Dear Hazel (age 4)

My dear sweet Hazel – they say that the time flies and maybe it’s because you are our second…or maybe it’s because you are our last…whatever the case, I feel like another year has passed us in the blink of an eye and it’s all I can do to try and soak up every moment and remember as much as I can!  You’ve grown up and changed so much this year.  I feel like 3 is when you transition from being a little kid into becoming your own real person and when I look back over the last year I can say one thing for certain and it’s that you have a LOT of personality.

Favorite Toy: Baby dolls are still pretty high up on the list, but this year you’ve found new fascination with rocks!  You stinking love them.  You’ll pick up rocks just about anywhere you can and you’ll lug them around with you for days!  You have rocks in your bed and rocks in just about any nook and cranny you can hide them.  You pick up buckets of gravel at the house and for a LONG time there you wouldn’t even leave Brenda’s house for the day without grabbing a rock for her flower bed outside the door.  People know you love rocks SO much that they give them to you as gifts.  Auntie got you a bag of fancy rocks for Christmas, both Grandpa and Grandma/Papa brought you rocks back from their recent trips…when we gave you $20 to spend on vacation, you chose a bag of rocks!  It’s funniest, quirkiest thing!  Who knows, maybe you’ll turn out to be a geologist one day!

I am so thankful I was able to gather so many sweet photos of you for this post.  I can’t remember what age it was for Abby but you are certainly in the “I don’t want to look at the camera” phase these days.  It’s rare for me to get a real true smile out of you…either you refuse to look at the camera or you make a silly face.  I just have to love this moment for what it is…an expression of your personality and a moment in time that will surely pass.  I’ll cherish these crazy dazy photos of you just as much as the sweet smiling ones!

Some firsts this year:

• Big girl bed:  Yep!  You got a big upgrade earlier this year when we upgraded you into a real big girl bed!  And, we didn’t just get you a big bed, we got you a giant bunk bed situation with a full size bed on the bottom, a full set of stairs and a twin bed up top.  While I think that novelty of the whole things is finally starting to wear off I’d guess that you and Abby sleep together up in your room about half of the time.  I think it’s sweet that you two enjoy hanging out together and I also love that sleeping in the same space isn’t new anymore – it makes camping trips and traveling so much easier when sleeping in the same room is just sort of the norm!
• Big girl bike:  You got your very own big girl bike for your birthday from Grandma and Papa and you’ve taken to it like a fish to water.  You are really very good at it and you are not afraid to try it at all.  It came complete with handlebar streamers and a little baby doll holder in the back, but the cherry on top is definitely the Minnie Mouse helmet with ears!  You are adorable on your little bike and I honestly think that with just a tiny bit of coaxing you could be full on riding without training wheels by the end of the summer!
• Gymnastics and Ballet: This year we decided to try out some new activities in addition to the swim lessons we’ve been doing for over 2.5 years.  You were great at both Gymnastics and Ballet and while I think your preference (and personality) probably lend toward gymnastics I think you were also really good at ballet.  It was fun to watch you try new things, take direction and to see little peeks of those things show up in our everyday life.  I love your little plies and all of the dance moves you bust out when we have family dance parties. 
• Brushing your own teeth:  It seems like a little thing, but over this year as you’ve gone from 3 to almost 4, I’ve been trying not to mourn the end of the “firsts” and instead try to celebrate the independence (both for you and for me!).  You certainly aren’t a baby anymore and you grow more each day.  Sometimes that leaves me sad for what’s ended, but also happy for what’s ahead.  As silly as brushing your own teeth sounds, it means a few more minutes of time for me to do things in the more…one more thing I can say “go do…” to and then you and Abby both come back ready for the next thing.

Bears or Packers?  This is a funny one.  I’d have to admit that you’d likely pull a Bears t-shirt out of your drawer before you’d grab a Packers one but what makes me laugh the most is when you say “Me and Daddy like the Packers”.  I mean, I just can’t help but encourage that one!  So, for now I’ll just continue encouraging you and not correct you when you say you and Daddy like the Packers.  I just quickly say “me too baby, me too” and try to stifle my smile.  

Favorite TV show:  This is another hard one because I’d have to say that for the most part, you just don’t get to pick!  We don’t watch too much TV at home…just a few minutes in the morning when you wake up…and less than an hour at night before bedtime.  I refuse to record kids shows on the DVR because honey, ain’t nobody got time to be running the remote for you!  So for the most part you guys just get stuck with whatever is on Disney Junior.  But, that being said, when you do have iPad time in the car on long trips you will often pick Sophia the First or Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  I can’t tell if that’s because you like them….or because it’s what’s available.  HAHA!

Favorite Food: You will try many more things than Abby ever did!  And, you like just about everything.  You’ll willingly eat asparagus, green beans, spring rolls (you love them).  You like all fruits and you’ll even try things like sushi or fish and I’d say more often than not you’ll ask for more!  You’ve eaten morel mushrooms, shrimp, guacamole, grapes with seeds, and so many more things than I can list!  When it comes to favorites I think sometimes your favorites are clouded by Abby and what she says are HER favorite things.  Sometimes it’s you wanting to be just like her, others it’s that she’s louder, or that you give in more easily so while I’m having a hard time saying what you’d pick as a favorite all on your own, I can say that you love Daddy Mac and Cheese (Velveeta…yuck!), oatmeal (also, yuck!), chicken nuggets and corn dogs.  But, all that said, you are the best eater between you and Abby, you are almost always first to finish your plate and you rarely say you WON’T eat something.  And, you love a good sprinkle donut....I mean, who doesn't!?!

