My baby is growing up!!!

As the saying goes, "Time flies by when you're having fun," .... well that's the way I feel these days when it comes to Will! He's been learning so many new things lately and it's amazing to see it all unfold right before our eyes! He got a bike for Christmas from Santa and has been learning to ride it and if I do say so myself, has done a wonderful job and is so proud of himself:



We've continued to work very hard with the potty training and I believe I can say that he is fully trained and we are so very excited about that! Over the Christmas holidays Will out of the blue one day said to me, "I'm not going to wear my pull-ups tonight," so I told him that he'd have to wear them that night and we'd get him a mattress pad for his bed the next day. Elizabeth and Emma came over for the day the next day and hung out and we ran a few errands so while we were out I ran into the store and got the mattress pad. Every night since then (around the 1st of January) he's been dry!!! He's so proud of himself for this achievement also! Every once in a while we'll take him to the store still and let him pick out a toy and tell him it's for doing so well with staying dry at night so this is quite the incentive for him! :)

We keep working on colors, letters, numbers, etc. with Will and he continues to amaze us with all that he knows and continues to learn every day! I know he's my child and I don't brag on him very often but he's a pretty smart kid if I do say so myself!

Will loves to sing and loves learning new songs...my mom said he reminds her of me when I was little because he picks up a tune with no difficulty whatsoever! Lately we've been listening to some Bible Songs CD's that I had bought for Will a couple of years ago - he calls them his Jesus songs and tells me he wants to hear his Jesus music - it's so cute! He loves music so much!

He's quite the little athlete too - we'll see what becomes of his skills as he gets older! We would love to see him play some sports but we'll leave that up to him as the years go by - I don't want to be a parent that pushes something on my child that they really don't have a love for or don't want to put the heart into it! I want him to be able to make some decisions like this on his own one day! His favorite sport right now is football and most importantly....CLEMSON FOOTBALL!!! He comes home every day and puts on his uniform and wants to play football with daddy!

I could go on and on about him but I just wanted to "touch" on a few BIG things that had been happening lately around the Papp household! As I said before I'm happy to see Will growing up but somewhat sad at the same time....before we know it he'll be in kindergarten!!!

Will and Emma and the fun they have together!

Elizabeth and Ben went to Gatlinburg, Tennesse from January 22nd through January 25th - it was their Christmas gift to each other....my parents kept Emma for the weekend and since Rick was going away on a trip also, Will and I decided to go and help out and boy were my parents happy about that! I've been pretty sick lately with some nasty cold thing so I was only so much help but it was nice to have Will there to help entertain Emma because she loves him so much! They had so much fun with each other; dressing up as Batman and as football players and playing football, watching movies, swinging together in the new swing, riding bikes, feeding the birds and I'm sure their was much more but can't remember it all! They had a "sleep over" the whole weekend and were very excited about this - didn't go so well the first night but much better the second one. We're trying to get in some practice before Bryson arrives and the beach trip with the family because I believe Emma will be sharing a room with us at the beach this year so Bryson want wake her up at night! :) It should be interesting! The took baths together and had so much fun playing around with each other. We made pancakes for them which they loved! The two of them love each other so much and I'm so glad that they have such a wonderful relationship with each other and I hope that it continues for many years to come! I love that we live so close to each other and are able to give them so much time together and give them so many opportunities to make these wonderful memories!

First Snow of 2009

Well....we had our first snow of 2009 on 1/20/09 and in South Carolina any little bit of snow creates chaos and closes down schools and businesses or at least gives delays! :) It's nice for those of us that work but it's still funny to think about things shutting down for such little snow! :) I had a 2 hour delay that morning so we got Will up that morning and took him out to play for a little while in the snow while it lasted! He and Rick threw a few snowballs at each other and built a snowman - not real big but it was his first snowman! :) He was excited to see the snow and so were we even if it wasn't much! Maybe we'll get some more this year but I'm not very hopeful! :) We'll see what happens in the future! At least I can wish for a miracle!

Will's 3 year Pictures

Feeding the Birds with Daddy-Mo

These are just some pictures of Will feeding the birds with Daddy-Mo (my dad) - Will saw that my dad was going to put bird seed in the houses and just had to help! He was so excited to get to be helping out and spending some one on one time with my dad!

Emma Turns TWO!!!

