Christmas in Toccoa

After spending time with Bert's family at our house, we left late Christmas morning to head to Toccoa to celebrate Christmas with the Roberts side of the family.

We got to my parents' house around lunch time, but we needed to go ahead and start opening our presents before the rest of the family (my mom's brother and his family) arrived for our big Christmas meal, so mom offered to feed Claire while we were all opening our gifts.  She serves us all the time. All the time.  

Here are a few of us piled on the couch before we started opening presents.  Jacob wanted Emily to sit beside him. Sweet thing!  

I have such great memories of Christmases with my cousins.  We are all very close in age and love spending time together.  There are 8 cousins all together on my mom's side of the family, and many years we're all able to make it for Christmas or Thanksgiving. This year, though, we were missing Angela and Jackie, my mom's sister's children.  Angela had major surgery a couple of weeks ago, so Aunt Ann, Uncle Bud and Jackie stayed with her this year. We're praying for Angela, and we missed them being with us this year!  

We had our big lunch/dinner around 2:30, so the little ones -- Jacob, Hannah, Miles (my cousin Mike's son), Claire and Collins (my cousin Kristi's daughter) -- were all napping.  Emily got to stay up and eat with us, so she felt like a big girl. She was soooo excited!  

Here are the sweet kiddos after their naps, lined up by age!  

We walked in the kitchen to find Uncle Stan playing with Emily, Hannah and Jacob.  He's such a great uncle...I love my brother!!!

Notice how much taller Katherine is than me.  I'm actually 19 months older, but when we were growing up EVERYONE used to think she was older because she was so much taller.  It drove me absolutely crazy.  Ha!  

She's now 32 weeks and counting as we wait on Baby Ressie!!  Can't wait to meet my sweet sweet niece!!  

On the day after Christmas, we got together with my Uncle Ronnie (my dad's brother) and his family.  My cousin Jamie and his wife Ronda had all of us over at their home to enjoy dinner and some ice cream cake for dessert.  I was soooo excited about this ice cream cake! For us, that's usually just a birthday treat.  I had two large pieces.:)  

These four kids had fun together!  Ava (standing between Hannah and Jacob) is Jamie and Ronda's daughter...she's just about 2 months younger than Hannah.  My dad kept joking about putting Claire in one of these baby strollers that the girls were pushing around.  Haha!!  Not that it would have happened even if they were calm (he was definitely joking), but they were all a bit too hyper for that! 

I enjoyed getting to chat with Ronda and RJ!  RJ is 9 1/2 years old now. It's hard to believe that when he was a little younger than Hannah is now, he was the ring bearer in our wedding!  I remember when he was Claire's age! Crazy!  

I loved this picture we snapped of Papa playing with our little Claire Bear. He loves his grandbabies!

Watts family Christmas photo...

Our Christmas this year was a wonderful few days with lots of great time with our family!  2014 has been an amazing year, and we're looking forward to 2015!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Watts!

Christmas Morning

On Christmas morning, Hannah woke up right at 7 and we let her wake Emily up.  Usually Emily doesn't like for Hannah to wake her up but she practically bounced out of the bed that morning!  

Bert in the hall with the girls before they got to come out to see what Santa brought:

Santa brought both of them scooters and they have been a big hit so far!  I liked this action shot of Hannah.  

Emily was soooo excited about her new fingernail polish in her stocking.  

Below is a picture of all three of our sweet girls on Christmas morning in their new Christmas pajamas from Grandmama.  I realize that none of them are smiling, but I liked the sweetness of the picture with their sleepy eyes and the tree behind them.  Thankful!  

Claire was excited about her new play house from Aunt Carrie!  

Grandmama and Pawpaw with the girls on Christmas morning, while Bert and I were running around getting packed up to head to Toccoa and they were about to head back down to Jackson: 

We are so thankful to be able to spend Christmas morning with part of Bert's family...we missed Alison and Michael and their families, but we hope to see them soon!   

Christmas Eve

Bert's parents came up on Christmas Eve and we so enjoyed getting to spend the day with them!  We had a relaxing afternoon, followed by a yummy dinner (where I got to use my Christmas china!), a movie and hot chocolate!  

Grandmama brought our family a fun Christmas Eve basket.  She had all kinds of goodies packed in this bin....snacks, Christmas mugs for Bert and me, Christmas pajamas for the girls, a family ornament, cute Christmas cups for the girls, and much more!  

Grandmama letting Claire check out the tree.  

This sweet thing woke up on the 23rd with a cough and chest congestion.  It came out of nowhere.  Boooo.  We decided to take her in to the doctor early Christmas Eve morning (they were only open for a few hours).  We are super glad we did.  She had bronchitis and was put on an antibiotic and steroid.  She was much better by Christmas day but we were crazy careful to literally not let her play with or touch any of her sweet cousins.  

This cutie just recently started letting go of whatever she is holding onto and standing by herself for up to about a minute.  On Christmas Eve night Bert was putting her sisters down for bed and I was about to put Claire to bed, when she decided to stand up by herself from the sitting position...she didn't use anything to pull up on. 

Aunt Carrie caught this cute progression of pictures:  

Claire was so proud of herself!

After the kids were in bed we enjoyed watching Christmas movies, putting things together (Bert) and just talking.  It was a great Christmas Eve!  

