Christmas morning

Christmas morning was so much fun! It was so exciting to watch Catherine and Will's eyes fill with wonder about the gifts that Santa brought.

Catherine was so excited about her new baby and all its gear.

Will loves the sit-n-spin.

Catherine the "doctor" has been taking care of all of us.

Isn't this what you're supposed to do with a princess makeup kit?

Furman Friends

We had our annual Furman roommate Christmas get together on Sunday. We all hung out at our house on Sunday afternoon with the kids (and dogs) and then went downtown to dinner. I can't say enough how much I love these girls! I am so thankful that we all still make the time and effort to spend time together.

from L to R: Jill, Sara, Betsy, and Marianne

A special visit this year was Jay and Allen's roommate, Lee. He currently lives in Indiana and has been a very busy doctor-in-training for the past few years. We haven't been able to see him really in about 3 years, so it was a fun treat to have he and his wife Tiffany and their little boy Cade come too.

The boys (Lee, Jay, and Allen) and their boys (Cade, Will, and Eddie) It's a little frightening that there's now a little Lee, little Jay, and little Allen!

Merry Christmas, my friends!

Thanks for being such a special part of our lives.

Catherine is 3!!

Today is Catherine's 3rd birthday. Wow! I cannot believe it's already been 3 years. It's gone by so quickly. I feel like I was just holding that little 6 lb 3 oz baby girl and wondering how our family would be now that we had a daughter. I had no idea how much joy she would bring to our hearts. She is a fantastic girl.

A few of Catherine's favorite things: Catherine loves to sing. She sings to herself and we sing together almost all day. We make up silly songs about brushing our teeth, going potty, getting dressed, etc. She also loves for us to sing to her to when it's naptime and bedtime. Some of her favorite songs include Jesus loves me, Jesus loves the little children, God bless America, To God be the Glory, Amazing Grace, Blessed Assurance, How Deep the Father's Love, Oh How I love Jesus, the doxology, the Barney song (which she calls "how much I love you"), and Onward Christian Soliders. Her favorite cd is Josh Turner, a country singer who has a really deep voice.

She loves the color pink, princesses, cupcakes, her babies (Gertrude and Cornelius). She loves to go on walks, to take pictures, and to have her back scratched. She loves to read books and is learning to read on her own. She recognizes and can spell a few words all by herself. She knows all of her letters and can write the letters C, A, V, L, O, E, T, and P all by herself. She can spell her first and last names. She loves to tell us what time it is and how long things will last. For example, this afternoon she said her nap would last 7 minutes and that she would get up at 10 o'clock.

Catherine loves her friends and family so much! She loves Will and is really good big sister. She helps him and is very good at sharing with him and making him laugh. She says she misses him when he takes his nap or she's at school. She frequently prays for her friends and family, especially if they're sick or have a boo-boo. She has such a tender heart. People tell her that she's beautiful all the time (and she absolutely is) but we've had to be careful to teach her that the most beautiful part of her is her heart. She frequently reminds me that Jesus is in her heart. God has been so gracious to us to give us Catherine as part of our family.

Okay, enough sentimental mommy thoughts. Here's the birthday celebration.

Catherine started her birthday with breakfast at McDonald's with Daddy. She was so excited that when they got there she lifted up her arms and shouted "Praise God!"

We had a birthday party with her friends from my Mentor Mom group today. She was so excited all morning about her friends coming over to play.

Catherine with her cupcake tree--pink of course. She helped put on the sprinkles and only liked to lick the icing. She even has on a special birthday shirt that says "I love cupcakes" (well it has a heart and picture of a cupcake)

Catherine's friends and their Christmas masks they painted. I was brave (or crazy, depending on how you look at it) and had them all paint today! The only casualty was Harland's shirt. From L to R: Harland Couch, Ada Grace Church, Lilly Vaughan, Lucy Lightcap, Olivia Boyd, Olice Fisher, and Catherine. Eddie and Will were busy playing and wouldn't stand still for the picture.

Catherine's favorite birthday gift was her dress up clothes. I had gotten her a trunk of princess dresses. Jill got her the set of Princess shoes, and Aunt Wissa (Jay's sister Melissa) sent a princess purse with accessories. (and none of the 3 of us coordinated that. It just happened.) She dressed up all afternoon. In this picture she has on 2 dresses, 2 crowns, a necklace, rings, and shoes. And you can see more princess paraphanalia on the floor behind her.