You can be the sweetest cutest little girl but you aren’t without a naughty side!  I have a bad feeling you’re going to be the one to test the rules, the one to push the boundaries and the one to see just what we’re made of as parents!  Three has been the age where you test me and the rules.  For example, I’ll see you screwing around on the couch and I’ll say “couches are for…” and you’ll finish my sentence “butts” but then you’ll go right along on your merry way bouncing on the cushions and jumping your way across the couch.  Or, you’ll ask for a snack (minutes before dinner) and when I say “no ma’am we’re eating diner in 10 minutes” you’ll calmly walk over to the fridge and start helping yourself.  For Abby rules were meant to help give her guide-rails through the day…for you, you think rules were meant to be broken!  But, that’s not to say that you aren’t the sweetest most loving kid.  You are much more of a snuggler than Abby ever was and I’d contest to this day that you give the very best hugs!  You grab hold tight with both your arms and squeeze has hard as your little muscles will let you – and in that moment I want to freeze time and just stay that way forever.  

Favorite Outfit:  Boy oh boy, do you have opinions about what you wear these days!  I’d say it was sometime later winter/early spring and you came downstairs for the morning fully dressed in a dress, tights, shorts, a skirt, dress shoes and a sweater (see picture above) and that’s basically become your uniform these days.  Even now, in the middle of summer you refuse to wear anything other than a dress with tights and a skirt underneath.  And these dress shoes!  Boy do you love dress shoes (with heels!).  Those princess Belle shoes looks like they’ve been through the war and no matter how hard I try to convince you to wear more seasonally appropriate footwear, this is most often your choice (about 80% of the time they are on the wrong feet too!).  In clothing choices you are nothing like your sister who at nearly age 7 still lets me pick out her clothes on most days and has literally zero opinions about the clothes I buy for her.  You make up with it for enough of your own opinions for two!

Nicknames:

• “My best cleaner” – You really are my best cleaner!  And, I’ve found that you are most motivated by praise.  I’m far better off praising you to try and change your actions than to threaten or punish.  You are notoriously a collector of things!  You love anything tiny, rocks, scraps of paper, Hatchimals, Shopkins…anything you can squirrel away in a tiny box or bag.  Well, when we switched you out of the crib earlier this year and into a big girl bed you stacked your bed high with all your favorite things.  There was so much stuff in your bed I don’t even know how you found room to sleep in there yourself.  And that’s when I found out what a great cleaner you where!  One day I was talking to you about how you were the best cleaner and how you cleaned better than anyone in the house.  You disappeared into your room for an hour and when I came up your bed was empty and your room was clean! ( I mean, there were a lot of piles of junk hidden under/inside of things…but for the most part, we’d had a breakthrough).  You love to help (more than Abby ever did at this age) and you really are a great sweeper.  You’ll push the Swiffer, wipe down baseboards and walls, run the little hand vacuum, and even clean the toilets.  A little encouragement goes a long way with you and mostly I think you just want to be included and to help!
• “Hiker Hazel” – you came up with this one yourself on our recent family camping trip.  After hiking two miles with a backpack full of rocks on your back you became the self-proclaimed Hiker Hazel and boy did you deserve it!  I hope you continue to like hiking as much as we do!  Now we just have to get Abby and her Disney Legs up to speed and we’ll be set!
• Franny – you will forever and ever be my Franny or my Fran.  It’s funny because I don’t even realize I call you that anymore and I have to be sure to explain when we have new people around (like teachers or coaches).  Hazel doesn’t translate into Franny without some explanation so I have to remember to clue others in!

A sweet story about you:  On our recent camping trip to Kentucky you decided that you LOVE dogs.  I mean, we have two of our very own dogs at home.  And, you and Copper had a hate/hate relationship for a long time.  He was just too big for you and a little too wild and you were the only one in the house he was bigger than, so he pushed you around a lot. I get it!  But, on this camping trip, you decided you were a dog lover and you'd bravely walk up to anyone and just start petting their dogs.  We quickly did some training and explained that not all dogs were friendly and that you needed to ask if you could pet a stranger's dog.  So you came up with this line: "Hi, I'm Hazel, can I pet your dog?"  Imagine it all squished together has you ran up with your hands out, barely waiting long enough for them to answer.  This little story tells so much about your personality.  You aren't shy, you are brave and you know what you want!  You'll go far baby girl, you'll go far!

Favorite Movie:  Last year your answer was Moana hands down, with Sing as very close second.  This year it’s a little harder – you’re very content to just let Abby pick the movie whenever we’re sitting down together to watch a movie as a family.  But, if you have your iPad it’s likely that you are watching Frozen.  Though, I’d have to say 101 Dalmatians and Secret Life of Pets might be pretty close up there!

Fears: Baby girl, you are fearless!  In fact, both your swim coach and Brenda told me that in exactly those words - “She has no fear!”  Whether it’s riding your bike, or picking up worms, you sure can roll with the punches.  You fall down and get right back up (usually without a tear).  You fell off the swings the other day and Daddy picked you right up, dusted you off and you were back to swinging in no time flat!  You’ll try just about anything, you’re always ready to go on an adventure…..you are strong, and tough and willing to just give it a shot.  I think that attitude will take you far in life, so I hope this is a trait that sticks around!  

Favorite Color: I think you’d say that your favorite color is purple though, lately, whenever I ask you you say something like “my first favorite color is purple by my other favorite is (insert color of the day).  HA!  I guess it’s hard to say?!  For now, I’ll go with purple!

Height/Weight:  33 lbs and 39 inches.

So my sweet girl.  Another year, another birthday, more milestones and so many hopes and dreams for you.  We love you to the end of the earth and back and we can't wait to see where you go and who you become.  Happy 4th birthday, Fran!