Emily - 5 years

Emily had her 5 year old check up on Tuesday and got a great report.  She was 41.8 inches tall and in the 35th percentile for her height, and she weighed 38.1 pounds and was in the 38th percentile for her weight.  She answered all kinds of "5 year old questions" for Dr. Shultz.  They also checked her vision and hearing and she scored perfectly on those tests.  We're very thankful for a good check-up!

Having a five year old is so fun!  She is maturing and becoming a "big girl" right before our very eyes.  It is especially evident when we get to hang out with my sister and her kids, Jacob and Ressie. They came over for a visit on Monday and Jacob (3 1/2) and Hannah (3) played together every second of the day.  They were wild and crazy and loud and happy about it.  Emily used to be right in there with them, but recently we will sometimes catch her sitting on the couch and reading a book or just pulling back a little from their wild activities. Sometimes she'd just rather go play with Ressie. Now she still does plenty of playing with them, it's just interesting to see the change.

A few things I treasure about my 5 year old:
-She loves to ride her bike, swing, look at books, have books read to her, take walks, and play with her doll house.
-Emily is SO helpful!  It makes her so happy to be helpful.  She especially loves it when we praise her because she has done something without us having to ask her.  She puts away her and her sisters' clean clothes, often unlocks the door when we get home as I am getting things and people out of the car, unbuckles and buckles her carseat (5 pt harness), she also almost always unbuckles Hannah's carseat, she keeps a very close eye on Claire and if I am in the other room I can ask her what Claire is doing and right away she will say "she is playing with _______ and she doesn't have anything in her mouth."
-Her favorite meal right now is an egg strata breakfast casserole, interesting, I know.:)
-She asks for a peanut butter and banana sandwich every day for lunch.
-Emily's favorite show is Doc McStuffins.  She hadn't been dressing up in the dress up clothes as much in the last few months, but she got a Doc McStuffins outfit from her Grandmama for her birthday and she puts that on most every day.
-Her favorite books are Beauty and the Beast, Frozen, Cinderella, and any Berenstain Bear book.
-She is a rule-follower.  I'm certainly not saying she never disobeys because that's not the case at all, but she wants to please and if I tell her something like "stay inside the fence" I would never ever have to worry about her going outside the fence.  On the other hand she needs constant reminders to not run inside the house.:)
-Her favorite toys are her doll house, art supplies, puzzles, and her play computer.
-She loves life and loves people.  She has such a kind, compassionate heart.  She often will go ask someone if their arm is better (if it had recently been hurt), or if their husband is feeling better (if he was sick).  She also loves to make cards to mail to people.
-She has very good handwriting and loves to write.  She asks us all the time how to spell something so that she can write it on a card or piece of paper.
-She gets told about once a week that she looks just like her Mama. :)
-She's confident.
-She loves, loves, loves to sing.  She sings during her rest time (which she has every afternoon while her sisters are napping, but she only falls asleep about once every three weeks or so), in the car, around the house, anywhere.
-Today as I was taking Emily to school and she was getting in her Britax brand carseat she said "Mommy, my carseat says "brit-tax."  She's been reading some sight words, but she sounded that word out and I was super proud of our little reader.
-She's a talker.  She could talk to you all day long and never run out of something to say.

Interview with Our 5 Year Old.  
What is your name?  Emily
How old are you?  5.  I just turned 5.
Where do you live?  Greenville, South Carolina
What is your favorite color?  Purple, pink and yellow
What is your favorite toy?  Bunny
What is your favorite food? Macaroni and Cheese
What is your favorite drink?  Apple juice and Capri Suns
What is your favorite thing to do?  Play with my sisters and my friends at school.
What do you want to be when you grow up? A doctor. 
Who is your teacher?  Mrs. Tammy Roach.  We call her by her last name, but her real name is Tammy.
Who is your best friend?  Triumphant (her friend at school)
What is your favorite song?  "Skinny Ma-Rinky Dinky Dink" (which is really the song "Skidamarink a-dink, a-dink, Skidamarink a-doo, I love you"...)
What is your favorite book?  Beauty and the Beast
What is your favorite movie?  Cinderella
Who is the funniest person you know?  Connell (friend from school).  She also told me a short story about why he was funny.:)
Where is your favorite place to go? School and church
What does your Mommy always say to you?  I love you.
What does your Daddy always say to you?  I love you.  

