Monday, December 31, 2018

These Days

Mimi came to town one weekend in early December and made cookies from scratch with the girls!  They loved it!  




While they were making cookies I was making bows to go on our wreaths for our front windows.  Mrs. Sherry helped me with the first one and I took it from there.  I was super proud of my typically un-creative self!!  


I love how my girls love each other!  Caught them like this one afternoon!  


Claire has trouble going to sleep at night and is still the one that gets up the most (to tell us something or get a sip of water), but once she goes to sleep and sleeps all night and is also the one that sleeps the latest most every morning (sleeps until around 8-8:30)!  


What a cute, happy girl this is!  We love our Abby!  


I have no idea why I took this picture, but I thought it was sweet! 


We drove around to look at Christmas lights several times during December.  We took this selfie one night when we were stopped watching "The Passion of the Lights" display here in Greenville.  The girls loved it as usual!  


We still don't have a mantle (maybe next year) so we hung our stockings here, which I thought worked just fine! 


We had the Burns family over for dinner one night and made smores afterward.  The kids had fun running around while Bert and I enjoyed spending time with Rhett and Shannon!  


We were invited to go to the Piedmont Park Fire Department Christmas party because Bert serves as their chaplain.  This was our second year going and we were looking forward to it!  They have a delicious dinner catered and a visit from Santa!  I took this just as we were walking out the door! 






The girls loooved getting to see Santa and I thought this picture with him turned out cute!!  


Mr. Bob was tickling the girls feet and had them all howling with laughter!  


All the girls got to go to a birthday party for Jazmine! 


Bert and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary with a dinner date to the Peddler.  We've gone to the Peddler every year for our anniversary dinner for the last 4 years or so, so we decided we better keep that tradition going!  We enjoyed it as usual!  


Emily's has had a good many orthodontist appointments recently, but I soooo appreciate how they get her in and out, since I usually bring all 4.  Hannah was reading them a story while they were waiting on Em!  


Both girls had "Grinch Day" at school the last Thursday before their Christmas break.  As I was laying in bed (trying to go to sleep) Wednesday night I saw where another friend said how easy it was to put their hair up like Cindy Lou Who.  I decided I would try it and if it didn't work out I could always just do pig tails.  It took me about 5 minutes to do each kids' hair.  There is a small cup on top of their head and then a rubber band on top holding the hair up. I used almost no hair spray.  I'm not that great at hair, so anyone can do it and the girls sure did love it!  It would've have looked cute with a ribbon tied on top but we didn't have any.  


Hannah, Hudson, Haley and Marly at church one Sunday morning! 


We let the kids watch Home Alone this year, but had a talk before it started about how we don't talk like their family (they speak rudely to each other, especially at the beginning of the movie). Bert also told them that we don't break into homes like the bad guys do, too. Ha! ...  The girls loved it and I liked this picture of Bert laying on the floor watching a movie with his girls! 


These Minnie dresses were a gift and they have been a favorite over the last few weeks.  The girls LOVE their new dresses! 


We went Christmas caroling with the church! 


We made cookies for Bert, Emily and Hannah to take to the fire department and they got to sit in the fire truck.  We appreciate their sacrifice and service and wanted to let them know!


Emily got perler beads for Christmas and has had so much fun creating cute things!  


Bert had a staring contest one night with the girls after dinner.  He caught this picture of Claire....she was an adorable, fierce competitor and she made this face every time!  Ha! 


This was where we put our Christmas cards this year and each one made me happy to look at over the month of December.  We're copying an idea from Rhett and Shannon and now we have the stack of Christmas cards sitting on our dining room table and each night at dinner we pray for a different family.  The girls love getting to see the picture of the people we're praying for and we love having them pray for different families!  


Hannah had the idea to have the girls take a selfie with the Christmas tree just before we started taking all the ornaments down.  They got my phone and surprised me with the picture and I thought it was a sweet surprise! 


These days are busy and cold and fun and we're enjoying them!

Christmas in Toccoa

We made it to Toccoa a little after lunch on Christmas day and enjoyed spending the day with everyone there!!  

This was the first time we had seen Jacob since his bike accident and we all so glad to give him a big hug!  He loves all his girls (sisters and cousins)!  


We took a few pictures while before we started opening presents and I loved this one of Mama and Daddy! 


Katherine and Brett found out the day after Christmas that they were having another GIRL!  They've decided to name her Charlotte Renea and we can't wait to hold that sweet baby in our arms! 


Watts family photo! 


This wasn't our best photography work as we almost cut Stanley and Callie out, but we're all there and thankful to be together! 


My mom posed with a present that she wrapped with about 6 different wrapping paper rolls because they were all at the end of the roll.  Ha!  Bert is a much "better" wrapper than me but I am significantly faster (I can wrap 3 to his 1)....I learned all my wrapping skills from my mom.:)  


After we opened presents we went over to my Uncle Gerald's house (I think he's actually my dad's cousin, but we call him Uncle Gerald) to surprise him on Christmas day.  He said our visit was the best Christmas gift he's gotten in years.  He's so sweet and loves these kids! 


By the time we got back from Gerald's it was almost time for the delicious meal mom had prepared! Aunt Ann (my mom's sister), Uncle Bud, Angela, Jackie, Andrew and Presley all came for the Christmas meal too and we loved catching up with them!  


We had some down time too and mom had bought these brain teaser things and told the guys who ever figured their thing out first got $20. They were harder than they looked and none of the guys figured them out, but Alisha ended up trying one of them later and got the $20.  The girls in the family were proud!  


Claire got this guitar for Christmas and she brought Bert upstairs to give him and some dolls a concert!  She played and sang for about twenty minutes!  Sweet thing! 


Bert came on back to Greenville early Thursday morning so that he could work Thursday and Friday and the girls and I decided to stay and spend the end of the week with Mom, Katherine, Jacob and Ressie.

The kids really enjoyed spending time together since they hadn't seen each other since Thanksgiving.  They all love laying on their coffee table to watch a show.  Ha! 


The little three drag out Mimi's shoes and walk around the house in them most every time we are there.  They make a lot of noise in those high heels too!  


Abby couldn't hang with the big kids one afternoon so took a nap where she was!


The kids had a tea party and Jacob was their butler! 


Mimi was letting Abby help her wash the tea cups after the tea party and Abby broke one of them by dropping it in the other sink.  You can see the broken pieces in Mimi's hands and Abby is just telling her about something.  Probably telling her to put it in the trash.  


They also had fun building a fort in Mimi's bedroom! 


On Friday we headed over for some play time at Aunt Katherine's house!  These three kids have so much fun together!  


So do these three! 



On Friday afternoon Mimi treated us to a movie to see the new Mary Poppins!  Abby sat in Mimi's lap the whole movie and Claire sat in my lap the whole time, but at least they didn't move!  


The big three were very excited about getting to sit on the row in front of us during the movie.  


We finished out our Toccoa time with dinner at Los Amigos and then headed back to Greenville on Friday night!  

The Christmas season flew by as usual but we enjoyed every family gathering and were thankful we were able to all be together!