Emma had her birthday party on 1/10/09 and had a SAFARI THEME for her party - everything was so cute! Elizabeth worked really hard at getting everything just right; she had Rick draw animals on a board in which she and Ben painted and cut holes and made a bean bag toss game out of which was absolutely wonderful, she had little animal sippy cups, animal crafts and much more for the children and they had so much fun! Emma has some wonderful family and friends and they were all there for her special day and she was so excited to have everyone there with her! She kept going around saying "I'm two" to everyone - it was so cute! Rick, Will and I had called her on her actual birthday to wish her a Happy Birthday and she talked and talked and talked and told us all about how old she was! When it came to opening gifts Emma got a little overwhelmed at first; the first gift she opened was a package with two baby dolls with accessories and a double stroller....needless to say she wanted to open that one right then and Elizabeth had to take it away to open up other gifts so Emma had a little meltdown for a minute! :) It's obviously hard for children to have to open up gifts and not be able to play with them right away especially at such a young age! She got better as the gift opening continued though! We waited until everyone left and let her open up the families gifts and to give her a break for a little while...definitely a good idea! My parents got her a polka-dot rain coat and Hello Kitty Rainboots which she absolutely loved and they had also gotten some frog rain boots for Will so of course they had to try them on together and play in them! We got Emma some pretend food for her kitchen set that she got for Christmas and a Barbie Beach Cruiser Car and Beach Barbie doll - she was very thrilled about the Barbie and car - glad that we went with this one! Everything was wonderful and I can believe my little niece, EMMA, is TWO now! HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMA!!!

Trip to Riverbanks Zoo - 12/30/08

We have a membership with the Riverbanks Zoo so while Rick was out of town on 12/30/08 I took Will to the zoo for the day - this is something that he loves to do because he loves the animals so much!!! He especially wanted to feed the cow this time which he was able to do and he was so excited about it! We were able to see the Tiger out that day and got a video of it also for Rick because it seems like every time he goes to the zoo with us he never gets to see the Tigers! It was a cooler day so many of the animals were actually out and about so it was a great day that we picked to go to the zoo! We went to the store while we were there and picked out a shirt for Will with Tigers on it - no surprise! :) As we were walking out of the zoo there was "snow" falling - it was the last night of Christmas Lights at the zoo so they had the snow machine going - Will had fun for a few minutes playing in the snow! I look forward to a little warmer weather again so we can make another trip to see the animals together!

2008 Christmas

This past Christmas (2008) was a whirlwind of fun-filled events. We started with heading to Rock Hill on Christmas Eve day to my mother's house and hung out for a little while and then headed to our church for the Christmas Eve service which was absolutely amazing as always!!! It was a little more eventful because we had Will and Emma in there with us this year (I decided that Will was old enough and would really enjoy the music and Emma was sick so Elizabeth decided to bring her in with us also) and Emma decided to come down the pew to sit with Rick, Will and myself and Will and Emma sure did have some fun together! After the service was over we headed back to my mom's house for dinner with the family. We had a birthday cake for Jesus which Will and Emma were so excited about when they saw it and got to blow out the candles! We want to make sure that Will knows the real meaning of Christmas and know that this is the real reason behind the celebration during the holidays. Santa Claus and gift giving of course is a lot of fun too! After dinner and cake my grandparents gave Will and Emma a gift (this is something that they used to do for all of us on Christmas Eve and wanted to do this for Will and Emma now): Will got a Spiderman bike helmet, which he was very excited about and Emma got a Princess tea set! A little while after this the phone rang and it was a phone call for Will and Emma from Santa Claus (my dad started doing this last year for Will and Emma and this was something that my dad and uncle did for myself, brother and sister and cousins years ago when we were young - a tradition that we loved and am so glad that it's being passed onto our children now!) and they were so thrilled to get to talk with him!!! Later in the evening Rick, myself and Will headed back to Blythewood for the evening and put Will to bed because we knew the next day was going to be a busy one for all of us!

Christmas morning came early (about 6:00 am) for us and we had a blast! Will got a bike, trampoline, fish tank and fish and CARS vehicles plus a few other things from Santa this year and was so happy about it all! He was a little upset when he saw that Santa didn't get him MAC from the movie CARS - it was the one thing that he asked for from Santa - little did he know that his uncle Kent had gotten it for him! :) I got Rick a digital camera so he'd have it for his trips that he takes with work, a Tom Tom so he could use while he's away on trips....seems to be a pattern here! :) I also got him a book called, Survive by Les Stroud, that he'd been wanting. He was very excited about everything! Rick got me a digital photo frame, which I absolutely love and a special pancake pan, which we've already used and it's wonderful!!! We had a wonderful morning together!

After we were done with our gift exchanges we got dressed, packed up the car and headed up to Rock Hill for the weekend! We went to my parents first and exchanged gifts with everyone and had a wonderful time just being together with everyone! After we hung out for a while at my parents we headed to Rick's parents and followed them out to his aunt Kathy's and uncle Rob's house for dinner which was delicious! It was nice to see everyone and enjoy the time together! We headed back to Rick's parents after dinner and opened gifts with them - they gave us some wonderful gifts as they always do! We spent the night with them that evening and the next morning got up and ate pancakes and played around for a while and then headed over to my parents for the day. We played around there for a while and then headed to Fort Mill that evening for dinner at my aunt and uncle's house. After leaving Fort Mill we headed back to my parents to spend the night.