And we do love you, Emily Jean Watts.  Five years has flown by, but we are loving every second of it, and we pray that God would give us wisdom in how to parent and point you to Him.  You are a blessing to your family!

Wordless Wednesday: Emily and Ressie

Watts Easter Celebration

We headed down to Jackson, GA to visit Bert's family a couple weekends after Easter for the Watts Family Easter Celebration.  We got to spend time with Alison (Bert's sister) and her family and meet our nephew Solomon for the first time.  It was a FUN weekend.  

Emily and Hannah helped Grandmama make cupcakes and had so much fun.  Hannah kept sneaking and eating some of the "grass" (dyed-green coconut). :)  

When we go to Grandmama and Pawpaw's house the big girls get to share a bed and they love it.  It might take them a little longer to go to sleep, but fun memories are made for sure!  

I had to take a picture of all of Hannah's sweet curls.  It was rainy that day so her hair was a little curlier than normal.  So sweet.  

Rosemary asked if she could hold Claire.  I told her yes, but Claire had other plans.  She was trying to shimmy right out of her arms.    

All the cousins having fun blowing bubbles.  

Grandmama and Pawpaw with most of their grandkids plus an extra.  All these kids had fun together!  

Me and my hubby with our cute niece Millie photo-bombing!:)  

Claire loves her Pawpaw.  

Alison was helping the girls dye eggs.  Look at sweet Solomon just waiting his turn.  

We were thankful that the rain stopped long enough for the kids to have an Easter egg hunt in the front  yard.  It was slippery, wet and fun.  

Claire was concentrating on not falling.  

This little cutie is Bert's niece's little boy, Bentley.  He and Claire are less than 24 hours apart.  Claire's birthday is January 8th and his is January 9th. 

Sweet cousin time...

Millie, Hannah and Billie.  Millie and Billie are Michael's (Bert's brother) girls and are about 6 months younger than Hannah.  They had fun playing together!  

On Saturday night Alison, Stephen and Linda were working on some adoption paper work and Bert and I got to have some fun time with Rosemary and Solomon since our kids were already in bed.  They are every bit as sweet as they look in this picture.  Love these sweet kiddos.  

Shortly after I took this picture I went back to check on Hannah, who was still awake of course (night owl), and when I came back Bert was asleep holding the book just like this.  He had fallen asleep in the middle of reading this book to Solomon.  Ha! Sweet Solomon didn't care though.  He just stayed right beside Uncle Bert and kept looking at books.  

I must say the highlight of our trip was getting to meet Solomon.  He is a gift from God to our family.  We're thankful for him, and for all of our family and the time we got to spend together!

Preschool Choir

Our preschool choir at church had their Easter performance the Sunday after Easter.  We have such a sweet group this year.  They are fun to work with.  We had four three-year-olds and three five-year-olds at the performance (a few of them couldn't make it).  

This was Hannah's first performance with the Play and Praise Choir (she just joined in January) and she did SO great!!  She stayed on stage the whole time, sang AND did the motions.  GO Hannah Beth!! 

She requested pigtails that morning and I couldn't turn her down.  Cutie! 

We had the three five-year-olds each sing a solo.  Emily sang the first verse of "Jesus Paid It All" and then all the kids joined in on the chorus.  Bella (far right in the picture below) did the same thing with "Because He Lives" and then Breleigh (to the right of Emily in the picture below) sang "Jesus Loves Me" and all the kids came in at the chorus.  We were so proud of all three of our "big" kids!  They did A-mazing!!  

Mimi and Papa got to spend the night with us (Emily's party was the day before their Play and Praise performance) so that they could hear the girls sing in church the next day.  Emily and Hannah loved having them there to cheer them on!  

After lunch it was time to get outside and let Emily try out her new roller skates.  She was about to bust to try them.  She did great and asks to skate often, but I really have to wait on Bert before we pull out the skates.  Em still needs lots of help and Claire has to be watched every second that we are out in the driveway, so we have to wait to skate until Daddy can help Emily, and I can watch H and C.  Hopefully soon she'll be able to fly around on them by herself.  

