about figuring out a way to communicate what she wants with us. For awhile she would just scream when I couldn't figure out what she wanted, now she will take someone's hand and show them. This is very very nice! She continues to learn new words which sometimes seems daily and other times seems much slower. At 20 months she is saying, Mama, Dada, Jade, Bappa (Grandpa), nana (banana), Duke, yea, oh, uh-oh, signs more and please, thank you, bubble, blue, color, car, Rella (princess), there, hi.

Sleep:
Ugh! Gotta love all the stages right? For awhile we had her just going to bed, no tears or rocking. Then we transitioned to full out screaming, then we went back to just going to bed, and now she likes to be rocked for a while, then I lay her down and she just needs to cry or something because I can usually go in for a second time and rock her and then she will lay down for the night. She no longer wants Daddy to do bedtime. She used to go right down for him. He would even just open the door and tell her "no" and she would stop crying, lay down, and go to sleep. Now she just wants Mama! It gets old listening to her cry before naps and bed, but it seems like she just needs to. She rarely falls asleep in my arms when I rock her, she just needs the comfort I guess. She is easier to get to go down for a nap than bed, although still usually cries a little. She gets up 0-2 times a night. She usually goes back down pretty easy during the night. She typically naps from about 1:00-2/3:00. Bedtime is still around 7:30 and she's usually up about 8:00. I usually have to wake her up on Tuesdays and Thursday's because we have to take Jade to school.

Feed Me:
This is still a hard thing for me. She is not the best eater, but we figure it out. What she eats: pancakes and sausage, tator tot hot dish, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, pasta sides, egg bake, chicken nuggets, french fries, blueberries, strawberries, crackers, chips, nachos (meat and cheese), yogurt, yogurt covered raisins, chex mix, sometimes cereal, string cheese, fruit pouches, watermelon, grapes, candy. She is not real adventurous and doesn't try many new things. She seems interested, but when it comes down to eating it she pushes it away. Someday my kids will eat normal right? There are nights that I cook 3 different meals. Yuck!!

Milestones:
She just finished getting all her I-teeth. She now has 16 total teeth, I think that's how man they are supposed to have now right? Next up are the 2 year molars.

15 Months Weight: 20lbs  Length: 2' 5/5"
18 Months Weight: 20lbs  Length: 2' 7"
20 Months Weight: 21.8lbs!!

Clothes. We are wearing all 18 month clothes. She is still just a little peanut. Still in size 3 diapers. Seems like we've been in those for a long time!!