This is a book that I bought Hannah at a thrift store and she loves it. It is a rhyming story that tells you to do a bunch of various things and she loves to do the actions as the story is read to her. It really is amazing to me as I watch her grow and develop. She follows all the directions we give her now (well, most of the time) and seems to totally understand what we are saying. You have to listen closely at the end of the video to hear 3 of my favorite words from her. I love it when she says "all done," "okay," and "airplane." It is just way to cute and I feel like I could listen to her talk all day long. Someone please remind me of that when she is 2.5 and is talking my ear off!

Anyway, enjoy the video.

Christmas with the Sicklarks

We had a wonderful time with family this year as we celebrated our Savior's birth. I can't wait until Hannah is older so she can fully understand the cause for celebration. She did get more into opening presents though and she is one blessed little girl with new baby dolls, a tricycle, clothes, and other goodies!

Our Christmas tour was cut short though due to much illness in the whole Whitlark family. Both Hannah and I have ear infections presumably from flying to CA while we were both congested. Hannah has a double ear infection and thankfully mine is only in one ear. We visited doctors both the day before and after Christmas...it was lovely! So, we ended up leaving Papaw and Granny's house earlier than expected so we could get home and heal up. Mimi and Pop were scheduled to come out yesterday but they are dealing with pneumonia and the stomach virus, so it was better for them (and us) that they stay home and heal too. So, while it is a bummer that we will not get to see Pop and Mimi it might be for the better that we all quarantine ourselves for awhile. I think this is the first Christmas that I remember with so much illness, but that does not stop the celebration or the joy of the advent season!

Here are some pictures of our house somewhat decorated. Yes, there are 4 stockings, but one is for Molly...if you were wondering.

Do you like our Christmas tree? It is MUCH less hastle and work than a real one, and we happen to really like it. I love to hang up all of the Christmas cards that we receive, so here are some displayed in the dining room.

I hope you all experienced the joy of the advent season too!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

We are praying for you and yours as you celebrate the joyous occasion of Jesus's birth! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Rock a bye baby

Look at our little cutie rocking the baby! She LOVES baby dolls and has clearly figured out how to soothe them.

Christmas Tour Part 1

We returned from our quick trip to northern CA last night. The flights with Hannah were...interesting! Yesterday we left CA at 10am and returned home at 5:30pm. In that entire time Hannah slept for 10 minutes total!!!! It was no fun to say the least. She was tired and miserable, but it was worth it to see family out there for Christmas. We had a nice time staying close to home and enjoying each others company. Here are some pictures from our time there. Hannah played with a large Paddington Bear that has been around since I was a kid. It is about as big as she is and she really enjoyed him.

She also played a lot with the kitchen. Since she likes to cook so much, this was always a favorite toy.

For Christmas, we gave Josiah and Halee these fun little animal masks. Well, the boys decided to join in the fun, so below are Jason and Joey with the masks. You never thought you would see an animal with glasses huh!?!

Our Christmas dinner was wonderful and it was enjoyed by candlelight....only! The power went out about 10 minutes before dinner was served and stayed out for about 2 hours! Fun times! Thankfully all the food was already cooked so we lit as many candles as we could find and ate some great food together.

Gramma and Hannah playing with Christmas presents.

We also snapped some fun pictures of all the grand kids in matching pj's. Aren't these some cute kids! Hannah had already gone to bed in the above picture, so we got the bottom one the next day.

I was not happy AT ALL in this picture! Hannah was the only one would was not cooperating for the picture...she was not a happy camper!

We played alot with Sierra, Gramma and Grandpa's 7 month old lab. She was great fun and Hannah loved her kisses.

Of course the cat was also fun for the kids. They didn't really play with her as much as they tortured her. Poor little thing. But, thankfully Jason came to the rescue and gave her some much needed adult time. Isn't this a good picture of Jason? I really like it!

We also drove on this street 2 down from Gramma's and found this house. The whole street is decorated like this and it is really cool to see. Can you imagine the time and effort all of this takes? Anyway, we had a great early Christmas with Gramma and Grandpa! Thanks for everything Gramma and Grandpa!!!

Late night dancing

Hannah has this silly walking dance that she does when she is acting "crazy." This is usually at night, before bed, hence the crazy pj's and tussled hair. The dance is actually quite similar to cousin Bryce's so we call it the "walking dance." For some reason it cracks us up every time!

