3.5 year old Ashton

Ashton continues to grow and change so much. Here's a summary of our little girl at 3.5 years old.

She LOVES preschool. This doesn't surprise me with how social she is. Placing Ashton in preschool has also helped me enjoy my time with her more. She loves going and learning all about science, music, and whatever else they teach her. She soaks it all in and retains it pretty well. I love that she'll tell me pandas come from Asia or what makes the clouds move.

Ashton's drawing and writing has really taken off recently as well as learning her letters. She points out letters in a sign or book as long as it is a capital letter. Lowercase letters are tricky. She has started asking what sounds each letter makes. One thing we've discovered with Ashton is that if I sit down and try to teach her something, she is pretty stubborn and resists learning. She has to be ready to learn it first. Now that she asks about letter sounds, she's willing to work with me more on it.

A person.

A spider

Thankfully, she still naps. Every day! Although we are transitioning to her big girl bed soon and that may be the end of nap time as we know it.

She's growing like a weed. I had to pull out 4T shorts recently because her old ones are getting too short on her. She likes to measure herself almost every day and talk about how she can't wait to be taller than me. Well, good thing that won't take her too long to accomplish.

Our biggest struggle at this age is listening. Ashton hates to listen and if we give her a direction, she instantly asks, "Why?" It drives me nuts! I say, "Because I said so" all the time now. We created a sticker/reward chart recently. At the end of each day we discuss how well she listened and if she listened the first time. If she did well, she gets a few stickers. Once she gets 25 stickers, she can have a treat. Once she gets lots of stickers (really when we see a drastic change in her listening skills), she gets a new bike (we already planned to buy her a new bike so this works). She wants a pedal bike so we're hoping she can skip training wheels and go straight from balance bike to pedal.

Ashton continues to love Tanner and be a good big sister. She will normally help me if I ask her to find diapers, give him a toy, help him up the slide, etc. When I asked her if she wanted another brother or sister, she said, "Only a baby sister." I guess Tanner hasn't had the biggest impact on her.

She has grown immensely since attending primary in January. Her prayers have improved drastically and we love hearing them. Ashton loves reading the scriptures and enjoys having the missionaries over. Anytime I have a church meeting (which is a lot), she begs to join me. I hope her love for learning stays with her.

She's an outdoorsy, active girl. She enjoys playing in the backyard, helping with house projects, riding her bike, visiting the park, playing with neighborhood friends, etc. But the second I say, "would you like to watch a show?" she is sitting on the couch. Her favorite show right now is Magic School Bus.

Loves the beach

Almost always a smiley, happy girl.

Her best friend. She told me the other day that someone else wants to be her best friend but that's not possible. "I can only have one best friend" was her response.