Happy 4th Birthday to Baby Girl

I know I’m a day late in posting your birthday post, I hope you forgive me. It’s been a busy weekend of preparing for both Tyler and Aria’s birthdays, then we had Tyler’s 8th birthday on Saturday and Aria’s 4th birthday, yes 4th birthday yesterday. How have we gotten to 4 so quickly? It doesn’t seem that long ago I was waiting until that 12 week scan and announcing I was pregnant and then to my last ever bump post, to announcing the safe arrival of our baby girl.  Aria has grown so much over the last year. She’s went from a toddler, still doing a few baby things, to a full blown, feisty preschooler.

This year has seen quite a few stages and saying goodbye to those final baby years. We’ve said goodbye to nappies and pull-ups, pretty much on her third birthday she started toilet training and never had an accident since, not even at night. After all those tears and worry that she’d never potty train, she did it herself and that was that.

In March saw Aria starting nursery. I wasn’t sure how she’d get on. She is very shy and doesn’t speak to people until she’d been in their company for a while. However, her speech is amazing. She can say every word, from a young age with a great understand of vocabulary. She’s just very stubborn and won’t speak to people in shops, etc when they try to speak to her. It’s hard, but that’s just the way she is and there is no changing that.

She loved nursery. There were no tears, we got magic shoes, remember them? She went in and never looked back. She loved playing with the toys, his nursery teacher was one that both Lucas and Tyler had, so we were familiar with her, even if she wasn’t at first and she has made some great friends. She was only in nursery until the summer and then it was the start of her preschool year.

One of Aria’s favourite things to do is blow bubbles. Who doesn’t love to blow bubbles and watch your cares float away into the sky. She loves being outside, scootering, running or pushing her babies about in a pushchair. She loves picnics in the garden or picnics on the rug in the living room when it’s too cold or wet. We do it a lot on my days off work and it’s just the two of us after she finishes nursery at lunch time. I love those days and cherish them. Just sitting chatting, watching a tv show, film and then playing with some toys or games. Sometimes we have a wee read or a dance. Aria loves to dance and sing.

Have I mentioned Aria is stubborn? She is very different temperament wise than the boys or myself. The boys are very different from each other, but she’s a whole new ball game. Being an only child, I assumed, naively they’d all be little clones of each other. Boy, was I wrong. Aria is strong willed, knows her own mind, but rarely temper tantrums. She’s stubborn, so I’ve learned to pick my battles. Clothing is one of the battles I’ve chosen to walk away from. She loves clothes and she’s surprisingly a girly girl, when it comes to clothes, well for now anyway. She loves getting new clothes and loves to pick her own clothes. She will only wear what she picks, down to the socks, pants and pjs, jackets, shoes and hats. She knows what she likes and if she’s comfortable, then who am I to argue. She is very good at picking out clothes that match and no one gets a say. Just see her birthday outfit above. All her own handy work.

I’m a huge Disney fan and have mentioned many times how much I loved Disney on Ice as a child, so to take the kids who also love Disney, it was a dream come true for me. Aria is a big fan of Frozen, she loves the songs, you can see she almost burst with excitement when we got to go. It was a joy to watch and her face lit up. Snow White is her favourite Disney film, it has been ever since she watch films. She loves to watch films and it’s great fun to have a wee movie time together.

Swing parks are fantastic for children and Aria loves going to the park. Especially with Tyler, who climbs about with her. I loved the warmer afternoons of the summer, that we’d go after nursery before it was time to the get the boys from school. I know this is only a short time and with working, these days are few and far between. Ones I want to document how much we love them.

Aria loves to dress up in a party dress and she loved doing this for my cousin’s daughters wedding at the start of the summer. The kids all had a great time and it was a wonderful day in Edinburgh. Staying overnight in a hotel and spending time with my dad’s side of the family was a joy. We even did an open bus tour of the city which was fantastic.

We love nothing more than spending time together as a family. Robert’s family are very close and I love that we follow their traditions of each birthday, we are all together, have a meal and cake. They have a huge long birthday song, which is unique to them or us now and the children and them all love it. But, spending time together just us is important too. We don’t get to do it as often as we’d like with work, chores, school and football. We’ve been away a few times this year. A few to Blackpool which we all love. It’s such a fun place to go and the weather is always lovely when we are there too.

