Week of Firsts

Emily's had an exciting week!  She had her first ballet/tap class and her first day of K-4 preschool!  She's growing up on us and we are SO proud of her!  

We took this picture right before leaving for dance class.  Can you tell she is about to burst with excitement? 

Emily's the fourth from the right.  They were getting ready to start tap.  Cuties!  

Wednesday was Emily's first day of K-4 Preschool.  She's going back to Taylors First Pre-Academy on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings this year.  Three of her classmates from last year are in her class this year and she also has a friend from church in there!  I think they have about 10 kids total.  She's my little social butterfly that doesn't have a shy bone in her body.  

  

The first couple days of school are hard on baby sisters.  I wouldn't know, seeing as how I'm the oldest, but I've learned.  It's an adjustment to not have your partner in crime with you at all times.  Last night Hannah said "I go to school and I go to ballet cass (class) and Emmy stay with Mommy."  Ha....she's decided that if only one of them can go she wants to be the one to go.:)  Cutie!  Don't feel too bad for her.  We had a fun morning of lots of one on one time while Claire was taking her long morning nap.  We read lots of books, she helped me do some chores, we played outside, read some more books and then played with side walk chalk.  When it was time to get Emily she quickly went to the potty and then ran to the front door.  If only it was that easy to get out of the house every time we needed to go somewhere.:)  

She wanted to take a picture with the sign too...

I took the picture below at Emily's Orientation last week.  She's in Mrs. Roach's class this year.  Mrs. Roach was an elementary school teacher years ago, but then took a break to stay home with her children while they were little.  She's just getting back into teaching and I feel blessed that we have her this year.  She is so kind and loving and creative.  I can tell already, just from our first few interactions, that she has a gift and love for teaching.  

Emily, we are so proud of the beautiful, loving, kind and intelligent little girl you are becoming.  Praying you love and encourage your classmates well, learn a lot and have a great year!!

Lake Hartwell

The day after Jacob's party Bert had to drive back over to Greenville to work on Friday but we decided to stay in Toccoa one more day since he was going to be working all day.  That night we got together with the Thompson family at their lake house on Hartwell.  My cousins Kristi and Mike were there with their kids.  

Kristi's daughter, Collins, is about 7 weeks younger than Claire.  They're going to be big buddies.:)  

The big kids wanted to get in on the photo action.  I loved this picture because Jacob and Emily were smiling so sweetly at something Hannah was doing (just out of the picture on the left side...you can see her arm).  Collins is also checking Hannah out and Claire is trying to roll, but is finding herself a little stuck.  

Me and my cousins used to take "couch" pictures all the time with us lined up in age order, so we decided we needed a "couch" picture of all the second cousins together.  Emily -4, Jacob - 3, Hannah - 2,  Miles - 1, Claire - 7 months, Collins - 6 months. 

Kristi and me with our baby girls.  

The back of the boat.  The kids took turns helping Uncle Jimmy drive.  We had 15 people on the boat that night...we were at the max. 

I got this beautiful picture as we were docking the boat.   

I'll always be a lake girl. 

Jacob's 3

After spending most of the day at Lake Greenwood we jumped in the car and headed to Toccoa so that we could make it for Jacob's 3rd birthday party.  Emily and Hannah have been so excited about it.  

Jacob's cute Thomas the Train cake.  

I loved Jacob's sweet expression while everyone was singing to him. 

Brett had set up two pools and and slip-n-slide for all the kids to play on.  They had so.much.fun! 

At first Emily was just running down the slip-n-slide.  

It didn't take her too long to figure it out though.  

Claire would have gotten trampled so she just hung out with Papa and watched all the big kids run around.  

Hannah spent most of the evening in this pool.  We asked her over and over if she wanted go play on the slip-n-slide.  I asked her, Bert asked her and Emily and Jacob both came and got in the pool with her at separate times to ask her if she wanted to come slide with them.  They did it without us telling them to ask her.  I thought it was so sweet that they were just having so much fun and wanted her to join in. But don't worry....she was having plenty of fun in the pool.  

Hannah laughing with Jacob during one of his short visits to say hey between slip-n-slide runs.  

