Eliana at 4 1/2

Well, another six months (and a little more!) have flown by! Eliana seems so big and grown-up at times and at other times she is still so little. I can't believe 4 1/2 years have passed since she was born. I love having a preschooler and am amazed by how independent and capable she is. At the same time, man, she can be a handful! She still struggles with her temper but overall she has really improved over the past few months after really cracking down on her behavior. She still gets quite upset but seems to consistently get over it more quickly, which is a huge relief. The girl is spirited, that is for sure!

Eliana definitely has her own style and one of my favorite things each day is seeing what outfit she chooses. Some of the kids at school give her a hard time and I imagine part of it may be her eclectic clothing choices. She's just different than the Tajiks she is around. We love it though and want her to be creative and be who she is. She is still a skinny minny and tops out at around 34 pounds (21%) on a good day. She mostly eats well and I am often amazed by the things she eats now that she used to not eat. She is around 42.5 inches we think (62.5%) and her legs are definitely long. Her 4T pants fit her waist but are close to being too short. She loves to wear dresses and skirts every day with leggings underneath. Once again, I'm not sure why I bought her pants but at least I didn't buy many! It's all about the twirl! Oh, and she loves girl shoes and accessories! She is all girl that is for sure. We've said that if Jadon is as much boy as she is girl we're going to have our hand full!

Eliana loves pretend play and sometimes it can be pretty confusing figuring out when she is talking to me or her pretend mama. She loves to sing and makes up songs all the time. She loves to listen to my old MP3 player in bed at night using her headphones. She likes to show us how she can jump and run and hop backwards on one foot. She is still not super brave but I'm okay with that. She is loving watching my belly grow and is pretty pumped about sharing a room with Jadon. The girl loves her some babies so having a real-live baby is going to be pretty amazing. I imagine she'll have some growing pains as well but think it's going to be lots of fun for her and that she'll be a big help.

I think Eliana is doing well at school and seems to be improving with both her Tajik and Russian. She can count to 10 in all three languages now and can count to 100 in English (with just a little help.) I'm pretty sure I owe that to "Mickey Mouse" Pandora! We made it through our alphabet curriculum and she can recognize all her letters now and write most of them without help. She can write her numbers up to 20 and really enjoys just sitting down and practicing them. She wanted to work on her "math" so I've done just a little bit with her teaching her how to write "plus" and "equals" signs. We're going to start a pre-K pack when we get back from vacation. I'm actually starting to lean towards homeschool for Kindergarten next year so she can go to her Russian preschool for one more year and we can keep our flexible schedule. We'll see. She does enjoy reading and we've started a little bit with a couple of sight words but are going very slowly, letting her pick the pace for that. Her coloring has greatly improved and she really likes to do what her older friends do. She is excited this year about our Advent devotions and coloring the ornaments for each night. It is a fun age!

Yep, we have ourselves quite a 4 1/2 year old! We feel so blessed and are so thankful for Eliana. I always thought I'd do the puppy pictures until she turned five so one more it is! Amazing! Then I'll be able to start all over with Jadon! We love you sweet Eliana!