Then when she stops the "walking dance" she moves on to her regular dancing, which consists of bouncing up and down and turning around. It still makes me laugh every time I see this! Man, I love this kid!!!

See the old stroller in this video? This was the night we bought it. Little does she know in this video that she is about to get put in bed...and she would be VERY unhappy to leave her stroller. The happy dancing for a new stroller would soon come to an end! So sad!

How could we have known...

...that she would get SO much joy from a doll stroller? Let me back up and say that we bought a doll stroller at Target for Hannah with every intention of wrapping it up when we got home. But the entire time we were in the store she kept saying "troller" and when we got home she persisted. So, Jason talked me into giving it to her early and so we did. SHE LOVED IT! She could not get enough of it. That night when we put her to bed she was so sad about having to leave her stroller that she laid in bed crying (more like wailing) saying "troller" for about 5 minutes. It really was heartbreaking. To make it worse, since I was the one to put her in bed (read - I was the bad guy) she kept saying "Daddy, troller" which almost would have worked if I would not have stopped Jason. Yes, he is a sucker when it comes to things like that.

Grandmother - notice the little ginger spice doll that you gave Hannah? It rides in the stroller quite often during the day. Thanks!Anyway, over the course of 1 day the stroller was falling apart, so I returned to Target and they were nice enough to take it back. So, we ordered this one online which is a bit nicer and sturdier for Hannah. It is a staple of her day. On a side note, did you know that they have doll strollers for over $100 online?!?! Oh yes, I looked at them and they look no different than the very nice $14 we bought for Hannah. Crazy!

Family tour

We are off today to begin our 3 family Christmas tour. We are flying this afternoon to northern CA to see Gramma and Grandpa for a few days. The bonus of this leg of the trip is that my brother and his whole family are coming up for San Diego to join us for the weekend, so that will be really fun! We come back on Monday and leave again on Tues to be with Papaw and Granny in North TX for Christmas. We will leave there Thursday night and come home. We will then welcome Pop and Mimi from AL on Friday as they come in to spend an extended weekend with us at our house. We have not seen all 3 families at Christmas since our first year of marriage, so this will be great!

I don't think Hannah really has any idea of what is going on with the season of Christmas and advent, but hopefully as she gets older she will be able to understand more of the celebration of Jesus's birth. I really look forward to that as she grows too.

So, we are off for our whirlwind tour...I'm so looking forward to it!!!!!

I will leave you with a funny picture of Hannah trying on her Daddy's sunglasses. Stylin, huh!!!

Abby Cadabby

Hannah has become enchanted with Abby from Sesame Street. She has a coloring book with Abby in it that she looks at religiously. It is only about a week old, but the pages are getting worn out already. She actually says Abby really clearly and has just gone from saying "Nie" for Ernie to actually saying "Errrnie." She is getting much better at saying multi syllable words, which until now has been non existant for her. So, here is a video that shows her zeal for Abby.

Speaking of multi-syllable words, this morning we went to Walmart and as we pulled in the parking lot she said "WaMart" clear as day. Um, do you think we go there often?!?!

Everyone needs one of these

Not the rake, but the cute little one who likes to rake in the backyard! However, this one is taken, so you have to get one of your own.

Notice how all the leaves are gone too...she does a good job!!! If you noticed that the rake is upside down it is because she is mastering a new way of raking, really, you should try it some time.

Hannah received this cool art easel from Gramma for Christmas and it has been fun watching her explore it. It is nice because it has storage bins at the bottom for keeping paint and things and it holds a huge roll of paper so you can just pull down more paper when she needs more. Anyway, Hannah thinks it is pretty cool too. She is not quite tall enough to reach much of the paper so she has to get a boost, but she will grow into it quickly. It has a chalkboard on the other side, so that will provide some nice sounds for me (hear me cringe as a teacher!!!) This is why my classroom always had white boards! We will see how that goes though.

Look at those lovely scribbles...the work of a true 19 month old artist!

Christmas cuties

Kelly, Crystal, and I hung out with Hannah and Caleb the other night and took some fun pics of the kids together. After dinner and while the Cowboys played we took shots in front of the tree with Christmas jammies on. Maybe one day when they are both older they will actually cooperate for pictures, though not today!

