Abby - 2 years

Our Abby is already 2!  She's a bundle of fun, sweetness and spunk all rolled into one.  One evening recently when I picked Abby up to take her to her booster seat to eat dinner it occurred to me that sometime over this next year that will stop.  I'll stop picking her up all the time.  Right now I pick her up and snuggle with her before I lay her down; I often pick her up and carry her to get her from point A to point B (it's faster); I often hold her when we are at church or other public places so that she doesn't dart away from me.  It made me sad the other day to think about that I will still pick my other girls up, but it's rare, they're just too big for me to do it often.  I've thought about this often over the last couple weeks.  I know she's getting bigger by the day, and I want her to, but I'm going to enjoy how ever many more months I have of holding one of my babies in my arms while I walk around doing things.  

Abby has had 2 favorite outfits for months now.  Actually she has one favorite (seen in the picture below), one more that is acceptable and the other bazillion outfits she finds unacceptable.  If this outfit was clean I usually let her wear it, so since I wash clothes once a day she usually gets to wear it least 3 times a week.  This outfit made her so happy and you better believe I'm going to keep it even after she outgrows it.   

This purple shirt (that was Ressie's) under her Princess Elsa dress is her 2nd favorite outfit and she wears it really often too.  She was singing to her doll here...

She's a huge fan of dressing up these days. She'll wear dresses (like in the picture above), but I would say her favorite outfits are Emily and Hannah's old dance costumes.  She says "I a balwina!" ("A ballerina.")

Abby sleeps in this corner of the crib every.single.time she goes to sleep and has for months.  She is almost always curled up like this or on her stomach with her knees tucked under her.  Sweet baby!  She sleeps with her lovie ("La La") and her stuffed animal "Skye" that she got for her birthday.  

-We took out her high chair and moved her to a booster seat a month or two ago, but she doesn't like it.  She prefers to be in a chair without a booster.  I usually let her for breakfast and lunch, but for dinner (when we are all sitting at the table together) she has to sit in her booster.  It's working okay for now.  

-She has a slight lisp with certain words/sounds.  None of our other girls have had this, so it will be interesting to see how quickly she out grows it.  

-At night we have a bedtime routine when we put her to bed.  We sing "Holy, Holy, Holy" then Bert or I will pray then she says "Abby pay (pray)" and we tag team her prayer.  I'll say "Dear God, thank you for ____" and usually she says"Hannah" first.  We go through other members of the family and she changes up the order but Hannah stays first.  :)

-She really loves to ride the Minnie Mouse scooter on the driveway and sidewalk and is good at it!  

-Abby says her sisters' names pretty clearly.  She calls them "Em-ly"  "Annah" and "Care"  

-She loves to go to the park and isn't afraid to do the tallest slide or really anything her sisters are doing...much to my dismay.  

-She isn't a big fan of drinking anything these days.  She definitely hates milk and most days I don't even get a half of a cup in her (we try to get her dairy in other ways), but she also isn't a great water drinker.  She'll drink juice, but even that she doesn't love and has to be encouraged.  I've been in this stage before with my other kids, but it's an annoying one.  I am CONSTANTLY asking her to take a sip or trying to get her to drink something because it takes her soooo long to do it.  Thankfully, I know this will pass.  

-She LOVES Paw Patrol!  She can name all the pups and this afternoon when I was praying with her before her nap she prayed for "Chase and Rubble and Skye."  Ha!  

-She's pretty good at feeding herself but sometimes I do it for her when we're in a hurry.  

-She sleeps about 11 to 11 1/2 hours at night.  She naps for about 1 1/2 hours each afternoon.  She's recently taking longer to fall alseep during nap times so sometimes when I have to pick up her sisters at school her nap is really short.  

-She LOVES to have books read to her.  The ladies in the nursery at church comment often about how she just wanted them to read to her the whole time.  She'd sit in my lap and be read to for hours I'm sure.

-She's mastered the art of a temper tantrum and could give lessons.  

-She started refusing to wear a bib at dinner time at about 18 months and now (for the first time in eight years) we don't even own one. 

