Meet Jacob Isaiah

Meet Jacob Isaiah Sanders, our sweet nephew.  He was born August 9th at 3:17pm and weighed 8lbs 14oz. Katherine and Brett are amazing parents!  Jacob really is the sweetest, most precious little guy you have ever seen!  I'm one proud aunt!:)  

We had a long day of waiting for his arrival, but we could not have been happier to wait.  We were all SO excited about meeting him!  Here are a few pictures from when the family was patiently (ahemmmm....) waiting.:)  

Papa Stan and Mimi hit the road from GA at 2:30am to come and meet their first grandson.  I feel sure my dad drove too fast and he said my mom talked 90 miles a minute the entire trip....they were both pretty excited!:)  

Emily just reading a magazine...upside down of course.

Stan definitely won the award for being the most laid back.  He just relaxed a read his book most of the day.  

The waiting game.  We had our own corner which turned out to be very helpful for keeping Emily contained.

Finally!!  They called us up to get our first peek at baby Jacob.  Could he be any more precious???

Watts Visit

Bert's parents, Jeff and Linda, came up for a visit last week and we had such a great time!  They spoiled us rotten by taking all of us out to eat to all of these amazing restaurants!!  The first night they  were we went to the Japanese steakhouse in Raleigh.  Definitely one of my favorites and it's quickly becoming one of Emily's favorite's too.  

She loved watching the chef cook right in front of us.  She was very serious, but definitely enjoying it!  I don't think she could quite figure out what he was doing.  

Meet Emily's new favorite toy.  She LOVES her horse.  Linda found it at a yard sale and thought Emily might like it....and she was right!!  It's the perfect size for her and so far we haven't had any injuries.:)  Emily can make me a little nervous sometimes with how hard she is rocking, but Bert assures me she can't flip it over backwards.  

Emily and her Grandmama.  I love this picture.:) 

Emily, Grandmama and Aunt Alison

Linda and Jeff also brought Emily another surprise.  They bought her a big pad of paper and her first crayons.  So fun!!  The doctor asked me at her 15 month check up if she liked to color (scribble), and I told him I hadn't really given her the chance.  We didn't even own any crayons.  Poor kid.:)  Anyway, she quickly figured out what to do and this is where she spends a lot of her time now.  She also really likes to walk/dance on the paper.  I think it feels funny to her.:)   

Emily's first piece of art work.  15 1/2 months old.  A few of the circles in the bottom left are from us to help get her started, but I would say this is 90% her work.  So proud of my little artist.:) 

We also watched movies, played games, walked around downtown WF and just enjoyed being together.  One night Linda, Jeff, Bert and I decided to play a game of Phase 10.  For me, it was one of those games where all you can do is just sit in shock that you still haven't been able to get past phase 6.  I was stuck and it was maddening.  Linda won, with Jeff and Bert right behind her....me, not so much.  If you know me at all you know that I can get pretty competitive during games (especially with Bert).  It was a huge relief to me that Bert ended up coming in 3rd place.:)

Thanks for coming to visit, Linda and Jeff!  We had such a great time with y'all...please come back soon!:) 

Huge Help

My mom decided to make a last minute trip up to visit a couple weeks ago and boy are we glad that she did! We had such a great time with her and she could not have been more helpful.   She started out the weekend by letting Bert and me go out on a date night Thursday night.  Then, she spent most of Friday at Katherine's helping her get their house ready for baby Jacob.  She cleaned floors, washed rugs, cleaned out the pantry, cleaned out the fridge, helped organize Jacob's room, swept the garage, etc.  We had a pretty relaxing Saturday morning and then on Saturday afternoon she went to the grocery store and bought food to make us (Sanders and Watts) each 4 meals to freeze!!  How exciting is that?!  I've been sooooo nauseous lately and my absolute worst time of the day is evening.  This means Bert has taken on more of the cooking for a couple weeks, and he's done such a great job.  He's such a great cook and he's always happy to help out.  However, I'm so thankful to have a couple meals in the freezer that we'll just be able to pull out and give my sweet husband a break. 

Here we are having a cooking party on Saturday afternoon...:)

Thanks SO much for loving on us and serving us so well, Mama.  We love you!   

Emily - 15 months

Emily had her 15 month check up last week.  She got a great report!  She weighs 21.6lbs and is in the 25th percentile for her weight.  She's 30 inches long and is in the 45th percentile for her height.  She only gained a little over a pound from her 12 month check up.  The doctor had me increase her whole milk from 18 ounces to 24ish ounces per day and we changed her yogurt to a more fatty (whole milk) kind.  Hopefully these things will help.  You wouldn't know it by looking at her, but my girl is a bit of a picky eater. :) 

Emily's Favorites at 15 months:
Food:  Cheese, bread, crackers, blueberries, strawberries, bananas
Movies:  Baby Signing Time
Books:  The Very Hungry Caterpillar; There's a Wocket in my Pocket
Activities:  Dancing, brushing her teeth, reading books, taking baths, helping Mama with the laundry, clapping for herself, feeding herself,
Words she can say:  Mama, Dada, Mimi, Papa, Grandmama, Pawpaw, Alison, Carrie, Katherine, Brett, Jacob, Stan ("Tan"), Okay ("O-Tay"), let's see, dog, please, thank you, up, baby, car, shoes, socks, teeth, bath, Emily, nose, ear, mouth, eyes, toes, no no, outside, precious
*she's saying so many more words than these, but I just can't remember everything right now.  She's loves to copy what we're saying.  It's too cute!