Emily even talked her Daddy into getting out there with her.  It wasn't very hard.  I think he thought it looked like fun.:)  

Sweet Jacob.  He's one cute 3 year old.  

Katherine, Claire and me .  Katherine is 14 weeks pregnant with their 2nd.  Sooooo excited about my new niece/nephew on the way!!  Can't hardly wait!  

As I walked to get Hannah's towel to get her out of the pool (because she was shivering) she decided that she would like to go on the slip-n-slide.  We let her do it a couple times and she had fun!  

Happy birthday, Jacob!  The Watts family loves you very much!  

Lake Greenwood

A group of families from our church goes camping at Lake Greenwood every year.  We've always heard about what a fun time they have, so we decided to go spend a day with them while they were down there this year.  

The big girls enjoying the hammock.  

Doing a little land kayaking.  

Bert brought a watermelon that he had grown in his garden.  The watermelons from his garden were sooo good!  I love that my husband is a gardener. 

The girls getting ready to take a swim in the lake....stopping by to see Mrs. Lisa and MJ.

Swimming with Daddy and Elsie

Mark took Bert, Brooks and me out on a ski run.  I haven't skied in several years and let's just say my forearms were sore for days...and days after.  

Claire didn't get to go on a boatride this time because we didn't have a life jacket small enough for her, but don't worry...Ms. Kathy took good care of her.  

It was beautiful, relaxing and fun day!  Thanks for the hospitality!:)  

Greenville Drive

A group from the church (youth and parents) were going to the Greenville Drive baseball game (it's Greenville's minor league team) and I thought it would be fun to take Emily and Hannah.  I knew the game would be hard on Claire since it was going to be over so late, so I really wanted to find a babysitter for her.  I didn't want to have a fussy baby and a newly (less than a week) potty training toddler to take care of at the ball park...go figure?  I had a little trouble finding a baby sitter for Claire so my sweet Mama offered to drive over after work on Wednesday and then drive back early Thursday morning to get back to work.  Very thankful for her and for all the ways that she constantly serves me and my family.  

Our group at the game...

Emily was sooooo excited about having her picture taken with "that green boy!"  

This was Hannah's reaction to "that green boy" as Emily referred to him.  She wasn't about to get in the picture.  

Family picture minus our sweet Claire. 

The weather couldn't have been more perfect.  We had great seats.  Got to chat with great friends.  I have no idea who won the game, but it was a fun night!  

Clemson Friends

We had the Hardee's and Irwin's over for dinner one night last week.  The Hardee's have Caroline (2 1/2 weeks older than Emily) and William (4 months older than Hannah) and then the Irwin's have Charlotte (21ish hours older than Claire).  You can see the kids are close in age and had a fun time together!!  

Here are the big kids playing before we brought them their plates.  

When William first got to our house he walked into the playroom and just stood there looking at all the pink toys for a minute, then he asked if we had any swords.  Ha!  Bert found him some balls, but that's about the closest things we have to a sword.:)  He is such a cutie!  

Blake, Rebecca, Matt, Kristin and I all graduated from Clemson.  Go Tigers!!  Bert was a little out numbered but definitely didn't mind.  In case you're not aware, he is very secure in his love for Georgia.  Rebecca and I were roommates our junior year at Clemson, we both graduated with a degree in Accounting (so we had lots of classes together) and we were both very involved in the sign language program there at Clemson.  I lived right next door to Kristin 3 out of the 4 years, so I feel like we were roommates.  We were also both nerds/perfectionists and studied all the time together (she was also in the business school).  

Very good memories with both of these ladies.  Loved getting to spend time with their families! Go Tigers!:)

Potty Training - Hannah Style

At the beginning of the summer Hannah started showing signs that she was very ready to potty train.  She would hold it for hours and hours and finally I would tell her to to tee-tee and she would say okay, walk behind the chair, squat down, tee-tee, and then walk out for me to change her diaper.  Now she didn't do this every time but she did it often.  I felt bad that I hadn't started training her but I just didn't want to start that in the middle of our busy summer schedule.  I did the 3 day potty training method (you can get the details here) with Emily and it worked so well I wanted to do it with Hannah too.  The trick is finding 3 days in a row that you can commit to staying a home and focusing on potty training.  So we finally found a weekend toward the beginning of August that we didn't have anything major scheduled and we decided we were going to have our potty training weekend.  Good times.  

