These Days

June has been a great start to summer!!  

Bert's garden is doing great this year!  He's gotten a good bit of cucumber, zucchini and squash.  Hopefully the tomatoes will start rolling in soon!  

Emily's teacher sent this to me because it wasn't something that came home and I thought it was the cutest!! It made Bert and I laugh out loud in a couple parts.  It says "I think Abby is the best because she is SO cute, she is my little sister.  I know how to holde her (But my mom won't let me ) If I dance with her like a crazy person and neel down she will lay her head down on my shoder.  I love when she dose that  I also love her.  Did you know she is the youngest child in our family?  Have you ever seen a baby like that?  Well, I think she is the best 1 year old ever!  You should come over to our house."  Then she gave our address and my cell phone number!  Ha!  

Hannah loves to "read" to Abby and I find her like this often.  

We got to celebrate Haley's 6th birthday with her and had a great time! We love birthdays!  

My parents bought all of us tickets to see the Lion King at the Peace Center in Greenville. We had been SO excited about going since they bought the tickets last year and it definitely lived up to all the hype.  It was amazing and we all enjoyed it so much!  

Group pic just before we got to the Peace Center to see the show!  

Stanley and Alisha spent the weekend with us and we enjoyed having them! Mom, Dad, Kate and her kids were just up for the day.  Brett was still in Nicaragua on a mission trip and we had a babysitter at our house for Claire, Ressie and Abby....so no worries, everyone was accounted for.  

I found out the day before the show that my good friend Misty was going to be there too with her family!  I was so excited about seeing her as we only get to see each other a couple times a year.  Not nearly enough.  Misty and I have been best friends since Kindergarten and she went on many vacations with us growing up, so she's kind of like another sibling. I think she was just as excited to see Katherine and Stanley as she was me.:)  

Misty has a daughter also named Emily, so we obviously had to take an Emily picture.  Our Emily is about 3 months older than Misty's Emily, but she's a good little bit taller.  Aren't they precious?! Can't believe they're starting 2nd grade next year. 

Family pic minus Abby and Claire.  We missed them but definitely felt like we made the right decision in not bringing them.  Maybe next time!  

On Father's Day Bert had lots going on a church.  He left for church early that morning and didn't come home until 5 that afternoon.  The girls and I went to church that morning but then came back home for lunch and naps.  The girls were about to burst to give him their cards and gift by the time he got home and did so within 30 seconds of him walking in the door. After we ate a quick dinner we headed out for snowcones!  I thought this was such a precious picture of the people I love most!! These four girls have such an amazing Daddy who loves us and leads us well!  I could not be more thankful!  

Speaking of how great Bert is, he also won "yard of the month" this month for our neighborhood. We have over 100 houses in our neighborhood, so I was proud of his hard work. He definitely doesn't feel like he deserves it and proceeded to list out to me all the reasons why he didn't.  Ha!  Good thing they didn't ask him.  He doesn't spend nearly as much time as he would like working on his yard, but that's just because he's too busy spending time with me and the girls.  He's a hard worker in everything he does and it shows.  

We had VBS last week at church and had such a fun week!  The kids learned so much and came home talking about what they learned most every night.  One night Claire got this tomahawk from the "VBS store" and didn't want to put it down even when she was sleeping.  This made the Braves fan in Bert happy!  

We had a great turn out this year with around 160 kids, 50 youth, and 80+ volunteers...almost 300 total each night.  We're thankful that our church does such a great job serving and loving on the kids from our community.  

Thankful for these days!

Claire's First Hospital Visit

Claire had her first hospital visit last Friday.  She's made it longer than any of her sisters did, so I guess we'll call it a win.  

We had just finished eating lunch together.  Bert was off that day so he was with us and Claire had gotten up from her seat for something so after she crawled back in her booster seat Bert got up to push her chair back towards the table.  As he was scooting the chair in towards the table, Claire leaned forward and fell out of the chair and hit her chin on the side of Hannah's chair (wooden).  I didn't think too much of it at first.  Claire calmed down fairly quickly as Bert held her in his lap with a paper towel pressed to her chin. There really wasn't that much blood, and it wasn't bleeding at all after just 4 or 5 minutes.  

But then he pulled the paper towel away and we got a good look at it and were surprised at how deep and wide the cut was.  There really was a good gap.  I texted a picture of it to my mom (our resident medical adviser) and she thought it definitely needed a couple stitches.  I called our pediatrician's office and described it to them and they said that 2 of their 5 doctors do stitches but neither of them were working that day.  Sad. So, off the the children's hospital ER we went.  (After finding someone to keep our other kids, of course.)

Here we are waiting for the doctor to come in and see us.  She doesn't look like she's in that bad of shape does she?!

After the doctor came in he agreed that it definitely needed stitches and they put some numbing cream on it so that she wouldn't feel the actual procedure.  They left that cream on for about 45 min and before they came back in and got to work.  In the meantime, Bert got to practice some coloring while Claire supervised.