-She loves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bananas, apples, grapes, strawberries and blueberries. She also really likes roasted Brussels sprouts....all of our girls do.  If you saw them eating them you would think they were eating candy.  

-She doesn't like pineapple, mashed potatoes, carrots, and more that's not coming to me right now.  

-She loves going to church and gets so excited when she sees her friends there.  

-We recently painted our cabinets white and last week we found black crayon all over one of them.  Claire reported that Abby had done it.  Thankfully it came off with a magic eraser. 

-She loves to color, have books read to her, ride her scooter (if she sees it she'll say "dat my scooter"), swing, and dance.  She's the cutest little dancer - she basically pops her hips out from side to side!

-The other night I was putting on her pj's and she said "I loue you so much" and put her head on my shoulder.  Totally unprompted.  I melted in a puddle.  I love her too.  

-She's speaking in complete sentences now and even though she's been doing it for a little while now it is still sometimes surprising to hear her string 5 words together. 

-Her favorite shoes right now are her rain boots to wear out and about, but if we're in our house she almost always has on dress-up high heels from the dress up bin. 

-She loves taking a bath.   

-We call her Abby mostly, but she's also called Abigail (sometimes she'll correct us if we call her Abby; she'll smile and say "I not Abby, I A'gail"), Abby Kate, or Bert's favorite "The Gail Snail." I'm not even sure where that one came from, but he's been calling her that for awhile.  Abigail rhymes with snail and it's just kind of stuck for him. I hope he realizes once she knows what a snail is, he'll probably have to stop calling her that! 

Abby, you are so deeply loved by so many people.  When you smile your eyes light up and your laugh is one of the most precious sounds ever.  We love to hear your laugh.  You bring joy to all of us! We love you, Abigail!  Happy 2nd birthday!!  

Abby's Birthday

Abby's birthday fell on a Tuesday this year.  She told everyone on that day and the day after, when they asked her how old she was, that she was "six!"  Hannah had turned six about 3 weeks before so maybe she thought she'd just jump on the six train too.  

Mimi and Papa drove over for her birthday dinner on Tuesday night and I was taking her picture in front of the fire place right when they were walking in the front door behind me.  She was so excited to see them and it helped me get a fun birthday picture!!  

Abby started squealing when she saw the Paw Patrol table cloth we set out.  It was fun to see her get excited about every decoration that went up!  

Getting ready to blow out the candles (with help from her sisters)...

Getting ready to dive in!  

After brownies and ice cream it was time for presents.  This Skye doll (from Paw Patrol) was her favorite gift by far!  She sleeps with Skye and her lovie ("LaLa") at every nap/bedtime now.  

Showing Skye the new DVD...

We appreciated Mimi and Papa driving over to help us celebrate our girl!  

Abby, you are so loved!  You are a blessing and a gift to our family!  

Secret Keeper Girl

Emily's best friend at school this year is a girl named Samantha.  Samantha's mom is a speech therapist at the girls' school and we've gotten to be friends too.  Stephanie texted me one day back in February and asked if Emily and I wanted to go to the "Secret Keeper Girl" event with her and Samantha.  Secret Keeper Girl is a one-night conference that travels all over the country for girls ages 7-12 and their moms.  It encourages the girls in their walk with Christ, talks about modesty and true beauty, and the importance of living for God even at their age.  There was lots of Scripture read at this event, which I loved.  

Emily LOVED getting to do some thing special with Samantha!  

Emily calls Samantha "Sam" and Samantha calls Emily "Emma."  Emily has had lots of nicknames but she's never been called "Emma" by anyone, but Sam calls her that every time she says her name and I think it's the cutest!  

Stephanie and I had a fun night with our biggest girls!! 

Praying that these two girls would be little Lights in their classroom during this 2nd grade year!  

These Days

Paris Elementary hosted a Family Fun Fitness Night in mid-February. They only do this event every other year and our girls loved it!  They had different stations set up in different classrooms around the school.  

They especially loved getting taught by some Furman Cheerleaders.  Hannah has told me many times since that night that she wants to "take cheerleading."  

I loved this action shot that Bert got of Hannah jumping rope.  

