Gender Reveal

We didn't do gender reveal parties with Emily, Hannah or Claire, mostly because the thought of planning a big party stressed me out.  This time my mom mentioned that it might be fun.  It got me thinking that this pregnancy is flying by and I do want to take every chance to celebrate this little life that we are so thankful for (we were thankful for the other 3 too, but you get the idea), so we decided to do something small, last minute, and laid back.  Just like I like it.  

I actually had my 16 week ultrasound early Monday morning.  We told the ultrasound tech that we didn't want to find out that day and she did a great job of telling us to look away when she was showing that area on the screen. We thought since we were going to do a gender reveal party that it would be more fun to find out with everyone else than find out while she was doing the ultrasound. Bert asked a friend to look in the envelope she gave us and text the gender to the lady making our cupcakes.  

Once everyone arrived and we had Bert's parents ready on Facetime it was time for the big reveal.  We let Emily and Hannah have the first cupcakes and find out first if the baby was going to be a little sister or a little brother.  

We have the sweetest video of Emily telling everyone "It's a GIRL!!" with a big grin on her face before she started jumping around the patio.  

I asked everyone coming to the party to wear their guess!  Since Bert and I didn't know and we both thought it was a girl we were both sporting our pink.  

We enjoyed hanging out with some of our good friends and family after the big announcement.  It was a beautiful September night.  

This girl has been wanting another sister from day 1!:) 

Mimi was sharing some of her cupcake with Claire Bear.  

My mom and dad were so sweet to get off work early, pick up the cupcakes for us and drive over to Greenville so they could be there to find out if their next grandbaby is a boy or girl.  I'm so thankful for them! Also, my dad gives the best hugs.:)  

So thankful for these sweet friends and my sister (who is one of my very best friends) that are so so excited about our new baby girl on the way.  It was so fun to be able to share this moment with them. Katherine and Ressie rode over with mom and dad and I so loved having them there.  Kate was literally about to bust to find out.  

The sweet ultrasound picture was taken at my 16 week ultrasound (which was the day before our reveal).  

Sweet girl, we couldn't begin to tell you how thankful we are for you and how excited we are to welcome you into our family.  You are already such a blessing.  You're going to have so much fun with your big sisters.  They'll keep you entertained for sure.  You stay put for many more months, but when it's time you just know that we can hardly wait to hold you in our arms.  We love love love you!!  

Harmon's Stop By

My good friend Keri was in Greenville last weekend for a birthday party for her niece and had a few hours to spare, so she and the kids stopped by for a visit!  We were so excited to see them!!  I hadn't gotten to meet their newest little family member, Kathryn Grace, born in May.  I was so excited to get to hold her in my arms.  She is absolutely precious.  

Claire and Kathryn Grace even let us take a picture!  Claire wanted to hold her hand.  

Keri and I got to spend time talking inside (with Claire and Kathryn Grace) while the four big kids played outside.  They played so well together as usual.  

We were so thankful for their visit.  It's always so good to see Keri.  She's the kind of friend that even if it's been 6 months since we last saw each other, it seems like yesterday.  

National Pirate Day

Emily heard about "National Pirate Day" at school last Friday.  It was the first thing she talked about when she got in the car that afternoon.  She said if we went to Dunkin Donuts and talked like a pirate we could get a free doughnut.  She mentioned this again several times on Friday night and it was the first thing she and Hannah (she had gotten Hannah excited ) woke up talking about on Saturday morning.  We decided we should definitely make it happen. Bert looked up the info and found out that it was actually Krispy Kreme not Dunkin Donuts that was giving away free doughnuts.  He also found out that if they dressed up like a pirate we could get a dozen doughnuts per person that dressed up.  

They were excited before, just thinking they were going to get to talk like a pirate and get a free doughnut, but once we started dressing them up like pirates they were literally about to burst with excitement.  It was fun!  

