3 Years Old!

Height: 36.5in (31st percentile)

Weight: 31lbs 2oz (55th percentile)

Poor girl ended up getting hand foot mouth disease for her 3rd birthday but she was still in good spirits.  Something about her getting sick on her birthday...she had a fever on her first birthday, but was okay for her 2nd birthday.  Hopefully this is not the trend for every odd year birthday!

She seems to be enjoying school for the most part.  I think it helps that she's familiar with her teacher and classroom since Matthew had the same teacher.  Drop offs are still difficult some mornings, but hopefully it'll only get better as the school year progresses.
Here are some pictures from her first school field trip:

Pictures top to bottom/left to right: Too heavy! ; Wouldn't pick up the pumpkins because they were dirty; Finally convinced her to pick up one of the pumpkins; Not too sure about taking a picture with Mrs. Maldonado; enjoying the playground after the pumpkin patch.

And lastly, she worked hard at making birthday cupcakes to share with her friends in class, with no help from big brother, as you can see:

Preschooler!

Sophia started preschool.  She's a preschooler!  She's not even 3 yet!  But she has been doing great.  We were really worried about how she would adjust since she's always been with a caretaker who was someone from our family.  To our surprise, she has done great so far and hasn't even cried once during drop off.  Her teacher was also Matthew's preschool teacher so maybe it is a little more comforting that she's already somewhat familiar with the teacher/school.  When we ask her what she did in school, she usually answers with either "I dunno" or "played kitchen".  When we ask her who her friends are, she'll usually answer "John Paul" (cool thing is that he's the little brother of one of matthew's classmates from preschool!)  But we know she does more than that at school because I know her teacher didn't make up the answers to her "all about me" page!

Overall, I think she's doing well in class.  She doesn't really tell us what she does all day in school, but I'll hear her singing songs that I've never heard her sing before.  Songs about heads, shoulders, knees and toes,  how to line up, how to sit down, how to clean up, how the wheels on the bus go round and round.  She doesn't quite know all the words, but enough for me to know what song she is singing.

Speaking of words, here are some words that are in her vocabulary:
duffen duffen = doc mcstuffin (watch video below this list of words)
faywerk = firework
berella = umbrella
gweeze = squeeze
pocanut = polka dot
barkoly = sparkly
bahasmas = bahamas
oomdo = uno (card game.  she'll yell out "OOMDO!" when she's down to one card)

She probably says these words with more clarity now, but over the summer, these were words that I heard often.  She's still doing okay with Chinese and English but I can tell that now she's in school, Chinese is kind of her second choice language now.  She'll speak to Matthew in mostly English - but she's also picking up the Mandarin that he's learning.

Before starting school in September, she had a busy summer! 

 She attended a toddler gymnastics class for about 6 weeks.  I don't think she really liked it that much since she didn't really participate much according to grandma.  But when daddy took her to gymnastics, she did everything the teacher instructed them to do!  

She had fun going bowling once a week with gong gong.

She enjoyed Lego Land...for the most part.  As you can see, she wasn't too fond of the super slide!

She also enjoyed some birthday parties, weddings, time at the park and her new toddler seat on the back of momma's bike!

Words out of her mouth today: I wanna be a princess when I grow up!

Video Updates

Sophia is a girly girl.  None of these videos show it, but she's definitely a girly girl.  She changes her outfits several times a day when we're at home.  Put a dress on her and she'll twirl herself around and say "I so pretty!"  Put an article of clothing on her that she doesn't like and she'll say "yee gaw mm match!" (this doesn't match).  If her hands get dirty, she'll make a fuss about it until you tell her we can wash it off later.  She's a high maintenance one, but she's a fun, sassy, bright little girl.  She's doing really well with speaking both English and Chinese.  If she says something in English (which she picked up quickly from her brother), I'll ask her what it means in Chinese and she can usually immediately translate it (if she feels like it).  I play a game with her and Matthew where I'll say the English word or phrase of something and they race to say the Chinese version of it.  I would say that 7 out of 10 times, Sophia ends up winning!  We'll see how long this lasts once she starts school when she turns 3 though.  If she's anything like her brother, she'll stop speaking Chinese and use all English - hopefully not!

Dancing like Santa

Playing a card game of following instructions with gaw-gaw and daddy

Her own medley of random songs

Eating Mozzarella Cheese

Doing her version of the robot
(reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGaxbH2t9Ik at 1:15 - this is what she does everytime we get to hearing this part of the song)

We'll end this post with a bedtime story from our very own Sophia! :)

Fee Fa!

There was a period of time where Sophia couldn't say her name correctly.  I would ask "What's your name?"  and she would answer "Fee-fa!".  Then I would slowly sound out her name with her and she would follow my lead.
me: So
S: So
me: fee
S: fee
me: ah
S: ah
me: Sophia!
S: Feefa!
This video is the closest that I have to this conversation.

She's speaking a lot more English these days!  She picks up everything her brother says and just loves to copy him.  In this video, you'll see her look up at her brother multiple times to check out what he's doing and then modifies her own actions.

She's can also be a very girly girl.  If you put a dress/skirt on her, she'll stand there and twirl around and she has strong opinions about fashion.   She'll insist on wearing her socks that have pink on them if you try to put any other colored pair of socks.  She'll insist on clipping her hair back when i'm trying to put it up in a ponytail.  She'll insist on wearing her boots if you try to put sneakers on her.  She'll insist on wearing any pants other than her jeans.

She's also very much so a tomboy!  She has no problems running around the house and climbing up and down furniture to keep up with her brother.  She loves trying to put together puzzles and making her own Lego creations and she loves pretending to be a monster to scare us.  I think we have the cutest little monster ever! :)