Sunday we headed to church with everyone and then went back to my parents for lunch and spent a while letting Will and Emma play together and just enjoyed some more time together with everyone! We left later in the day and went back to Rick's parent's house to see them for a little while and packed up everything and headed home!

As much as I always hate leaving everyone it was very nice to get back home too!

It was so nice to have spread out all of these "events" over a couple of days because we didn't feel quite as rushed doing it this way and were really able to enjoy our time together with family!

I know that we had a an AMAZING Christmas and hope that everyone else did too!

These are some extra special pictures that I wasn't able to get a picture of on Christmas Eve but Elizabeth shared the ones that she took with me - it's the pictures of Will and Emma singing "Happy Birthday" to baby Jesus blowing out the candles to the birthday cake that my mom baked especially for baby Jesus - I cannot express in words how excited they were about this and these pictures make me smile every time I see them.

2008 Cookies for Santa

Will and Rick helped me make cookies for Santa Claus this year and if I do have to say so myself, they turned out very nicely! Will was so excited to actually be able to help me out with making the cookies this year - he had so much fun! Will decided he wanted sprinkles on them this year so we had many different types of sprinkles that we used to cover the cookies! The cookies were delicious! This is another tradition that I've tried to start with the family because it's one that we all can have fun with doing it together!

Will's School Christmas Program - 12/19/08

Will's school held their first ever school Christmas Program this year and there was a wonderful turn-out from all of the families and friends. The children all did an amazing job performing their "numbers." When Will's class came out to perform their song Will kept standing there looking around the room for us and as soon as he saw us he starting smiling and ringing his little bell! He was so excited to have us there - my mom, dad and Emma came to watch so that made it an extra special treat for him! Emma was so happy to be there watching her "Woo" that evening! All the children got a special treat at the end of the program - SANTA came for a visit and brought them all candy canes!!! It was nice to see all the hard work that was put into this Christmas program by all of the teachers, staff and volunteers....they did an AMAZING job!!!

2008 Christmas Tree Decorating

As always we had a lot of fun decorating our Christmas Tree this year. Will was actually a very good little helper and did a lot of work on the tree this year! So far we think this was the best tree yet!!!

2008 Train Ride With Santa - 12/6/08

Allison and myself took Jackson and Will on the train ride again on 12/6/08 and they once again had a blast! They actually had some time before the train ride to go "exploring" on the stationary trains at the South Carolina Railroad Museum - it's amazing to see how small they are beside the trains! While we were waiting for our train ride we decided to go take a look in the store at the museum and Will picked out a Thomas the Train book while we were there that day and his very first train shirt from the museum - he was so happy about buying the shirt even though it was a little large....so excited that he made me put it on him before the train ride started! They had fun playing together during the train ride, checking out all of the scenery (especially the planes and helicopters at the airport) during the ride and got very excited when Santa came onto the train car to see them - you wouldn't know if by the looks on their faces in the pictures but they were very happy to see Santa! They love this train ride and look forward to doing this every year - it's a tradition that I'm glad we started with them because it means so much to them!

Clemson vs. USC - 11/29/08

We actually had an "adult day" at the Clemson vs. USC game this year and it was so nice to not have to keep up with children for the day! Don't get me wrong....I love taking Will to the games but it's a lot of work so it was a nice change and it was nice to be able to have Rick come to one of the games since he doesn't get to go to many! The day was a little dreary but at least it wasn't hot like the usual games that we attended during the season! We didn't really care about the weather by the end of the game because we pulled out another "W" against the Gamecocks with a score of 31 to 14! It was great!

2008 Thanksgiving

We spent the day in Lancaster, South Carolina for Thanksgiving and had a wonderful time hanging out with the family. We took a short walk in the woods at my Pa's house on his land in the morning and let Will and Emma play in the leaves and walk the railroad tracks...they had so much fun! We headed over to my grandparents after hanging out for a while at Pa's house and had a delicious meal like we always do! We then headed outdoors for Will and Emma and some of the "big" kids to play some football. After we left my grandparents we headed on to spend time with Rick's side of the family for the rest of the evening and had a wonderful evening with everyone! I'm so glad that both of our families live so close together and appreciate the importance of being together with family!

Clemson vs. Duke - 11/15/08

Well we pulled out another "W" against Duke this year for our Homecoming weekend. The final score was 31 - 7! As always we had so much fun hanging out with each other and enjoying such a lovely day! Years ago we used to walk around campus and look at all of the Homecoming displays but didn't get a chance to do this this year so I took pictures from the car.