The Pavelka Family: Happy 4th Birthday, Taylor!

On November 24th, Taylor Grace turned 4 years old! She continues every day to amaze us with her determination, spunk, humor, and kindness! She has officially become a little girl, with very little remnants of her "baby" or "toddler" years left in her. She is maturing every day, and it brings a lot of mixed emotion to Sam and I. We are proud as we watch her growing into the strong-willed girl that we know will be successful and happy, but it is bittersweet knowing that we are getting closer and closer to those years that she will no longer want to cuddle with us or crawl into bed with us in the morning. We are embracing every day that we have with her and enjoying every minute of the age that she is!

Taylor is in preschool this year and loving every minute! She has been practicing writing her name with us at home, and she loves playing phonics puzzles and phonemic awareness games with us to prepare her for reading. We read every night, and she has memorized so many books! Her favorite right now is "Pinkalicious". She loves it so much that it is missing it's cover, and has a lot of Taylor's own contributions to the pictures that she has made over the years!

She is very much into all of the Disney princesses, but especially Ariel, Rapunzel, Sofia the First, and Jasmine. She loves coloring, building with Legos, reading books, painting, taking a bath (and pretending she is Ariel), and playing dress-up. She loves pretending to be a princess and getting everyone in the family involved. From the moment she wakes up, she puts on a princess dress and her imagination begins! She also loves listening to the Disney radio station on Pandora and dancing with mommy and Maddy!

She is a very picky eater, especially at dinner time. Her favorite foods are pancakes, oatmeal, grilled cheese, pizza, and any fruit or vegetable (one thing that I did right!). Her tantrums are becoming few and far between (thank God!) but we are starting to get some of the "mommy, you're mean!" or "that's not nice, daddy!" comments. On to the next chapter of parenting!

Taylor's stats:
Height: 40.5 inches
Weight: 40 lbs
Clothing size: anywhere from 4-6, depending on the brand
Shoe size: 9

We celebrated Taylor's birthday with the Pavelkas at her cousin Haley's birthday party, which was a blast because it was princess-themed and right up her alley! On her actual birthday, both sets of grandparents, Great-Grandma, and Aunt Mimi were over to celebrate. She came down with croup on the day of her birthday, too, and has been having a rough time fighting it all week! Hopefully it will clear up before her "friend" party on Saturday!