My children are all very close, they adore each other. Aria is so lucky to have two big brothers who are patient, kind and caring towards her. They always share their toys and if it’s something they are using she wants, they come up with something else and Tyler especially talks her round that what he is giving her is much better than what she’s wanted in the first place. Not sure this will always be the case, but for now, I’ll take it. They read her books, play games with her. Make sure she’s ok crossing the road or playing on her scooter. Tyler however, is super protective. He almost had kittens when she tried on an outfit that showed a bit of her belly. “She can’t go out dressed like that!” he said in a very father of a teenage girl manner. God help her when she is a teenager! It is very sweet and my heart bursts with pride seeing them and sometimes I just listen to them chatting away. Wonderful!

The highlight of her year has been getting our kitten Twilight. They have such a special relationship. She can do anything with this kitten and it never tries to get away, scratch or anything. She can push her about in her pram, carry her about up and down stairs and cuddle her, possibly a little tighter than she should. She is forever giving her kisses and tells her gran and grandpa how much she’s missing her when she is there for the day. It really is a beautiful bond, one I’ve watched grow over the few months. Twilight is part of our family, like she’s always been there.

Back in August, saw Aria start dancing. She loves to dance and sing, but like I said she’s very shy and doesn’t have the confidence, albeit she’s loud. Oh goodness this girl has a booming voice on her when she wants to. Dancing didn’t go quite as well as I hoped, she loved it, don’t get me wrong, but I ended up in with her and she was too clingy. She didn’t really want to go after she’d been ill at the end of last year, so we called it a day and the plan is to go back after the summer. She will be in school and will go into the bigger class, where I can’t go in. I think she’ll be so much better when I am not allowed in. She’s great at nursery when I am not there and the same with my mum and Robert’s mum and dad when they watch her, the minute I’m there she clings to me. Which is fine and lovely at times, but we will see how it goes. Gymnastics is something else she’d love to go to as well. I thought she’d want to do football, as we spend so much time there and watching the games for the boys. Robert runs a football club, so she could join at any time, but nope, she’s adamant she wants to dance and gymnastics.

Her and her bestest wee kitty.

We can’t not document her first french plaits and first friends birthday party. She was so excited. She loved wearing her sparkly dress and having her hair done in plaits. She loved getting it cut in the hairdressers, but it’s starting to thicken out, so we are going to let it grow for a bit. It’s such a gorgeous colour, everyone comments on it. Who knows where she got it from. My dad’s brothers had and have red hair, so I’m guessing there. And my big cousin, she has 5 boys all with ginger hair.

One of my favourite pictures of Aria is this one. We were at Cameron House Lodges and were on a cruise around Loch Lomond. It was stunning and all the kids loved it. I wonder what she was thinking here, she stared out at the water for hours. We had the best time that weekend. Family time is so precious isn’t it?

Aria is doing well with her writing and can write and recognise her own name. She is also recognising and writing numbers and can add and subtract them with understanding. She is enjoying learning through play and is doing a lot of it off her own back.

December saw Aria being very poorly. So poorly that she was almost hospitalised, but thankfully we managed to get some fluids into her and stay in and get her on the mend. It was awful to see and she had lost so much weight. She missed her nursery trip to see Santa, her nativity and Christmas parties. It was hard, as she only gets one full nursery year, it was her only chance, but she made up for her and had the best Christmas. Here she is all better and this is the dress she chose for sitting having a movie day with me, while the boys were at football. Christmas was so exciting for her this year, she loved the build up and the gifts, the tree, everything was exciting and magical. I loved every minute of it.

The snow came a few weeks back and we took full advantage of having some fun in the snow. The boys let her play on their snow scooters as well as her sledge. It was so much fun. And she got to wear her new Poppy Troll hat, which aptly plays “Get back up again” song. It’s fab. She loves the Trolls movie and asked for some troll toys for her birthday and Christmas. Her wee bestie at nursery and her are so cute singing the songs together.

Just before her 4th birthday, I registered her for school. Can you believe it. She starts next August, but that’s a whole other blog post. There will be some big changes around here in the next year and I’m not sure either of us are quite ready for them, but we have some time to make some memories and then when it happens, we will make some more.

Aria has had a great birthday, she’s full on excitement and wonder mode. I am loving reading with her and watching and listening to her imagination bring her own stories to life. This last year has been amazing and I look forward to what this next year has to bring, albeit it in a bittersweet kind of way. It will be the end of an era for me, but the start of exciting things for Aria.  Happy birthday my gorgeous girl, your smile lights up my world.

And having blogged since way before she was born you can read all about my pregnancy, birth story, first birthday, second birthday and third birthday. This is why I blog! I love reading back on these memories, don’t you?