We came pretty close to eating a whole box of doughnuts between the 5 of us.  We dropped the other box off with a family in our church that has 4 boys.  We thought they'd be able to take care of them pretty quickly.  Their mom said they inhaled them.:)  We're glad they enjoyed them because we had eaten our fair share with the first dozen!  

They're talking like a pirate in the picture below!  

Thanks to Krispy Kreme for a super fun, FREE, family outing!!   

These Days

The kids are growing up on us so I wanted to remember a few of the sweet, fun things they are doing these days....

-Hannah likes to throw an "o" in the middle of some words.  She says "Hair-o-band", "Air-o-plane" and "Care-o-bear".  I like it.  

-I asked the girls what their favorite thing to do with Daddy was and they said:

Emily- "Helping Daddy in the garden"

Hannah - "Riding in Daddy's car." 

-Claire calls herself "KK."  Bert calls her CK (her initials) about half the time, so she must have gotten KK from that.  I'll say "Mommy loves....." and wait for her her answer and she'll get biggest grin on her face, pat her chest and say "KK!!!"  

-Hannah LOVES apples these days and wants one most every day.  She hasn't cared for bananas for about a year now, but will eat them occasionally.  

-After Emily had been in school for about two weeks I asked her one afternoon what her favorite part of school was and she said "every part is my favorite part." 

-Claire is my grocery shopping partner on Monday mornings while Emily and Hannah are in school.  She loves it!  

-Emily recently moved up to the next Sunday School class, which means she'll also be in the service with us for the 1st half of the service and then go to children's church during the sermon.  We're excited to have her up there with us!  

-We have a red Power Wheels car and Hannah has recently started riding in it and driving it after refusing to get near it for almost a year.  She likes to take her time to warm up to things.  

-Claire loves shoes and wants to wear them at all times.  Within minutes of waking up in the morning she is bringing me a pair of her shoes to help her put them on.  

-Hannah often doesn't take an afternoon nap, but just has rest time (I would say she does this about 65% of the time).  On the days when she doesn't take a nap at home she usually ends up taking a cat nap in the car line while we are waiting to pick Emily up.  

-Pregnancy update:  I'm loving trail mix and all things Mexican these days.  Not a big fan of sandwiches (which is very odd for me).  

-Grandmama bought this cute new back to school outfit for Emily and Emily was so excited about wearing it last week!  

-Also, she's recently decided that she likes pigtails and will ask for them often (I couldn't get her to wear them last year as she said "they're for babies").  I usually feel like she's growing up on me too fast, so when she wants pigtails it reminds me that she's still my little girl.  I'm sure her favorite hair style will change again in a matter of months, weeks or days, so I'll enjoy this while I can.  

-Hannah loves to draw.  Give her a pen and paper and you've got a happy girl.  She also LOVES to play in sand and dirt.  She could play  in it for hours.  

-Emily started back with her tap and ballet class a few weeks ago.  She goes once a week for a 50 minutes class.  

-When I tell Claire we need to go pick up one of her sisters from school she stops what she is doing and practically runs to the door.  

-Emily has about 15 minutes of homework Mon- Thurs night.  She is still in the "I love homework so much" stage!!! 

-Hannah asked me the other day if she could get a phone like mine when she gets a little bit bigger?!?!  Ha!  Try A LOT bit bigger.  

-Claire plays really well by herself in the playroom for extended periods of time.  It's impressive.  

-Bert was talking to Emily one night about how she needed to have a better response when she gets frustrated.  She sighed and said "grownups never get frustrated."  Ha! 

-Hannah-ism:

"Last day" = yesterday

"Next Day" = tomorrow

Emily: Mom, did you know a boy in my class named Gary is already a grandpa?!?!

Me: Oh really?? :)

Emily:  Yep.  He's already got a niece so he's a grandpa.  

-Hannah's got an impressive sense of smell. She can smell one of Claire's poopy diapers from a mile away and doesn't hesitate to let me know. I lovingly call her my little "poopy patrol." 

-Emily loves to sing.  Her teachers have told us that she sings all the time on the playground.  She also sings when she is playing in the playroom or riding down the road.  We think she has a beautiful voice, which she didn't inherit from either parent.  

