We loved being a part of this last weekend. Betsy is 4 months old and is my brother, Ben’s, youngest of 3. She is so so cute.
Here’s a few…
{with her gee gee}
{cousins…notice eve in the background squirming all over bruce}
{we/i was really slack about getting pics of sweet betsy on her baptism day, BUT my assistant, kate, was on the job…even getting a video}
{i know blurry but had to show this girl’s big smile}
Eve talks about going to the potty off and on. She’ll announce she needs to go, try to take her clothes off and never really pull the trigger. I try to remember to let her roam without pants and diapers on while we’re home (same thing I did for Kate) but I’m much less diligent about it now. This morning, because we all woke up at 6 (even me), I decided to give it a real go (meaning sit with her while she’s on the potty and read to her). At one point, I handed her off to Bruce. I left them with Eve doing the “princess sticker app” on my phone and then apparently she handed it to Bruce to “fix.” She suddenly said, “in it! in it” to him (meaning there’s tee tee IN the potty) and then I hear Bruce exclaim, “YOU DID IT! YOU DID IT!” and then Eve said “I did it!” and we all rushed in.
She received m&m’s, a sticker for her chart, and a lot of hugs for her feat. Who knows if this will take off or be a slow process but a fun happening at the Willettes this A.M. Of course for Kate’s big “real” first time I had a much bigger post and lots of pictures and a video but I did manage to get one cell phone pic of Eve (she had already gone)…
I know this may be a silly thing to document but then again it is a milestone, right? So…Kate officially successfully tied her own shoe yesterday. She’s dabbled in trying to do it for a while off and on. She’s been wanting a new pair of tennis shoes (ever since our dogs took one of her’s and buried it somewhere unknown), and I kept saying that she could get a pair with laces if she learned how to tie her shoes. I finally sat down with her yesterday morning and went through it step by step. (She had already had the knot part down). Kate was determined. She took her only pair of laced shoes with her on the way to school and halfway there she yells, “Mom, I did it!” and hands me the shoe while I’m driving. I took this picture at the stoplight to send Bruce…
{kate’s very first tied shoe, granted the “tails” are short and loops real big but it was a start!}
After that, it was a day full of practicing shoe tying and by late afternoon we were off to get a new pair of sneaks, picked out by her, of course…
Of course I had to take a video too…
We have loved watching Kate take off with her two-wheelin.’ A few weeks ago we got her a 16 inch bike (her other one was a 12 inch and her legs were bowing out way too much) and the transition was seemless. These pics are from the first time she rode it (at night)…
And a little clip of her and cousin Andy riding around yesterday…
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And just had to add Kate’s funny quote of the day…
Kate: “Mom why don’t you know how to dance REAL?”
Me: “What do you mean REAL?”
Kate: “Like this” (insert a Kate funky dance)…”All you ever do is this” (insert snapping and moving hips/white girl dance)
Me: “I guess I’ll have to get Daddy to teach me some new dance moves.” ;)
Ha.
I can’t tell you how fortunate I feel to have been able to experience a college football national championship. And it wasn’t just any old nat’l champ…it was Bruce’s very own Tide and so conveniently located down the road from where my little bro, William, lives (in Baton Rouge). It had the makings of an awesome trip…3 nights, 4 days…the girls were well taken care of (via my mom and “Mrs. Anne”), we had our Alabama gear packed, tickets in hand, and were ready to Rollll! Minus one too many hurricanes at Pat O’s, the N.O. did not disappoint.
I guess it’s fair to say the trip would have had a little different tone if Alambama had lost, but they didn’t, and the whole experience was surreal. Nothing made me happier than to see my hubs so happy himself.
Here’s a taste…
An iphone collage…
{LtoR: view from the plane, beads in N.O., pat o’s, the mississippi, bruce in h.e.a.v.e.n at tony’s fish market, crab from tony’s (bruce’s pile), beignets, tailgating, coach saban’s “family and friends bus” we passed on the way to the stadium, victorious bruce singing wammer jammer, happy}
Other than lots of cell phone pics, I only carried my camera with my “lens baby” lens on it in NO. That lens is just so light and thought it may work well in this crazy city. Here’s a few…
{we had lunch here with william…apparently it’s been on “diners, drive-ins, and dives}
{waiting for the trolley}
{william pointed out the beads hanging on all the trees}
{balconies and beads everywhere}
{the devil}
Hopefully, one day, Bruce will be accompanying me to a Clemson National Title Game, but for now, I was quite happy to adopt his team :)
We had our traditional New Year’s Day lunch and hat contest on Jan. 1 (like last year). Same menu except Bruce made a little gravy to put on the pork and it was delicious. The girls had SO much fun with this. Kate worked on her hat ALL MORNING and their sparkling cider was a huge hit!
