... and then there were four: 3 and a Half Year Old Tessa

Tessa has been getting so grown up lately. For one she, potty trained a few months ago so we were able to send her to preschool. She has been loving it. She says that school is like work for kids. Here she is at drop off on her first day of preschool.

She was so excited for her first day. And she is still is excited for preschool when ever we tell her it is a school day. I hope she never loses that joy of education.

Then over our past trip, Tessa started wanting to order her own food at restaurants. It was so neat to watch after I ordered for her, for her to adamantly insist that she wanted to order for herself. We called back the waitress and Tessa talked to her all on her own and said she wanted to order something with french fries. The waitress suggested the kids meal with chicken nuggets that came with fries and Tessa got that. It was so neat watch her to talk capably and confidently with an adult and stranger. Especially seeing how much Tessa wanted to be able to do something like that for herself and how happy it made her, it taught me that I need to stop jumping in so much and doing things for Tessa and instead let her do as much for her self as she can.

Shortly after getting back from our trip, we went sledding and Tessa even bravely decided she wanted to go down on her own.

One other thing that makes her seem grown up to me too is her increased ability to make logical arguments. She can negotiate and I'm often left replying or at least thinking to myself "fair point". I really like that we can work together and talk things out like that most of the time.

She loves to do new things and will often ask to play a game or do an activity we've never done before. We'll often try to do new science experiments for new activities. In this one, we built our own test tube holder and we're observing how celery absorbs dyed water and changes color.

A few months ago as we were heading out of the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point, Tessa even asked if we could go to a new children's museum she had never been to before. So we went to the children's museum in SLC. She had a lot of fun with that and has asked to go back again. She really enjoys going on trips too. Since we've gotten back she has said multiple times that she wants to go on a family trip, wants to go to the airport, and especially wants to stay at a hotel. She loves hotels. If you ask her why she likes them, she'll say it's because she likes going to lunch which by that she means she likes the continental breakfast.

For all the growing up though, Tessa is still a really playful, silly, imaginative kid. Tessa loves to play. She loves to play chase with Jenny; she loves playing tickle monster and hide-and-go-seek. She loves freeze tag. She loves playing pretend of all kinds. Her favorite might be pretending to be a mermaid. We'll wrap a blanket around her for her fin. But she'll do all kinds of pretend including even a pretend blood donation game (after watching me donate blood). She loves to dress-up and loves all things princess. She loves to color and draw. She is a social kid and enjoys sending letters and receiving mail back. Getting random, her favorite color is pink and second favorite is purple. Her favorite food is probably pizza or cheese and she still absolutely loves milk. Her favorite show at the moment is probably PJ Masks.

Here are some pictures from her 3 and half year old appointment at Camera Shy: