Colt Developments: Colt, you are SO sweet, SO cute and you amaze your dad and me each day. It blows my mind that another year has already passed.
You’ve grown so much this year. Probably the biggest change was that last September, you started going to preschool. You did 3-morning/3’s so on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday you were at school from 9:15-12:50. Although it took a little adjusting (probably for me more than anyone!), I can count on 1 hand the number of times your teachers said that any tears were shed. And a couple of those times were from falling down while climbing a tree which I count as a win anyway! I loved watching you grow in confidence as you built friendships with other sweet kids and grow in independence as you realized that you can have fun and learn apart from your family. 
Your favorite thing to do right now is to color. You want a plain white piece of paper and markers, and you can sit at a table and color for hours each day. It’s a great outlet for your creativity and a way to express things that you’re excited about or learning about at the moment. You will draw everything from the solar system to donuts and cakes to the backyard to the park we just visited to a spider in a web after watching a TV show about spiders to our family at a beach to Noah’s Arc. It is so much fun to get to know you better through this expression. You also use your art as a way to show others that you care for them. Just a minute ago you led me upstairs to my room where you had just taped a picture on the wall for me as a “surprise” which had “a pattern of rainbows and hearts and a pony.” Also, the whole picture is drawn on one side of the paper but the pony has a tail on the back! Ha! I love how your sweet mind works. You love drawing pictures for other people, using their favorite colors and including things they love. And you’ve started folding paper to make “books” that you color and were very excited when I showed you that we can staple paper together to make bigger books! You will draw different story-lines — a cheetah chasing a zebra then catching the zebra, etc.
Your favorite topic right now is outer space. You say you want to be an astronaut and your favorite cartoon is Ready Jet Go but you’re just as happy to watch Cosmos on the Discovery Channel or something if it’s about outer space. When you are around my dad, the two of you sit cuddled up for hours reading through his astronomy magazines, your astronomy books, watching videos and talking about it all. You color the planets, you make the solar system out of play-doh, and the one thing you asked for as a birthday gift was a puzzle of outer space. You wanted it to have the whole universe but we opted for just the solar system. I learn new things from you all the time. What are the dwarf planets? How many moons does Jupiter have? Which planets are terrestrial and which are the gas giants? What are Saturns rings and what is the Big Red Spot on Jupiter? 
Since we were heading out to Colorado the day after your 4th birthday, we decided to move the party to August and combine it with Finn’s upcoming 2nd birthday. But, for your actual birthday we went to the Air & Space museum and all of your gifts were outer space themed. You are so sweet and could not have been happier. 
Beyond outer space, you love to learn. You got really interested in animal speeds and constantly asked us how fast different animals can run. We finally made a chart of some animals and their speeds for you to reference on your own and it was also a good reading tool. If you asked us how fast a tiger could run I’d send you to your chart and you could figure out which was “Tiger” etc.
You love to learn about all sorts of topics though. You love maps and geography and love looking at the radar maps via weather.com on my phone. (No, seriously.) If I start talking to you about another culture or about how babies start out really tiny or about how a flower grows, you get so drawn in and will always say, “Can you please tell me more about that.”
For your age, I think you’re really good at reading. You can sound out most simple, 3-letter words (can, bug, hit, sad, pen, hop, etc.). We will sit down with “Green Eggs and Ham” and the combination of your reading, recognizing the letters and words plus your familiarity with the book allows you to basically read it. You take much more time though, and have to figure out each word, so by about page 20 you get tired and ask me to take over. Anytime we’re reading though I try to underline or point out several words that you have to read so that we can do it together.
Spelling is similar but needs a little more assistance. If I ask you to spell the word, “hop” I have to say the word, get you to say it, then help you isolate the individual sounds (especially middle sounds or vowels).
You write a little but have not taken an interest in learning how to properly form letters. You might end up with a letter that looks like an “A” but you probably wrote it going right-to-left or something. Anytime a workbook has space to practice proper handwriting, you are open to tracing and copying letters but don’t like having to go about it the correct way. On the one hand I don’t want you to be learning incorrectly or picking up bad habits but on the other hand…you’re 4 so I’m not pushing “proper handwriting” on you. 
You love to ride your scooter and are really good. You wiz down hills at top speed and wave your legs around just showing off. You’re also a very fast runner. You claim that you can run 107 miles/per/hour and while I’m not quite buying that, you can speed. You and Finn will race over and over across our backyard and I love watching you two. You have a good kick for soccer but don’t like any sort of physical confrontation with other kids so that works against you. You have a great swing for baseball and continue to bat lefty and you love to hit the ball then run the bases. (Somehow all of your hits are home runs…) 
**OK – I just asked you what you’d like to do most-least of these 4 different scenarios and here is what you chose:
1) Sit in a class and learn from a teacher all about outer space. (I literally said this word-for-word in a monotone voice and it still elicited a huge excited reaction from you…)
2) Go to art class and learn how to draw animals.
3) Go to baseball class and practice hitting and running the bases.
4) Go to music class and try playing different instruments like drums, piano or guitar.
Are these answers typical?? I don’t necessarily think so but I adore you exactly as you are. And this is where we are extra lucky to have your brother Finn. He helps to keep our days a little more interesting and active. Not because Finn is a star athlete or anything (actually he has yet to really show us much coordination, ha) but he just plays with you so differently than I do each day. You two mix it up a lot more. You wrestle and chase and jump and throw water and LAUGH LAUGH LAUGH. You are best best friends. 
Your humor is FULL-ON little-boy humor. Every time we are going somewhere or having company over we remind you that we don’t make potty/stinky/etc. jokes with other people. You and Finn though will just laugh about “stinky poopoo” for days. 
Otherwise you love going to parks, playing outside, swimming, playing with friends, going on adventures, building things with blocks, tiles or legos. You and your dad have a sweet thing where you make up stories for each other. You will pick 3 things (i.e. a rocket ship, a pool and a zebra) and he will make up a story for you using all 3. And then you always like to have him choose 3 things and you tell a story back to him. Your stories are SO cute and funny and clever. Love your little mind, Colt! 
Anytime that you can see rainbows – even just the light streaming in our house through a window that creates a “rainbow” on the floor – you exclaim that “God and Jesus are here!” You are sweet sweet sweet, kind, compassionate and really well behaved / obedient. You’re still a young boy so of course you’re not perfect but I would definitely say you’re a rule-follower. And you do sweet things every day that just melt my heart. You love snuggles, hugs and kisses. If Mom and Dad are sleeping in on a weekend and are still in bed when your clock turns yellow (8am) then you’ll come climb in our bed and rub our backs and sing us songs. Yes, really. You are a humbling example of grace and forgiveness too. You have taught me so much about keeping no record of wrongs. Colt, I am so thankful for you, my angel. 
Health: Praise the Lord you continue to be perfectly healthy – still no sicknesses!
You’re around 36-37 lbs, just over 41″ tall and you’re just moving into 4T clothes, 5T PJs.
You wear pull-ups at night and although I haven’t even considered trying to train you for nights, about 30% of the time you will wake up dry in the morning anyway.
You have beautiful teeth and the most handsome, big brown eyes I have ever seen. 
Eating: Family dinners was the best thing that ever happened to your eating habits. When we lived in Brazil, your dad was rarely able to make it home by your dinner time, so I would feed you your dinner then make an adult dinner for us to have after you went to bed. Occasionally there was overlap in what we ate but I largely made you “kid-food” that would be healthy but still easy enough to give you. Last summer your dad’s schedule changed and Finn was also a part of our dinner-time so we switched gears to family dinners where we all eat the same thing. If we are having something you don’t like (sweet potatoes, mushrooms, brussel sprouts, asparagus) I’ll make sure that you have a substitute option but you still try a bite or 2 of everything. This has really changed how you view food. You aren’t immediately as scared off by something that looks “weird” because you eat “weird grownup” food every day. Your favorite things are still typical of a 4yo but I have no complaints about how you eat.
Mama: My treasure, Colt. You have my whole heart. Every day I look at your sweet face and am in awe that you are real and that you are mine. I absolutely treasure your heart and your presence and your being. Thank you for the kindness that you extend to your family every day, thank you for the laughter you bring, thank you for the fun and joy and light that you are. We are so blessed by you. 
As I watch your heart and mind get captivated by different things (from kicking balls to the story of the 3 little pigs to animal speeds to collecting sticks to now art and outer space), I pray that your heart and mind will ultimately be captivated by God and the greatest love story and rescue story of Jesus Christ. I pray that God will open your eyes to see what is most real. To see that the greatest adventure you can experience in this life is to walk into the call that He has on your life. That the greatest challenges you can encounter come in efforts to walk faithfully beside Him. That a life lived in relationship with God, bought by the sacrifice of Jesus and through the gift of the Spirit, is not boring or dull. No! It is where the fullest measure of joy and adventure and TRUTH lie waiting. It is wild and exciting and REAL. I pray you will see this real-ness in our lives, and that you will know how to sift out the fake from the real. Everything else is either a dim light or worse, a sham and a distortion. Seek truth, my love. This is my deepest hope for you Culhane. I love you. 
Jeans & A T-Shirt 