Bert held Claire in his lap while they put in the stitches and she did amazing.  There was a doctor, a 4th year medical student, a child life specialist, and both of us in the room while he was doing them. She didn't cry once.  The child life specialist did a great job of keeping her distracted and Bert and I enjoyed talking to the doctors.  We were thankful for the great care for our girl and we were in and out in less than 3 hours.  Not exactly how we had planned to spend our Friday afternoon, but we were thankful it wasn't worse.  

He ended up putting in 4 stitches.  Claire is quick to show off her stitches to anyone she sees.  She just throws her chin back and points to them and says "see!"  

Hopefully the scaring won't be bad.  I'm sure it will be better than it would have been without stitches. They are supposed to fall out on their own in 5 to 7 days.  

She's a bit accident prone at this stage.  Since the Friday accident she's fallen a couple times just running around outside and skinned her knees.  Every time I hold my breath until I see what she has "hurt."  I'm' trying to keep her from re-opening the stitches but it's easier said that done.  Wish me luck!:)  

June Lake Trips

At the beginning of June we packed up and headed to the lake house on a Friday afternoon and spent Friday afternoon and night there and then got up early Saturday morning to head to the Watts family reunion below Atlanta.  The overnight trip got us an hour closer to the reunion and also some fun lake time!  

The girls in their matching bathing suits!  

Ressie came down to play with us that afternoon!  Jacob was in Nicaragua with Brett and Katherine on a mission trip with their church, so she was staying with Mimi and Papa for part of the week.  

Mimi, Ressie and Emily

Bert, Hannah and Abby

A couple weekends later in June we headed back to the lake but this time we were there for 2 days and 2 nights, which made the trip a little more relaxing!

Cousin Love!   

This girl LOVES to ride "da det ski!"  The word love isn't strong enough for how Claire feels about it.  She really doesn't want to do anything else and definitely doesn't want to get off after she gets on.  She'll say over and over throughout the day "can I wide (ride) da det ski now??!!??!!"  And don't think about driving her slow on it because she wants to go fast!  

Her Daddy is her driver of choice.  She will ride with others but she'll pick him every time if she gets a say.  :)  

We definitely enjoyed our sunset pontoon ride with Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Kathy.  Beautiful!!  

But most of all, we just love swimming and relaxing just off the dock!

I loved this picture of them watching a movie at rest time.  They look totally worn out!  

After naps my Uncle Jimmy came by to pick us up on his boat and take the kids tubing!  

Bert and Emily were first up!  

Then Bert and Jacob!

Then Emily agreed to ride with Jacob.  She was nervous about riding with him because he kept talking about how wild of a ride he wanted but after Uncle Jimmy promised her that he would listen to her and not Jacob she agreed to go.  They actually had a really long ride and had fun!  

Claire decided she wanted to ride just before we headed back to the dock, so Bert got on with her.  Aunt Kathy got this picture of them when they were getting pulled back into the boat after their ride. Hannah didn't want to ride the tube and actually ended up falling asleep on the boat while they were all riding.  I remember taking naps on the boat when I was little...it is super relaxing and peaceful!  

Sometimes we use my parents' boat as a playpen.  It isn't working at the moment, but it still comes in handy!:)  

Uncle Stanley got into town late Saturday afternoon to celebrate Father's day with us!  Team Watts had to leave Saturday after dinner to get back to Greenville, but we enjoyed spending several hours with him!  

Bert woke up early each morning and had time to get his quiet time in and do a little fishing.  He caught this one morning while we were all sleeping away.  I don't totally understand why he enjoys fishing, but I'm happy that he was able to do it since he does!!:)  

After a fun day of playing on the lake we came up to celebrate Father's Day together.  It was fun to have everyone there...Katherine and her crew, Stan, Mom and Dad and all of us!  We also loved having Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Kathy, David (my cousin) and his wife Allyson come eat dinner with us. We were packed in the lake house, but I loved us being all together!  

I'm so thankful for my dad and how well he loves us.  He's a hard worker, one of the most generous people I know, always has a witty comment that keeps us laughing, and gives the best hugs. I'm so thankful for him!  

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!  We love you!! 

Watts Family Reunion

We went to the Watts Family Reunion at the first of June.  It was held at a community park below Atlanta, so it took about 3 hours to get there from our house, but we were so glad we went and really enjoyed catching up with and spending time with family that we hadn't seen in awhile.  

I caught a picture of Bert and his dad walking up from the lake with Claire and Abby.  I thought they looked so sweet walking up that I decided to take a picture of them, but right before I was about to take it Claire said "Mommy, are you going to take another picture?!" Her comment made Bert and Jeff laugh, which is why they both were wearing such big smiles! Ha!  

Alison and Stephen were there with Rosemary and Solomon and it was especially great to see them!  Rosemary is always so sweet to our girls.  

These two cuties are starting kindergarten in the fall and have fun playing together!  Big 5 year olds!  

Grandmama took this cute picture of Claire and sent it to me after we left.  

We had a little rain shower and Hannah kept sneaking out from under the porch to play in it.  

Grandmama and Pawpaw with most of their grandkids!

It was a fun and beautiful day in Georgia!!