For her birthday dinner tonight we went to Chick-fil-A, her restaurant of choice. The manager gave her a Chick-fil-A cow for her birthday. She was so excited! After dinner we went to see the Christmas lights at Roper Mountain Road and looked at pictures of her when she was a baby. It was a great birthday celebration!

(I have more pictures from the day, but my computer will only let me put on 4. I'll try to post a slideshow or a link to view more. I'll work on that tomorrow.)

Visit with Santa

Today we went and visited with Santa with Jill and Eddie. It was a fun time for some good memories.

Catherine actually smiled with Santa and wasn't scared. The only thing she has continually asked for from Santa is bathtub letters (the one thing Santa has yet to get!).

All 3 with Santa. Poor Santa has to be tired by the end of the day!

Will really is not a fan of this whole idea. And Catherine is a little tired of it too.

Eddie however is quite the charmer and thinks Santa is fabulous!

What we don't have are pictures of the fun from trying to feed them lunch in the busy food court and finish some Christmas shopping. Oh, the joys!! But hey, we made some memories.

Christmas Parade

We went to the Greenville Christmas parade tonight. It was lots of fun, even if it was chilly outside. Catherine's favorite part was the Chick-fil-A float that had about 6 Chick-fil-a cows on it. Will really liked the dogs from some of the rescue and humane societies. I personally enjoyed the bands. And Jay obliged us all by going. (I don't think parades are his favorite things.)

Mommy carrying both Catherine and Will

3 bundled up little girls: Catherine with her friends Abby and Abby

The best seat around to see the parade

Ho, ho, ho Merry Christmas from Santa himself

"

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

We're getting in the Christmas spirit!

Catherine helped me decorate the house some this week. She thought you were supposed to wear the Christmas stockings and kept saying, "look at my silly socks".

We went and picked out a Christmas tree today. Will loved running around and pointing to all the trees.

Catherine thought it was fun to play hide and seek there.

Thanksgiving Vacation

We had a great Thanksgiving. We spent most of Thursday at home, preparing for our time with family for the rest of the weekend. We headed to Union on Thursday afternoon to have Thanksgiving dinner with Mama Belk (my grandmother) and my aunts, uncles, and cousins. We are so thankful this year for Mama Belk and her recovery from her stroke this summer. The stroke didn't slow her down from making the turkey and dressing! It's such a blessing to continue to celebrate holidays with her.

Mama Belk was taking care of Gertrude, Catherine's doll. She is so sweet with all of her great-grandchildren.

On Thursday night after dinner, we drove down to the beach to spend the rest of the weekend with Jay's parents. This too was a huge blessing to be with them. We are so thankful for them, especially for Marcy's recovery from her surgery a few weeks ago. It was a great weekend to relax, take a few naps, and enjoy some chilly walks on the beach.

The Hatten guys: You have to keep your eyes on them or they'll get into trouble :)

Will really loved walking up and down the beach. He didn't care about the cold wind or rain. He was loving it! He's ready for next summer.

Catherine loves going for walks on the beach and looking for seashells. On this particular day, Catherine decided to really relax and wear her pajamas all day. Now that's a vacation!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! We have so much to be thankful for--family, friends, a home, food to eat, and many more blessings than we could ever deserve. Mostly this year I am thankful for God's grace and all that He has taught me in recent months. I feel like He's really been working on me this year! I know I needed it :)

Here are a few fun "Thanksgiving" pics:

Catherine's class dressed up like Indians at school on Monday for their Thanksgiving feast.
Her Indian name is "Curious Caribou".

We are always thankful for our friends, who often feel like our local family. Catherine really enjoyed having some time with her good friend Abby this week. They were dressing up like it was Summer; I guess they needed their sunglasses.

And I'm always thankful for the extra help I get around the house. Will swept and mopped today!

Even Catherine and Cornelius (the baby) helped clean. Catherine declared that this is hard work to vacuum while you hold a baby. I agree!

We hope you have a fabulous Thanksgiving. As the hymn says, "Count your blessings, name them one by one, count your blessings see what God has done..."

The Grove Park Inn

On Friday night, I surprised Jay with a date to the Grove Park Inn for dinner. Jay's favorite restaurant is there. On Friday and Saturday nights they have a buffet that fills two rooms with food. It's fantastic! We stayed at GPI for our honeymoon, so it's always been a special place to us. We had a great evening, just enjoying some time to have a conversation and do something out of the ordinary. SometimesI'm so consumed with taking care of Catherine and Will all day that I forget to do special things for Jay. He was really surprised and appreciated our night together.