Emily, Hannah and Claire all had dentist appointments and did wonderful!  A great report for all of them. 

We had a family movie night and all watched Paddington together.  It was a cute movie that even kept Abby's attention.  

Hannah got to dress up like a dalmation on the 101st day of school.  Cutie!

Abby is extremely picky about what she wears these days.  She has two outfits that she likes and everything else she pitches a fit about. On this particular day those two outfits weren't clean. I often will just put something on her and let her fuss as we run out the door, but on this day we didn't have anywhere to be so I let her decide.  I gave her about 10 options and she refused every one of them.  She finally agreed to this dress and so I put it on her.  Right after I put it on her she started pitching an all out fit.  It lasted for about 15 minutes and I just ignored her as she screamed.  She finally calmed down and I snapped this picture of the cute little stinker as she was realizing that she was going to wear this dress today.  She didn't want a picture becuase she was still irritated with me so she turned her head.  I'll call it right now....this girl has spunk.  

Abby loves the girls' dress-up high heels and walks around in them all the time!  

Many days during the last half of this month have been warmer so Hannah has gotten to have fun with her new bike!  

Bert also took Hannah on a daddy-daughter date to close out her birthday week.  They got slushies and then walked around downtown Greenville.  

Bert and the girls spent the night in the living room when I was gone on my Clemson girls weekend.  The girls slept in sleeping bags and Bert slept on the couch and they got to watch a movie as they were falling asleep.  They loved it!  

On Saturday of my Clemson girls weekend Stanley and Alisha had their engagement party in Winder, GA.  Bert and the girls came by the lake house to pick me up around 11am and we drove to the party together.  I was only gone for about 6 hours and I was glad I was able to be at Stanley's engagement party! 

After we ate lunch at the party Abby got down to play.  There were 2 steps down into another part of the room.  Abby fell backwards from the 1st step onto the concrete floor.  I watched her fall and it really didn't look like that bad of a fall to me.  I ran to pick her up and when I did she was screaming.  She ended up holding her breath as she was crying and within seconds she passed out limp in my arms.  It took her about 10 seconds (Bert says less than that) to come to and it was so scary.  In the middle of the craziness I didn't remember that she had been holding her breath while she was crying and we were worried she had passed out because of the fall.  It definitely caused a big scene and made the second half of the party a little stressful. She cried for about 20 minutes after she woke up from being passed out and then she fell asleep in my arms.  I was so happy to be holding her as she slept after she had scared us all half to death, you couldn't have pried her from my arms if you wanted to.  Next time she's holding her breath as she's crying I'm going to blow on her face to make her breathe so hopefully she won't be able to pull that stunt again.  

The girls has a play date with Penny and Samantha on President's Day since they were out of school.  They had fun dressing up!  Emily and Samantha are plotting how to buy Samantha a horse and it is THE cutest to hear about their plans to raise the money, build a barn, etc.  

Emily's friend Samantha had her birthday party at a horse ranch.  Samantha started taking horseback riding lessons about 6 months ago.  Emily was SO excited about getting to ride a horse for the first time.  No fear here.... 

Hannah was supposed to go too and play with Penny duirng the party but Hannah came down with the flu and didn't get to go.  I asked my friend Stephanie if she still wanted Emily to come to the party even though she had been exposed to the flu and she said they definitely did.  Em was soooo excited she still go to go.  

A few of the girls at the party.

Abby has learned how to ride this scooter and she is getting really good at it. She scoots all over our driveway and sidewalk on this thing.  

Sometimes we go to church early on Wednesday nights so that we can all ride together. Hannah was leading the "choir" on this night and Emily was up there singing her little heart out.  They love playing in the choir loft.  :) 

A few minutes later Mrs. Judy came in so that she could get ready to play that night and she ended up teaching Emily chopsticks.  Emily has been playing it ever since and she's so proud that she can do it.  Emily wants to take piano soooo bad. The plan is to let her start taking in the fall.  Mrs. Judy was so sweet to spend 20 minutes or so playing with Emily....it made her night! 