Here is my cute 2 1/2 year old picking out her new potty seat.  It feels like yesterday that we potty trained Emily (Hannah was 6 months)...time's flying.  

So for 3 days we gave her as many fluids as possible so that she would have many opportunities to learn the signs of when she needs to go potty.  You said over and over and over and over again "tell Mommy or Daddy when you need to go potty."  And then we said it again.  We gave her 1 M&M for tee-teeing in the potty and 5 for a poopy.  It's a silent reward so we don't make it a bribe (we didn't say "if you go potty you get M&M"), but after she pottied we cheered and clapped like she'd just run a marathon and then gave her an M&M.  Poopy is always a little harder to get comfortable with.  So we started out the weekend trying to give her lots of fiber.  We also ended up making a poopy chart pretty early on.  I think both have helped.  

All of our potty supplies.

Me and my big girl right after put big girl panties on her for the first time.  

It was a little tricky trying to keep her drinking throughout the day so that she could have lots of opportunities to go.  She didn't really want anything to drink, so we had to keep giving her different cups and drinks to keep it exciting.  Just look at that cutie.  

Hannah's poppy chart.  Bert's asked if he could get a poppy chart too. Ha.  That's a negative.  

Hannah is doing so great, but potty training is a tiring thing...for everyone involved.  That first day we took soooo many false alarm trips to the potty.  Later that first day she started going some, but she would only go just a little bit each time.  It's a learning process for sure.  Anyway, at the end of the second day we were finishing up dinner and I had said that maybe we could go outside a play in the yard for a little while before bedtime.  As I was finishing up the dishes Bert informed me that it was raining outside.  I was SO disappointed and surprised...it had been pretty all day.  I was beginning to feel a little trapped in my potty training house, so I decided that we were going outside rain or shine...I told the girls to go put on their boots.  Bert, Claire and I sat in chairs in the garage while we watched the big girls play in the rain.  They had so much fun and we enjoyed smelling the rain and watching our girls play so much!  

Emily preferred the umbrella at first but Hannah didn't want to be anywhere near the it (maybe she was feeling a little trapped too:) ).  

Emily decided after awhile that it did look like fun, so she put down her umbrella and started jumping in the puddles.  

Emily was such a patient, loving big sister the entire weekend.  There were so many times when we were right in the middle of reading a book and Hannah would say "I gotta go potty" and we would drop the book and start running for the potty.  Emily would just wait patiently for us to get back.  Hannah got lots of M&M's through out the weekend and Emily understood that they were for her sister and only asked for one twice throughout the weekend.  She was also Hannah's biggest cheerleader when she had successful potty trips.  She's a great big sister.  

The potty training is going just great!!  I mean she's had 2 tee-tee accidents the first day and 2 the second day and she hasn't had another accident since (twice she started to go just a very little bit, stopped herself, told me, ran to the potty and finished in the potty...those two times don't even count).  She hasn't had a poopy accident since we finished the 3 days.  She's still having some false alarms (especially with the poopy) and she doesn't always go when I want her to (like when we're about to go run an errand), but I'm giving her an A+ for sure! 

I decided that I wasn't even going to try to nighttime potty train her for a few more months (had some trouble with Emily waking up wet every night).  This goes against the 3 day method, but I decided I was going to be a rebel and do it my own way.  We put a pull-up ("night time panties") on her just before she gets in the bed.  She wears regular panties for nap time.  Would you believe that she hasn't wet the pull-up one time in over a week?  She wakes up dry every morning.  I guess I should go ahead and switch her back to regular panties.

We're so proud of you, Hannah Beth!  

Caroline

Caroline (our pastor's daughter) has been coming over one morning a week during the summer and hanging out with the girls while I get some stuff done around the house.  Emily and Hannah have LOVED having her and she has been such a huge help to me. They've colored, played lots of games, watched movies, played outside, played dress-up, read books, and several weeks she brought crafts for the girls to do.  

Emily told someone the other day that Caroline was her best friend.:)  

I'm so thankful for Caroline (and her family)!