Adalyn is 5

-Adalyn just started kindergarten 5 full days a week and loves it! We debated on whether to put her in young 5's since her birthday is after the cutoff and I am so glad for the kindergarten teacher who recommended kindergarten for her because she is doing awesome so far!

-She has been reading for about 6 months. We try to do about 20 minutes of reading daily and she can sound out most words with a little help and read any of the more basic words by herself. She has read about 15 books fully such as Fox in Socks, Cat in the Hat and more.

-There is nothing that she loves more in life than being a big sister to Oliver and Lily. She takes her big sister role very seriously. She loves to boss around Oliver and is the most caring sister to Lily. She and Oliver love doing everything together from holding hands and singing Wizard of Oz songs, getting into mischief, cuddling and playing together. It is the absolute best. With Lily, Adalyn will help me with anything including rocking her if she's crying, holding her everyday- especially for tummy time and just being interested in everything that she is doing.

-A close second to loving being a sister is eating! My girl can eat and has zero foods that she doesn't like (besides anything too spicy). She is super passionate about knowing what we are eating for all of our meals, helping me cook in the kitchen, planning what we are going to buy at the grocery store and more. She has a passion for fruits and veggies (no worries- and candy, cake and gum too lol) and loves going to the grocery stores with me and is my very favorite shopping buddy.

Her favorite foods are any kind of berry, green beans with butter, salad, cake, ice cream, candy, GUM is probably number 1, pizza, tuna salad, homemade potato salad, yogurt and a million other things. She will eat anything.

-She loves coloring and drawing me pictures. 

-Adalyn napped right up until the time that she started kindergarten. Dropping the nap has been a bit of a challenge come afternoon time but overall is going very well. She has a hard time falling asleep no matter how tired she is and her doctor has her taking 1/2 mg of melatonin and night and it has made the nights so much better. Until about a month ago, it took Adalyn up to 3-4 HOURS to fall asleep every night.

-The kid is smart! She is caring. She is so understanding and understands more about emotions than anyone else her age that I know. I honestly strive to be more like Adalyn in terms of being caring and understanding. She is so sweet to care about what anyone else in her family cares about. She knows that Daddy loves Mustangs so she talks with him about Mustangs. She knows that Oliver loves tractors so she talks to him about tractors, etc. 

If someone is sad, she will spend a lot of time trying to make them happy. Anytime I cry, she is always trying to comfort me. She helps kids on the playground who are sad. I know that part of it is the way that we treat her and she learns to be caring from us but I also think that a lot of it is just who she is.

-She is a girly girl and loves wearing dresses that "go all the way down to the floor" as well as wedge sandals. She loves to dress up- but also loves to wear workout clothes too. She loves to dance and have a good time. We had a freaking blast all summer dancing at concerts together. 

-She learned how to ride a 2 wheeled bike towards the end of the summer and her and I had fun going on 2-3 mile bike rides together. She LOVES to run and wants to join a track team as soon as she can. She says no more soccer lol!

-Adalyn can be scared to try new things and needs a little push (I'm the mom who gives her a light push to try something) and then LOVES it with a passion after trying it for the first time. This happened with trying out water slides, biking, jumping into the water and much more. She needs someone to encourage her to try it and then she loses all fear after trying something one time.

-She learned how to swim really well and had a blast swimming all summer long.

-Some of her love for princesses has faded sadly but she is starting to love superheroes which is fun.

-She LOVES church and loves our priest so much. If we can't go to church for some reason, she is super upset and tries to get us to go. I am very happy that since December, we have gone to church almost every single week and we feel very connected to our church.

-Adalyn has always been strong willed ever since she was a baby and it certainly continues at age 5. I would say that age 4-5 has been the best for us. While she certainly tests the limits, it has been the easiest because she can understand everything and it makes it easier for me to be able to explain why we have certain rules, etc. 

-She is still super tall and is in about the 90th percentile. She grows out of clothes lengthwise but it is hard to find stuff that fits her small waist.

-Adalyn is my best little friend! We are two peas in a pod and do everything together. I love her so much!

As you can tell, I have an awesome little girl! I miss her like crazy when she is at school but am so excited to see the person that she is becoming.