-Hannah seems to have a good bit of athletic coordination.  She is really good at kicking a ball straight to you, throwing and catching.  It will be fun to see what she does with it if she decides she likes playing sports. 

-Claire loves to help me put clothes away and makes the job more fun!  

-One morning Claire and I were taking Hannah to school and Hannah said "Mommy, will you take my picture in the gwass?"  I said sure thing and Claire proceeded to jump in the picture too, and sweet Hannah didn't mind at all.  

-Emily and I got to have an ice cream date one Friday afternoon after I picked her up from school.  She was in the middle of telling me about a new little girl in their class when I snapped this picture.  

-All of our girls LOVE playing outside.  I would say it's their favorite thing to do!  Ride bikes, play on the swing set, play in the dirt, throw a ball, or just run around.  Happy sisters.  

-Claire is talking SO much these days.  We can understand a lot of what she is saying, but sometimes she looks at me with those eye brows raised and starts pointing and talking jibberish.  She definitely knows what she is saying, but I have no idea.  It makes me smile every time.  

-Claire calls Hannah "Ahhh" and she calls Emily "Ehhh".  She can say big words like "grandmama" and so many others, but for some reason she's stuck with calling her sisters these very much abbreviated versions of their names.  We definitely understand what she's saying, so whatever floats her boat...

We're so thankful for these sweet babies God has given us.  They keep us laughing, busy, thankful and on our toes and we wouldn't want it any other way!  

Grandparents Day and Wacky Wednesday

Wednesday was "Wacky Wednesday" for Emily's school and Grandparents' Day for Ms. Powell's class!  Emily was sooooo excited about both.  As she was getting dressed that morning she just kept laughing and saying out loud "I am SO wacky!!"  It's hard to tell from the picture below but her leggings were hot pink and her skirt had red hearts on it.  She thought her outfit was hilarious and it made us laugh seeing how excited she was about it.:)  

She was so excited about having some of her grandparents come to her school.  My dad got up early and headed over to Greenville.  He even got to come by the house and get hugs from Hannah and Claire for about 20 minutes before he needed to head to Emily's school for their 10:30 lunch.:)  Mimi was planning on coming but had gotten sick the weekend before and wasn't able to make it.  

Linda drove up from Jackson on Tuesday.  She got to spend Tuesday afternoon and evening with the kids and they loved getting some special Grandmama time.  The secretary at Emily's school told Linda she won the grandparent award for that day since she had driven the farthest to be there (about 3 hours).  

Ms. Powell (Emily's teacher) told Grandmama that Emily tells her that she prays for Ms. Powell every day (which she does) and she has probably been invited to church 20 times since they've started school.  Ha!  Sweet thing!  

Linda caught this sweet picture of Papa helping Emily with some of her work.  

Grandmama and Papa, thank y'all soooooo much for making time to come be with our girl on Grandparents' Day.  When I first heard about Grandparents' Day I wasn't sure if any of them would be able to come since they all 4 work and live out of town, but of course they said they didn't want to miss it and made it happen.  Our kids are so loved by their grandparents and we're thankful for that!  

Sky Top Orchard

I've been hearing about Sky Top Orchard for several years now.  I would see pictures of my friends taking their kids and think to myself that we need to do that, but every year somehow we've managed to let the apple picking season pass us by before we made it up there.  

This year I was determined to make it happen.  Sky Top is about 45 minutes from our house so last Saturday morning we got in the car about 8:30 so that we would be there shortly after it opened.  We spent the morning there and made it home just in time for lunch.  We had such a fun time!!

They have this cute wooden tree that you can take pictures in front of and measure how much the kids have grown each year.  I accidentally cut of the top of it, but you get the idea.  

Last Saturday (the day we went to the orchard) was the first day we had had of cooler temps.  I thought it was the perfect weather for our little fall outing.  

Bert's top hand marks how tall Emily is, his bottom marks Hannah's height and then you can see how tall our little Claire is.  