4-year-old's need a nap every once in awhile.  I especially loved that she fell asleep with her new glasses on.  

We had snack time outside on the patio one afternoon and enjoyed every minute of it! 

I loved this sweet picture of Abby jumping with Hannah!  Happy girls! 

Their school did a Book Character Day where they were supposed to dress up like their favorite book character.  

Emily was Nancy Drew.  She LOVES reading Nancy Drew books and was super cute with her little flashlight and note pad.  

Hannah was Billie B. Brown, which is a charachter from some books she got for Christmas.  

Both of their classes got to walk around the school in a parade, which they thought was so much fun! 

My friend, Stephanie, took these pictures for me.  

Claire spent hours working in the yard with Bert one Friday afternoon while her sisters were at school.  She was a big helper! 

February started out great, the middle was great, but the end was a little hard. Hannah got the flu, then Emily, then Bert and it's been stressful to take care of them while trying to keep the others well and taken care of.  As I write this (last day of February) Bert and Emily are in the bed and Hannah just went back to school today.  We're praying that no one else will get it and that by this weekend we'll be good to go. I'm so looking forward to the time change in March.  I love more day light and I love warmer weather and I love no flu germs.  February's been good, but bring on March!  

Hannah - 6 Years

Hannah turned 6 years old on February 14th.  It's hard to believe and the years are definitely flying by! Especially around her birthday I still think of the scare that she gave us after her birth, and I'm so thankful to God for protecting our girl and for all the nurses and doctors that got her breathing.  She's growing and learning so much right now and it is so fun to watch!

A few things I treasure about my 6 year old:

-She's learning to read and is doing such a great job!  She works so hard and doesn't usually get frustrated.  We've seen so much progress since the beginning of the year!
-She sometimes mixes up her b's and d's.  So when she's sounding out a word she'll sometimes say the wrong sound.
-She loves apples and would eat one for every meal if I let her.  She even loves to eat around the core after I have cut the apple up and given them all pieces.
-She's doesn't love pineapple, cantaloupe or bananas.  Unfortunately for her we have these fruits fairly often.  She'll eat them but sometimes has to be encouraged and she usually reminds me that she doesn't like them as I'm giving them to her. Ha!
-She had a fear of elevators last year and has gotten over that and now asks to ride the elevator every time she sees one (especially at church).
-She's in Ms. Powell's class and is having such a great year!  She loves school.  Her two best school friends right now are Penny and Kaiah and she talks about them often.
-She still uses training wheels on her bike but we're hoping to teach her to ride without training wheels this summer.
-She prefers to play with her sisters to playing alone.  Her favorite things to play are "house" or "school."
-Over the last several months she's developed a fear of fires.  She especially has trouble with this fear at night when she is trying to go to sleep.  Her class is going to visit the fire station for a field trip in about a month and she is nervous about this field trip.  She's been talking about it for months and about how she doesn't want to go.  We've promised her that one of us will be on that field trip with her.
-She loves dance class and looks forward to going every week!  She also loves going to the library, play-dates, any time we get to go to church, daddy-daughter dates, or even just getting to run to the grocery store with Mommy.  She loves to be out and about.
-She's a dependable little 6 year old.
-She loves to help with Abby and is such a huge help.  She just naturally wants to look out for her even without me asking her to.  When we're walking to the car at our house Hannah is quick to grab Abby's hand to make sure she doesn't run away.
-She does this quick nod/blink thing that is the cutest.  I realized the other day that she's the only one of our kids that does this.  When I ask her to do something that doesn't require an answer she'll do a really quick nod while she's blinking to let me know she's "on it."  It's her way of saying "I'll get it done." She's done this for years.  I actually was looking back at her 4 year post a few months ago and I had written in there that she was doing this back then.  So sweet!
-She loves gum and is the only one of our kids who asks for it.  She asks for it often.
-She's so quick to pray for people.  If she hears about someone who is hurt or see's someone on the side of the road in need she so often will say "we should pray for them."  It seems to be her first instinct.
-Hannah has a beautiful smile that lights up her whole face and she has an adorable dimple on her right cheek that I love.  I really do believe that her smile makes other people smile because she smiles so big.
-She asks almost every night if she can say the blessing before dinner.
-She's quick to say "Yes Ma'am and No Ma'am" and I don't usually have to remind her to do so.
-She has the sweetest curls but prefers for me to straighten her hair with a straighter.  I don't do it often, but she gets excited when I do. I personally love the curls, but what do I know?!
-She's sensitive.  She can cry at the drop of a hat and often does. If a grandparent has to go home or if a friend has to leave Hannah will probably cry, but she doesn't cry for long.
-She's prone to whine when she wants something, and it's an area we're working on.
-She doesn't like to have her hair dried with a hair dryer.  She'll say she wants it to "hair dry."  I haven't corrected her because I like hearing her call it "hair dry."
-Several people (teachers and staff) from her school have told us that she has a reputation of being the sweetest.  We've been told that the upper grade teachers are saying they want her in their class because she's so sweet and smiles all the time. :)
-I love her freckles....every single one of them.
-She loves movies and shows like no other.  We have to seriously limit her or I'm sure she would sit in front the the TV all day (which she did when she had the flu, and she thoroughly enjoyed it).
-She's a big sweet lover.  She gets that from her mom.
-She likes to do arts and crafts some, but not nearly as much as Emily did at her age.
-Her nicknames are Hannah Beth, Hanney and Han (we probably call her one of these more than we call her Hannah, when we are at home anyway).