Our celebration…
{what a masterpiece!}
{sissy pouting because it was kate’s turn to stir the cornbread mix}
{collard greens}
{cheers!}
{look who found the lucky quarter in her hoppin’ johns!}
{plastic champagne flutes}
{lots of cheers at this meal!}
{the winning hat!}
Kate is already talking about NEXT Christmas and what she would like from Santa and when our elf, Melvin, will come back. This day was a magical one for our family. Kate was bursting with excitement, not only for herself but for her Sis and her parents too. If you get a chance to watch the video, I purposely kept the music down so you could hear Kate exclaiming about ALL of Eve’s gifts. She was also so quick to make sure Bruce and I had enough gifts, even wanting Bruce to open his first before she even “opened” her Barbie car (she had picked out for him, all by herself, an outdoor thermometer…he LOVED it). The morning of Christmas, we just soaked it all in, playing with gifts, eating Daddy’s yummy breakfast, testing out the Barbie car and then heading merrily to Spartanburg to see Papa, Bebop and rest of the crew. We missed my mom who had ventured out to Florida to be with my little brother, but were able to spend time with her before and after Christmas.
I know there are a lot pics, but here’s how our Christmas went down…
A few Christmas Eve moments…
Before church:
{reading twas the night before christmas…an annual tradition}
{cookies for santa…kate wrote him a letter and i just love how she wrote “love” on the cover}
{kids were nestled all snug in their beds while we enjoyed bruce’s seafood stew…yum!}
Christmas morning!
{could be my most fave of the day…bursting with excitement}
{a car for each!}
{i know i already put this one on the blog a while back but i just love their excitement…it’s like they’re teenagers}
Test drive time!
{eve’s new baby on the back…my favorite quote from the movie is “evie this is good for you!” kate exclaiming to eve about getting her own bitty baby}
{kate’s famous tongue out pose when she’s coyly proud of something}
Off to Spartanburg…
{the first “kids table”}
{watching “chugginton” while the grownups finish lunch}
{eve and her “baby betsy”…love eve’s expression in 2}
Tia Tia snapped these two for me just so I would be in some…
{snuggles with m.e.}
the 2nd BIG GIFT of the day…
{a “#10″ clemson jersey…taj boyd’s! (the quarterback). kate LOVES “#10″ and this present was HUGE! thanks g!}
{snuggles with g, another classic eve face}
{betsy and bebop}
{bebop, g and the girls…love eve’s outfit…kate’s pj’s, sparkly toms and thumb in the mouth}
Here’s a fairly quick movie of our day. Like I mentioned before I kept the sound low for the first part because what all Kate and Eve are saying are quite entertaining (for me at least). FYI the first song is a Justin Bieber Christmas song ;)…
One of the reasons that I love blogging, one that I forget about until it happens, is because it allows me to sit down for, sometimes hours, and relive such memorable moments..not just flipping through pictures and video clips, but really sitting down and reflecting on such a special day like this one.
Thanks for reading :)
I didn’t take many photos but here’s what I got…
{just spotted mom and dad}
{she looks like such a baby kate here to me :( }
Afterwards we have a little reception/lunch…Mama Kate took this one…I just LOVE Eve’s genuine smile here…
Poobug singing “The Little Drummer Boy”…
When I dropped Eve off at school Friday, Mrs. Staci told me that today, for the first time, the Toddlers were gonna use “The Rope” (vs. the Bye bye buggy). I made a mental note of this and showed up a little early to video this BIG happening (you can hear Kate and her buddies in the background watching the babes on parade)…
And just a phone pic (from Bruce)…this is such our “Sissy.” She is CONSTANTLY strutting around in someone else’s shoes, phone at-the-ready and usually a “bag” around her arm. This child loves to make us laugh and put on a show. She just knows she’s entertaining. Her and Kate play pretend together (with their babies in strollers) throughout the day and we our fortunate enough to have front row seats. I love this stage in our girls’ lives…
{she told us here she was talking to her bf “mei mei,” aka stellyn}
Trying to get a christmas card photo of my girls this year was waaayy stressful. I tried (as I’m sure many of you did) several different times, even traveling to some pretty cool locations, and even though I got some that I liked of my girls just being them, I couldn’t ever capture “the one” (and really never did). Even with Bruce helping me on a few occasions, we just could not get the girls in sync or even if I did, they looked like ragamuffins…like if Eve FINALLY would sit and smile, Kate was being a total pain or fake smiling, or if I got the great pic, their outfits just weren’t working for me. Either way, just wanted to post a few of the shots that I got during the whole effort and then the ones we used so I would have them on the blog when I print it…
Here are my faves from the adventure:
{i love this face…mom, you can try and try and try but it’s never gonna happen!}
{typical of what i was working with…thought about just using this one for our card and calling it a day}
{being total goofballs}
{it was shortly after this one that eve fell off the picnic bench and we were DONE}
So we ended up with these…just snapped them out of desperation one morning before the Y in our backyard…
{got them to smile because i was wearing the reindeer ears…not the best pic with the best lighting and the best background but merry christmas, right?}