We enjoyed some apple cider doughnuts before we started apple picking!! We all loved them.  

A lot of the apples close to the building were already picked over, so we had to walk pretty deep into the orchard, but we enjoyed the walk, especially since this was our view.  

Daddy was showing them what a woodpecker had done to this tree.  

The girls love any chance to ride on Daddy's shoulders and getting to pick apples just made it more fun!  

Look at how proud Claire was of the apple she picked!!

We had a few hills to walk up on the way back to the main building (after we had picked our apples) and Hannah wasn't overly excited about the situation.  (Claire was in the stroller.)  Hannah kept saying "Ugh....can we take a bweak (break)?!?!  This hill is so tired!"  Ha!  She made it though and it was good for her.  

We also stopped by the petting zoo area and let them look at the animals and feed the goats some grass. We accidentally left our quarters in the car to buy the animal food, but the goats seemed to enjoy the grass and our girls sure didn't notice.  

Our last stop was playing on the amazing playground.  They have 3 or 4 different play sets for kids to play on and they were all so fun!  

She's growing up on me.  

We had such a fun family outing to Sky Top!  

Labor Day Weekend on Hartwell

We spent Labor Day weekend with my family on Lake Hartwell and had such a great time! We wanted to get in one last bit of summer fun before the weather started getting cooler.  

We got there late afternoon on Friday and not too long after we got there Bert, Stanley and I headed out to the movie theater to go watch War Room.  My mom and dad had seen it earlier that week and really wanted us to be able to see it, so they offered to keep the kids.  Bert and I don't get to see very many movies in the theater in this stage of life, so we don't usually turn down offers.:)  The movie was amazing! They did such a great job with it and I think everyone should go see it. 

Saturday morning we were all ready to hit the lake!  

We got to spend some time with my cousin Mike, his wife Alli, and their son Miles over the weekend.  It was so good catch up with them as it had been months and months since we had last seen them.  Miles is about 6 months older than Claire and SUCH a cutie!!  Alli is pregnant with their 2nd and is due about 2 months before Baby Watts #4.  

Mike pulled the kids (and Bert) on the tube and they loved it!! 

I caught Hannah waving at us mid ride! 

Claire even loved the tube!  No surprise there though.  If she sees her sisters doing something she insists on doing it too!  

Uncle Jimmy (my mom's brother) stopped by the boat and took Emily on a jet ski ride while some of the tubing was going on.  I love her wild lake hair in the picture below.  

Claire kept wanting to hang her sippy cup over the side of the boat and got more than a little upset when I took it away.  I know she was thinking "I wasn't going to drop it, mom!"  

Stanley brought his Enu (is that what it's called?) hammock and we enjoyed relaxing in it throughout the weekend.  Mimi and Hannah are "sleeping" in the picture below.  We'll give them an A for effort.  

Swinging with Uncle Stan...

Happy girl.  

Another favorite activity for the weekend was jet skiing.  Brett, Stan and Bert took turns almost the whole time we were down at the lake taking one kid after another for a turn on the jet skis.  Mimi and Katherine got a couple turns too!  

Me and my fearless child.  

Claire got to go on the jet ski one time and she liked the jet ski even more than the tube.  

One night before dinner we caught these two curled up in the chair with Jacob's arm around Hannah.  These are the faces of sweet, tired cousins.  

Jacob and Hannah attacking playing with Mimi!  She didn't seem to mind.:)  

I'm actually ducking behind Hannah in the picture below.  They are all sitting on my lap and you can see my hand holding Claire upright. I didn't want anyone to think we are leaving our 20 month old to fend for herself in the big 'ole lake!  I did like this picture of our sweet girls though.:)

We had such a fun weekend at the lake!  Very thankful for the relaxing, beautiful weekend and that we were able to spend it with family!  I can't say I'm overly excited about saying goodbye to summer, but I'll choose to focus on a few of the things that I love about cooler weather...hot chocolate, leaves changing, holidays, fires in the fireplace, sweatshirts, and soup for dinner!