Interview with our 6 Year old:

What is your name? Hannah 
How old are you? 5...I mean 6
Where do you live? At home
What is your favorite color? Red
What is your favorite toy? Minnie Dolls
What is your favorite food? Salad
What is your favorite drink? Gatorade 
What is your favorite thing to do? Playing with my sisters
What do you want to be when you grow up? A dentist. 
Who is your teacher? Ms. Powell
Who is your best friend? Penny and Kaiah
What is your favorite song? Amazing Grace
What is your favorite book? Minnie
What is your favorite movie? Veggie Tales
Who is the funniest person you know? Hudson (Burns)
Where is your favorite place to go? The park
What does your Mommy always say to you? I love you
What does your Daddy always say to you? I love you

Hannah we are so proud of the beautiful, sweet, and smart little girl that you are.  We are so thankful for your love for praying and we pray that your prayer life would help develop a close relationship between you and the God who made you.  You are a gift to our family and we are your biggest cheerleaders. We love you!

Clemson Girls Weekend 2018

Our Clemson girls weekend was wonderful as usual this year.  We did it over President's Day weekend (in mid-February) and had a great time.  All 11 of us were able to come this year, plus we added our friend Katie, who also went to Clemson with us and grew up with Keri.  We LOVED having Katie join us!  

My friend and college roommate, Sara, moved to San Antonio, TX this past summer.  She's missing the east coast, but she and her husband are getting settled into life in TX.  They've found an awesome church, have great jobs and are doing really well!  I especially loved getting to catch up with her!  She thinks they'll move back east at some point, but for now we'll enjoy seeing her at least once a year at our girls weekend!  

Angela, Katie, Tif and I were the models while Keri worked on setting up the camera for our group picture. 

Last year 4 of us were pumping but this year the youngest baby was 16 months, so no pumping was necessary.  Jennifer is pregnant with their 3rd though and due April 8th (Emily's birthday). 

This girls weekend is one of my favorite traditions of my whole year!!  I love them and their hearts for the Lord and their families!  I was so blessed to be able to walk through my college years with these girls by my side!  I pray often that all four of our girls are blessed with friends like this!

Hannah's Birthday Dinner

We had a birthday dinner for Hannah on Thursday the 15th.  Mimi and Papa drove over after work so they could be there.  The party theme was Minnie, obviously!  

I made a lasagna and salad to go with our bread, fruit and cupcakes. It was a yummy dinner and Hannah enjoyed it! 

Singing to our girl!  

I loved that we were all smiling!!  

Happy, happy birthday to our Hannah Beth! You are so sweet and loving.  You have a beautiful smile and bring so much joy to everyone who knows you!  We love you, we love you, we love you...more than you can imagine!