Sleeping Habits at 15 months: 
-Takes 1 or 2 naps a day.  Depends on how tired she is and if we are home for her to fit in 2 naps. 
-It usually takes her about 10-15 minutes to fall asleep for naps and about 1 or 2 minutes to fall asleep at bed time. 
-She sleeps 11-12 hours at night....almost never wakes up in the middle of the night. 
-She sleeps with her bunny (she MUST have the bunny!)

Things I treasure about my 15 month old: 
-She is such a happy, easy-going, baby
-She is "talking" all the time now even though we can't understand a lot of what she's saying
-She loves to be outside.  If I ask her if she wants to go outside she walks to the door and starts knocking on it. 
-She easily goes to other people...very friendly
-She can point to her nose, ears, toes, belly button, hair, and head. 
-She gets her eyes confused with her ears. 
-She loves music
-She's learning to run.  She gets places REALLY fast these days.
-She loves babies.  If she see's a child 3 or under she points and gets very excited.  She says "baby, baby" over and over. 
-She loves it when Daddy comes home.  If she hears someone at the door she'll stop what she's doing and say "dada, dada" until he appears. 
-She loves hats - especially her Daddy's.
-She's started telling us "no no" for things she doesn't want to do.  It's something we're working on, but for now it takes everything in me not to smile when she says it b/c she says it in the cutest possible voice.

Daddy and I love you, Emily!  We're so thankful for you!

Panama City Beach 2011

We took our annual trip to PCB over the week of July 4th this year!  We had SUCH a great time!  Lots of good food, pool time, beach time, plenty of time to relax, read, talk, and just be together.

We went to Capt. Anderson's for one of our eating out nights.  Soooo good.   We've talked for years about the fact that we should try to get to the restaurant early and beat the crowd.  Ha...it's never happened.  We usually have to wait an hour or more.  This year we actually did it!!  We made it to Capt. Anderson's by about 5:30 and we didn't have a wait at all AND we had a great view!! 

Our family has lots of tradaditons.  We like them.  One of our traditions is to drive race cars once a year, while we're at the beach.  We all really get into it. 

This year Kate and I couldn't drive the race cars b/c we were both pregnant with our sweet babies. We love driving race cars, but we didn't mind sitting out one bit.  Katherine was 33 weeks along with baby Jacob and I'm 8 weeks along with our 2nd. 

We decided to stop by the beach on our way home to watch the sunset.  Beautiful!  

This is the dress Emily's Grandmama (Bert's mom) made for her.:)

Stan is spending the summer in Panama City Beach with Campus Outreach on Summer Leadership Project.  He's had a great summer.  He still had lots of responsibilities (work, meetings to go to, etc.) the week we were there, but we were thankful for the time he was able to spend with us.  We all got SO excited when Stan popped in to see us at the condo between work and meetings. 

Emily with her builders.  Daddy, Papa Stan, and Uncle Brett were in charge of building sandcastles and Emily was in charge of knocking them down.  She thought it was so much fun! 

Katherine is supervising all the action.  We can hardly WAIT to meet sweet Jacob in just a few weeks! 

Emily loved playing the sand, in the ocean, in the pool....she loved it all!

Brett thought it would be fun to bury Bert in the sand.  Emily wasn't too sure about it. 

Emily giving Daddy a kiss. 

Emily all wrapped up and ready to walk back to the condo.  Bert made fun of me after I took this picture.  He said that from this picture it's going to look like it's the dead of winter.  Ha!  There was a breeze and Em was wet...I didn't want my baby getting cold.:)  

The main pool had lots of waterfalls and Emily LOVED us holding her under the waterfall and feeling the water on her back.  She would hold her arms back and just laugh and laugh. 

I wasn't sure if Emily would keep her sunglasses on long enough to even take a picture, but I was wrong.  She didn't want to take them off.  Little cutie!:) 

Our last night in Panama City we went to Pier Park.  They have a good number of rides for little kids, but Emily was still too small for most of them.  She was able to ride the carousel with Papa Stan holding on tight. 

We also took a train ride with her.  She loved it!  

Relaxed, waiting on the train to get back....

We had such a great week!  Thanks, Mama and Daddy, for making this happen every year!  We have so many wonderful memories!!  

Watts Baby #2

We're excited to announce that Watts baby #2 is on the way and due February 17th!!:)  We are so incredibly thankful to our Father for blessing us with this sweet little one.  Emily's pretty excited about her role as a big sister.:)  Here are a couple pictures of her showing off her new shirt.

A Package from Grandmama

Wednesday afternoon Emily got a fun package from her Grandmama!  Here she is checking everything out....

My mother-in-law is soooo amazingly talented!!!  She's always making new things.  A couple weeks ago she made this cute dress and hat for Emily.  They both fit perfectly!  

Thank you, Linda!  We love y'all and can't wait to see you in a couple of weeks!