Braelynn Fiona // 4 1/2 Year Old Update

Well, the end of summer has once again arrived & with it arrives another round of updated Braelynn portraits. I’m not going to lie – taking these “half-birthday” photos of Braelynn get easier & harder. Easier, because she’s getting older, and actually can have fun with the whole process (even though getting her to look into the camera is a challenge – she doesn’t resist getting her picture taken, she just likes to look just a smidge to the right/left of my camera lens). But taking these photos is actually so so hard because they make me solidly realize just how quickly & beautifully she’s growing up & maturing! Like, how is she going to be 5 years old in just a few months?

Regardless, even though her brother might be hogging most of the “photographic spotlight” over this year – Mama still took her girl out for some “half-birthday-summer” portraits. My goal has always been to make these fun & entirely about who Braelynn is in this moment of time, so when I was considering how I wanted to pull these photos together this year, I wanted to highlight my happy-go-lucky, creative, artist.

Braelynn loves anything that has to do with art & being creative. She will sit and draw/paint/color/cut/paste/sculpt for hours, humming & making up little stories the entire time. She’s super imaginative & it’s absolutely delightful to see what she comes up with! Thus, I wanted to pull that into her photos this year. We dragged her easel & art stuff outside & I love the results!

If you’d like to compare & contrast this summer’s photos with the summers in the past, you can go back & check out her 18-Month Update, 2 1/2 Year Old Update, & 3 1/2 Year Old Update (you just might want to brace yourself, she’s grown up so much)!

A few more updates about Braelynn:

• We have officially started Preschool & this little lady loves it! She is so smart & has already learned so much – it’s absolutely incredible. Having some dedicated, quiet, one-on-one time with Mommy every single day has also really helped her attitude & obedience levels. She’s much more content & chill the rest of the day. Please don’t take that to mean that she’s perfect – far from it! She absolutely knows how to push mine & Derrick’s buttons & definitely has her moments of just straight up not listening. So, don’t get the wrong impression of our fierce little fire-cracker! But we have noticed a difference in her attitude since we started school 3 weeks ago!
• Braelynn is officially obsessed with PAW Patrol. So much so, that I think I’ll be planning a PAW Patrol themed 5th birthday party (in fact, I was looking at all the party supplies in Target today)! She loves dogs in general, so the PAW Patrol is right up her alley (if you are unfamiliar, it’s a TV show whose main characters are a group of dogs – Braelynn can tell you all of their names, their “slogans”, and what they do). She still loves Daniel Tiger, but sadly, Amazon Prime no longer has all of the Daniel Tiger seasons available (there are just a few episodes left to watch), so he’s unfortunately taken a backseat to shows like Clifford, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, Pete The Cat, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and T.O.T.S. If you’re curious, Braelynn’s routine is that she gets to watch a few shows every morning while Mommy does a few business tasks, gets baby brother up & ready for the day, and makes breakfast.
• Braelynn loves sound – she definitely is not a huge fan of silence. She loves to have music playing all the time – whether that’s in the form of one of her toys playing an endless refrain of (let’s be honest: annoying) music, or she has a few of her own playlists on Spotify. She constantly needs a soundtrack to her life. I truly don’t mind it – I like some background noise too & we’ve even progressed to the point of she gets to choose some music, and then I get to choose some music, so we switch back & forth. Add in some random dance parties & that about sums up most of our days!
• This girl has gotten tall this summer! She was a little under 40″ tall at the beginning of spring, and just a few weeks ago, she was finally tall enough – 42″ tall to be exact – to ride the Jack Rabbit at Kennywood! That means in about 6 months time, she has grown 2 inches!!
• Speaking of riding roller coasters – we spent a ton of time in amusement parks this summer – between using our season passes at Kennywood & all of our trips, Braelynn has gotten a really good taste of amusement park rides. Last weekend was the last days of regular ops at Kennywood & she rode Jack Rabbit for the first time (and she loved it! She rode it twice! We would have ridden it more, but the line was insanely long – I can’t wait for next year – when the park is slow & we can marathon the Jack Rabbit together!) Believe it or not though, that was not her first “big” roller coaster ride – at the beginning of August, we went to New England & visited a small park called Quassy. We went to Quassy to ride one ride: Wooden Warrior. And, surprise, Braelynn was tall enough to ride. She was a bit nervous, but she (slightly) reluctantly agreed to ride & got on the first train of the day, in the front row, with Derrick. As the train rolled back into the station, we truly weren’t sure if she was thrilled with her experience or not – but thankfully, Derrick sighed a huge sign of relief when she agreed that she liked it & that she wanted to ride it again with Mommy.
• Along with roller coasters & amusement parks, we also went to a few waterparks this summer. Braelynn has recently become obsessed with watching waterslide videos on YouTube with Daddy, so she was super excited to ride a few bigger waterslides & she loved them. We seem to have another thrill-seeker in the family!
• Braelynn is super friendly. She makes quick friends with everyone. She is a bit shy with talking to adults, but she easily talks to any & every kid she meets. She has recently become best friends with the little girl who lives next door (even tho, for the first week of their daily playdates together, Braelynn couldn’t remember her name! I think she’s finally getting it now!) She also loves to spend time with her twin cousins Abby & Bekah, she misses her cousin Cameron on a daily basis (we live about 5 hours apart), and she simply adores her “baby” cousins: Alethea & Leah.
• Speaking of babies, Braelynn is the best big sister to Leander. She literally is a mini-Mommy to him. She keeps a close eye on him, making sure his quick fingers don’t get into anything he shouldn’t & putting him back in line if he does. Unfortunately, he returns her loving affection & mothering with constantly pulling out fistfuls of her hair! Poor girl! She dotes on him all the time though and he is constantly looking around for her. I can already tell that he is watching his big sister’s every move & wants to do everything she does.
• Last but not least: Braelynn still has a mountain of stuffed animals & she loves every single one of them. She goes thru spurts of loving 2 or 3 more than the others, sleeping with them, and bringing them everywhere we go, but then they get switched out for a different 2 or 3 stuffies. Her current “set” consists of: Skye (a plush from PAW Patrol) and Lady (from Lady & The Tramp) and a white unicorn.

Uh oh! Look who snuck into big sister’s photoshoot! I couldn’t resist snapping just a few photos of Leander while I had my big camera out! Just look at that fuzzy head & silly grin!