And what did we do with our kids? They had a slumber party with their friends! Catherine stayed with her friend Olivia at my friend Windy's house and Will stayed at my friend Jennifer's house (just 2 doors down from Windy). They had a great time with their friends.

Will's Dump Truck

Will got a dump truck for his birthday (thanks Logan and April) that he absolutely LOVES. He pushes it around all day, toting the most random things. I often find shoes, remotes, pacis, etc in the dump truck.

Well, last night Will really christened it as a Dump Truck. (warning: potty language involved!) Right after dinner he had a poopy diaper, so I got him all changed. It was about 10 mins before bath time so I thought I would just let him crawl around all naked. He keeps getting diaper rash and time without the diaper on is supposed to help. So I thought 10 to 15 mins of bare butt time would be perfect. So he's naked and pushing his truck all around and playing. He walked by me in the kitchen and I thought, "what is all over your leg?" Then I smelled it. And then Jay and I look over and he has definitely pooped all over the floor! He was very carefree about the situation, Catherine was gagging, Jay was grossed out, and I was laughing.

I don't think I ever officially made the announcement, but Will is walking! He started taking a few steps at a time on Oct 18th. Then on November 6th, he just walked across the room and hasn't stopped since. He still gets a little wobbly at times but he's getting faster every day and now prefers walking to crawling. It's so cute to watch him waddle!

Conversations with a 2 (almost 3!) year old

I love talking with Catherine. And she apparently loves talking too. She does a lot of it. I love hearing what she thinks and how she interprets things, remembers thing, and questions things that I would never think about. I thought I'd share just a few of her fun comments from the past few days.

• She was very concerned about Mimi (Jay's mom) going to the hospital for her surgery. She didn't really understand what the surgery was for, just that Mimi had a boo-boo in her tummy. When she talked to Jay's mom on Thursday morning before she went to the hospital, she told her that if she didn't cry, maybe the doctor would give her a lollipop.
• She was also confused about the fact that Mimi was staying at the hospital. After a couple of quiet minutes of thinking about that this morning, she looked at me with the most serious look on her face and said "Does her doctor have beds there??"
• Catherine has a very caring and giving heart. She loves, loves, loves to color so she keeps coloring people pictures. These are usually Northwestern post-it notes that she scribbles on with a Sharpie. (Why do I give her a permanent Sharpie? I have no idea.) Today she took a note to her "teacher" at the gym nursery. She also colored a note to give the checkout girl at Moe's tonight. She told her that was her money and she was paying for dinner.
• In the car yesterday, she was being quiet for a few minutes and I could tell she was thinking pretty hard. She finally said, "Mama" (she now calls me Mama instead of Mommy) "Jesus is in my heart". I told her that's right and that Jesus loves her very much. Then she said, "But Jesus is in heaven right now. One day he'll come get us and we'll go to heaven too." I again told her that's right and that it will be really exciting to be with Jesus one day. Then she asked "Is he coming to get us in a school bus? I really like to ride in school buses." Who knows? Maybe Jesus will come in a school bus :)

That's just a quick snapshot of the conversations from the last 24 hours. If you want to hear more, just come hang out with her for a day. She's a fabulous girl.

New Playhouse

Catherine just got a wonderful playhouse for her birthday (many thanks Mimi and Poppop! and yes it's still a month early). It's a Little Tikes playhouse with a deck and slide attached to the side. Since we brought it home last week, all she wants to do is play outside in her house. She keeps cooking us waffles, carrots, grapes, and pancakes and is having a great time sliding and climbing. And Will loves it too, especially opening and closing the door. We're having a great time enjoying the fall weather in her new house.

We had the annual "falling of the leaves" weekend---all of the leaves seemed to fall down within 1 or 2 days and suddenly everything is covered. But don't worry, Will promised to sweep them up for me :)

Weekend in Abingdon

Jay and I spent this past weekend in Abingdon, Virginia. It's a really cute small town and was perfect for us to have some time just the 2 of us. We met Jay's parents about half way and they took Catherine and Will back to Huntington so that Jay and I could remember what it's like to just be married. We went to a movie (Fireproof--I highly recommend it), slept in, ate meals without cutting them into bite-size pieces for other people, watched football, and just enjoyed having uninterrupted conversations.

Our biggest "activity" of the weekend was a bike ride on the Viriginia Creeper Trail. They shuttle you to the top of the mountain and you can ride 17 miles down. It was a gorgeous fall day and we really enjoyed just being outside on the trails. There were lots of streams and bridges and the leaves were beautiful. It was a wonderful way to spend the weekend with my husband.