After much work, Hannah and I finally snapped a halfway decent shot of the 2 of us. She was less than cooperative as she climbed ALL over me and clawed to get away. How old are kids when they can actually smile for the camera?!?!

Look at sweet Caleb as he posed with his suit on. How adorable is this picture? He quickly was changed into his Cowboys outfit so he could cheer on the team. Equally adorable!

After a quick trip outside to the swing we put the kids in front of the tree. Even though we didn't get a good shot of them actually looking at the camera, I thought these pictures of them were really sweet as they look at each other's presents and bows. The coordinating jammies just makes it that much better too!

And, last but certainly not least...the BEST shot of the night! For the full effect, you need to look at Caleb's face closely! I have a feeling these two are going to be a funny pair when they grow up.

To Grandmother's house we go

This past Saturday I was able to go up to my Grandmother's house for a holiday baking day. Even though Hannah loves to cook I left here home with Jason so we could actually get some good baking done without little fingers in everything. It really was fun! We made about 5 types of cookies, peppermint cloud brownies, chocolate covered pretzels, and divinity. Even with 3 of us working it took from about 9am until 4pm to make all of it! I have always thought that holiday baking was so festive and fun, so I am so glad that I had the opportunity to do it this year.

My sweet Grandmother. Thanks for letting me come over and dirty up your kitchen, it was great fun!

Just part of the cookies we made, and the peppermint cloud brownies.

White and dark chocolate covered pretzels...they turned out awesome too!

My Grandmother, her good friend Pat, and me with our cookie creations.

Look at all of these beauties. We packed all the goodies in containers and put ribbons on them. They turned out beautifully if I don't say so myself.The finished products.

I really can't wait until Hannah is old enough that we can have a baking day together. I know she would love it and love giving them away to others too. All in all, this was a really special day for me this year. Thanks Grandmother and Pat for a wonderful (and funny) day together!

It's good and bad

So, the other day I opened my front door to find this beautiful sight...My sweet husband bought me a jogging stoller for my birthday! I have been wanting one for some time now, but for some reason I could not find ANY used ones here in our area. I checked Craigslist many times and there were really not any at all. I think over the past 2 months I found 2 for sale and they were either not what we were looking for or way overpriced. So, he found one online that we could both use.

Hannah was delighted to get it because she loves her stollers and this proved no different. She was ready to put it together right away. Both Jason and I have had the chance to go jogging with it already and it really is great. It is a very different experience to try running while pushing this thing, but I am sure it is another work out in itself, so that is a good thing.

I mentioned in the title that it was both good and bad. The good part is I got an awesome jogging stroller. The only bad part is that I now need to go jogging with it!!!!

It's my own fault

I started something that maybe I should not have done...yet. Everytime I change Hannah's stinky diaper I have been saying "stinky, stinky" as I take it off. You know, you just have to keep them entertained in some way and it made her laugh, so I did it. She quickly picked up the saying and would say "tinky, tinky" as I changed her diapers from then on out. She also knows how to say diaper, well half way at least. She calls it a "per." So, about 2 days ago she grabbed at her diaper and said "per" so I acknowledged that was indeed her diaper. Then she proceeded to say "per tinky!" I checked and what do you know, but she had a "stinky." So, now my child feels the need to tell me right when she has a "per tinky." The problem with this is that she tells me AFTER it happens, so it's not like she is ready to be potty trained (nor am I ready for her to be!). Sometimes I like to live in blissful ignorance that she has a stinky diaper, that is until she walks past me and I get a whiff that shocks me back to reality. But now, she happily tells me and then expects me to do something about it.
So, until we are ready to potty train I will live with Hannah telling me all about her "tinkys" during the day. I have to say at the beginning I would have said I can't wait until she is potty trained. But you just don't realize how convenient it is to have diapers so you don't have to go running for a restroom when she says she has to go (which is probably 20 times a day). Oh well, at least it provides some laughs for me too...she is just so dang cute when she says "tinky" and covers her nose.

Make sure you check out her cute pigtails below.

Abby Cadabby

You gotta love these pigtails!!!! Hannah reminds me of Abby Cadabby from Sesame Street in these pictures. She was playing around in the car yesterday (her new favorite pastime) when I snapped these faces with my phone.

For Daddy...

Daddy,
I put this outfit on today just for you. I love you and can't wait to see you when you get home.
Love,
Hannah