1. She's awesomely fierce and feisty, but is also such a sweetheart. She knows when other people are feeling sad or upset, and she will go right to them and do her best to help make everything better.
2. She still loves all kinds of animals, but especially horses!
3. Her favorite colors are purple and blue.
4. She is still quite adamant about choosing her clothes and dressing herself (although I get the say-so for church and special occasions). She wears her pink running shorts and blue polka-dotted shirt every chance she gets. Is it horrible that sometimes I hide them in her drawer so she'll have to wear something different? :-D
5. Blueberries are still one of her favorite foods.
6. She loves Hello Kitty.
7. She adores her baby brother, and is such an awesome big sister. She wants to do anything and everything to help with him.
8. She has such an awesome sense of humor, and is such a ham. I love it when she and Oliver make up stories to one-up each other -- they always crack me up!
9. She has the best belly laugh.
10. She is fearless, friendly, loving, and giggly. Just so full of personality. She is also very outgoing and social, and loves to be around people, which has been a big boost for her more timid big brother. One of my favorite memories of her is from last summer, when she, Oliver, and I were at the park. We were waiting for our friends to arrive, and the only other kids on the playground were older--maybe 7 or 8 years old. Oliver was too timid to approach the playground since he didn't know any of the bigger kids, but Buttercup just walked up to the group and started "talking" to them (she was only about 18 months old and didn't have a well-established or intelligible vocabulary yet). The older kids looked down at her, she looked up at them, and they just kept on doing what they had been doing while Buttercup acted like she was a part of their group. After a few minutes of seeing his baby sister hanging out with the big kids, Oliver got enough nerve to walk over and hang out, too. :-)
We're so blessed to have this amazing little girl in our family! We have all learned so much from her over the past 2 1/2 years, and I can't wait to see what we'll learn in the coming years. :-)
After several days of trying, I finally got a picture of Theodore's cute baby smile! It's a fuzzy phone picture, but it totally counts. :-D
Isn't he just the most precious (well, tied for first) baby boy ever?? Happy 7 week birthday, my sweet baby boy!!!
This week, Oliver had his last swim lesson in the level 3 class. The different levels all have the names of sea creatures (Pike, Eel, Starfish, etc), and ever since Oliver has started swimming, he's been looking forward to being in the Stingray class (level 4). Almost every day since he started level 3, he would ask me, "Am I still an Eel? Am I a Stingray yet?"
Since this was the last week of lessons, his swim teacher was supposed to evaluate his swimming ability to determine if he moved up to the level 4 class or stayed in the level 3 class. But his class had substitute teachers for the last few lessons, so there was some confusion about whether or not he was moving up to level 4. I ended up calling to see if he had passed the class, and was told that his class had somehow slipped through the cracks and none of the students were evaluated! Instead, I would have to bring him to the YMCA pool to have one of the lifeguards evaluate him.
We went yesterday afternoon and, not surprisingly, he passed with flying colors! The instructor who evaluated him said that she was not only impressed with how well he swam, but that she rarely sees a 4 year old who swims as well as he does on his own! He's been doing so well, and we are so proud of him!
I meant to take some pictures of him at the pool yesterday, but his evaluation didn't last long, and I was preoccupied with bouncing the baby so he would stay asleep in the baby sling. :-) Instead, here are some pictures from earlier in the week when Oliver, Buttercup and I were playing outside. Enjoy!
Look what I found!
(The shirt, not the baby.) :-)
