Nora Kate is Four AND A HALF

Our darling girl is FOUR AND A HALF as of Valentine's Day!

We had some beautiful snowfall right before her official 4.5 day so I took this opportunity to get pictures of our girl outside in the snowfall in this adorable coat and hat.

We could not love our sweet Nora Kate anymore!  She is so fun.  I love her sweet, silly, sassy, fun-loving personality.  I watch her play and run around without a care and thing that she's totally our free spirited child, but then I watch her meticulously line up her Barbie dolls or arrange her room just the neat and tidy way she likes it and I realize that she may be a free spirit, but she also knows the exact way she wants things done...and she's not afraid to put her big brothers in their place if they're not doing something "right" by her standards.

Nora Kate continues to do well in her preschool which is two mornings a week for 3 hours both days.  She seems to make friends easily and is always excited to tell me what she has learned or done at school.  If they do any type of artwork, then it's always a great day for her.  This girl loves her art!

Nora Kate also loves playing with her Barbie dolls in the new Barbie house she got for Christmas.  She also loves playing using her imagination.  She and Carter come up with the most imaginative games and pretend play together...sometimes I can't follow their silly storylines, and they love that even more.  Their favorite imaginary play together is something they made up called ostrich...somehow it involves dumping a mix of all kinds of toys in a corner of the playroom (this is, obviously, the ostrich cage) one of them (usually Carter-since NK obviously takes the role of "boss") is the ostrich and the other tells the ostrich what to do, feeds it, and then tries to catch it when it gets loose.  I'm not really sure what is so fun about this game, but it's pretty funny to watch!

Clayton always loves it when Nora Kate will stop and play with him, and she does this a lot!  She's a really good big sister.  She still loves to call him Mr. Baby, and she's constantly talking to him, showing him things, or building things for him (although she doesn't always love how he loves to knock down her creations).  Nora Kate also has a sweet relationship with Dawson.  She looks up to him and will usually do things the way Dawson suggests when they're playing a game.  

Nora Kate is a Daddy's girl, and would be with him every minute if given the choice.  During church she will still always go do John and ask him to pick her up when we are standing and singing.  It's so funny how different girls are because at 4.5 years old neither of the boys would have asked us to pick them up and hold them.  Sweet girl.

Although Nora Kate is a total Daddy's girl, she also loves doing anything fancy or "girlish" (as she calls it) with me.  Instead of Mommy (like the boys have always called me) Nora Kate still calls me Momma.  I love that she named me herself, and of course her "Momma" is much like how she says "Carter"...very southern sounding.  One time Grandad called Nora Kate a "Southern Lady" (the boys always tell me this), and I think that's just about perfect for Nora Kate...she says words and names so Southern sounding sometimes, she's feisty and sassy, can hold her own with her brothers, catches bugs and grasshoppers and crickets outside in the yard with the boys for fun, but also loves everything fancy-jewlery, dresses, fancy hair, ballet, nail polish, etc.  I love Nora Kate's personality.  I love that she knows what she wants (unless she wants something different from me-HAH!).  I think that her strong personality and being used to standing up to two big brothers all the time will hopefully make her strong and confident and she gets older and comes in contact other kids as she gets older.

Nora Kate has been doing great in ballet this  year.  She really loves ballet.  One of her best friends, Finley, is in her ballet class so she is always thrilled to see Finley there too.

Nora Kate has been doing a great job singing in church choir for the past month.  She wasn't old enough to be in choir before Christmas, but now she is and she's SO excited to be a part of it like the boys.

Last week Nora Kate had her very first hair cut of her life!  The boys couldn't believe that she had never had a haircut before, but I've never wanted to cut her curls.  She had the tiniest trim off the bottom of her curls just to clip the baby fuzz/hair off the ends so the ends didn't tangle now that her hair has gotten so long.  She went to Kelli who cuts my hair, and she thought she was such a big girl getting a hair cut.  So sweet!

I could go on and on about our girly girl 4.5 year old Nora Kate and how she loves to bake, polish her nails, do art, teach Clayton things, and play with her big brothers, but I'll end with these adorable pictures of my four and a half year old in the snow!