Aunt Carrie's Visit

Aunt Carrie (Bert's sister) flew into Greenville from CA the Sunday before Christmas.  It was so fun getting to spend several days with her before she went to Jackson on Christmas!  She made it into town in time to see Emily's Play and Praise performance and Emily was soooo excited to have her there.  

Carrie is such a huge help to me when she visits.  There were so many times when she would entertain one or all of the girls while I worked on folding laundry, giving baths, or running an errand.  She loves our girls so much and just loves being with them.  It's encouraging to see.  

One afternoon Emily asked Aunt Carrie if she would braid her hair.  She actually did 3 braids....it was impressive!  

Carrie, Hannah and Emily playing in a fort that Daddy built for the girls while Carrie and I were doing some last minute Christmas shopping.  

We had such a great visit with Carrie and we're looking forward to seeing her again in about a week as she's coming back up for Claire's first birthday party.  Most years she travels back to LA by around New Years Eve, but this year she is delaying her trip back by a few days so that she can be here for Claire's first birthday party.  We're thankful for the way that she loves our family!!  We love you too, Carrie!

Play and Praise Performance

Emily is in a preschool choir at church that is called "Play and Praise" on Sunday nights. I'm serving as one of the teachers this year and we're having such a great year!!  Love these sweet kiddos.  

They sang four songs and did such a great job!!  

When we start back up at the end of January Hannah will get to join us in the Play and Praise choir, as she turns 3 in February.  So excited to have her join us!!  It's going to be fun!  

December Randomness

Here are a few random pictures from the month of December:

One morning the girls and I made cookies for 5 different families in our neighborhood.  The girls loved helping me make them and I was able to have some great conversations with some of our neighbors when I dropped them off.  Building relationships.  

There once was a day when Hannah was scared of a bubble bath, but that day is no more.  They had so much fun playing together in the tub.  

I remember when I was growing up one of the things my siblings and I used to argue over was who got to sit "shotgun" in the car.  One of the things these two cuties argue over (every time they take a bath) is whose turn it is to get bathed first.  Ha!  It usually goes something like this....H- "It's Emmy's turn to go fuwst ('first')!!!  I went fuwst last time."  E - "No!  It's Hannah's turn to go first.  I went first last time!!"  And so on.  I guess this is just the 2 and 4 year old version of arguing over the front seat.:)  

This cutie is walking all over the house as long as she has her push toy.  She started standing up on her own (for about a minute) without holding on to anything a few days before Christmas.  We actually just happened to be videoing something else at the time and caught the very first time she did it on video!  I am basically terrible about pulling out the video camera so the fact that we caught this little milestone on video is nothing short of a miracle.  

Hannah was feeding Claire a few puffs.  Hannah loves being a big sister and she's great at it!

One afternoon I walked in the living room to find Emily and Hannah like this....

I just thought it was so cute.  They play so well together and it's so fun to watch!!  

Emily's Class Christmas Party

Emily had a class party on the last day of school before Christmas break!  

They sang a few songs for the parents.  The songs were so cute and creative! Emily is still singing them.  

After their performance the kids sat down for some yummy party food.  It's so fun to watch her interacting with her classmates!  

Bert and I both got to go to the party and she looooved having both of us there.  It was a special time with just our biggest girl.  

So proud of her and thankful for her school and teacher!  

Gingerbread House Contest, Papa's Birthday, and a Sleigh Picture

My mom had this idea to do a Gingerbread House Contest this year!  We drew names to pair us up into teams, we were timed, we had barriers up so that we couldn't see the other teams' work, we even had judges (friends of my parents) stop by to make the official ruling on first, second, and third.  It was organized and FUN!!  We had 5 teams....two of the teams had two adults on their team....the other three teams had a kid paired with an adult.  We decided to do it the same day we celebrated Dad's birthday.  

Papa and Emily were a team and their house looked awesome!!  Em was so proud of it!!  

Brett and Jacob were also on a team and did great!!  Brett said Jacob got a little less interested after he ate all his gummy bears, but he was still a big help!  Brett built an awesome deck on the side of the house.  They came in third.  

Katherine and I were on a team and even though we didn't place we felt like we did a great job!!:) We even had a pool with a diving board in our backyard!!

All 5 of the Gingerbread houses just before judging! 

Kim and Jai Hudgins came by to pick the winners!  It was sweet of them to come join in our fun and it was good to see them!!  

Uncle Stanley and Hannah were a team and came in second.  They used the cups that were holding the candy, which none of the other teams thought to do!!  

Mimi and Bert came in first and as you can see from the picture below they were quite proud of themselves.:)  Bert built a fire pit in the backyard that he was still talking about last night.  Ha! 

After the contest we had a great lunch and celebrated Papa!!  His birthday was Tuesday (16th).  Mom made a lemon pound cake (which we were all very impressed with)!!  I just love my dad so much!!  I'm so thankful for the way he loves his kids, sons-in-law, and grandkids. We're so thankful for him!!  Happy Birthday, Papa Stan!!  

We also took some family pictures on the big sled at Paul Anderson Park in Toccoa. Mimi has been wanting a picture of the grandkids there for a couple years now, but until this year we haven't been able to coordinate our December schedules to make it happen.

The three "big" kids.  

Mimi and Papa with their grandbabies. Can't wait for Ressie (Katherine and Brett's baby on the way) to be here in just about 2 months!! 

Watts family photo!

The whole Roberts crew...I love it when we're all together!  

We were all worn out when we got home, but it was a fun Saturday with the family!:)