Mimi trying to get some snuggles from the wiggle worm...

Hannah wanted to give them a try after Emily was finished.  She did great too!  

Claire walked over to the door and just plopped down right on the stoop.  Perfect seat for her cute self.  

Thankful for busy, fun, beautiful weekends like this one!  

Emily's 5th Birthday Party

I decided I wanted to do something a little bit different for Emily's 5th birthday party.  I feel like turning 5 is a big milestone, so I wanted to do something kind of special that we aren't able to do every year.  So we decided to have her birthday party at the church and rent a bounce house for the kids.  She was super excited!!  

I'm not one of those mom's who starts planning my kids parties months in advance.  I do have a Pinterest account, but I spend a total of about 5 minutes on it at a time, just long enough to get a craft for our preschool choir.  I'm not a very creative person, and I don't really enjoy trying to be.  It stresses me out. But I LOVE to celebrate birthdays!  I want to make my loved ones feel special and let them know how thankful I am for them!  I have more of a last-minute approach when it comes to planning parties.  I didn't make a menu, buy the food, or buy any decorations until the day before.  Since we decided to have this party at the church I did have to reserve the fellowship hall and the bounce house weeks in advance, so someone should pat me on the back for at least doing those things so early.:)  This style can make for a stressful day-before-the-party, so I wouldn't recommend it, but it is what I seem to do every time.  Oh well.  Thankfully this time Nea was in town and was a HUGE help in getting everything ready.  

We took a Watts family picture before all Emily's friends started arriving!  

This is a picture of the bounce house that we rented for her party.  I forgot to get a full picture of the bounce house at Em's party, so this was the same bounce house at a different event that the company had sent me when I was booking it.  

They dropped the bounce house off about 2 1/2 hours before her party so we made sure we were super organized that morning so that we could get up to the church early and let the kids bounce for awhile before all their friends got there.  

This was one of my favorite times of the whole day, when all five of us were in the bounce house together.  I love these people.  We had fun!! 

Party decorations....

We let the kids jump for awhile while everyone was arriving.  It was a little tricky to enforce only having 7 or 8 kids in there at a time.  Thankfully, that wasn't one of my jobs.:)  

After they had jumped for awhile we brought them in for a couple games.  Emily loves obstacle courses and she had asked Bert a couple months ago if he would set one up for her party. The kids all loved it!

After the games it was time to sing and cut the cake!  She was about to burst from smiling so big when all her friends were singing to her.  

Goodness we love this sweet girl.  

After filling up our tummies it was time for Emily to open some presents.  Some of the kids headed back out to jump and some stayed inside while she opened.  

Grandmama and Pawpaw drove up from Jackson that morning.  They had to leave at 6:30am, but they wouldn't have missed her party!  We were so glad they could be there!  

Renea got lots of Ressie snuggle time while all the party craziness was going on.  Ressie just slept right through most of it.  Sweet thing.  

One person had to be on "Claire duty" the entire time.  We left the doors to the outside open so the kids could go in and out easily, but that meant Claire would try to make a run for it too!:)  Papa was happily on "Claire duty" for a lot of the party!

After all the kids left Papa got in the bounce house to jump with Em!  

After we finished cleaning up we headed back to our house to let the kids play outside for a little bit before the Sanders Clan had to head back to Toccoa.  Emily took Jacob for a spin in her red car.  Jacob has a blue jeep of his own and he pretty much lived in that thing last summer.  He loves his blue jeep and is a really good driver.  Emily is still a really cautious (slow) driver and I don't think she was going quite fast enough for Jacob.  Ha!  Jacob was really sweet about it but when Emily got out he took the car for a spin himself and put the pedal to the metal (which really isn't very fast), but he was definitely drove it in the speed above where Emmy was driving.  

Sweet things.  

Nea, Katherine, me and Claire

Sweet Ressie was happy in Mimi's arms while she was watching her big brother drive the red car around.  

I walked into the living room (just before the Sanders left) this was my view.  I love all the people in this room so much, so I wanted to snap a quick picture and remember the day. Everyone was doing their own thing and it made me smile. 

Thanks to Emily for having a birthday so that we could have such a fun day celebrating and being together.  We all love you, Emmy Lou!!