Week in pictures

Our sweet week is coming to an end and we have enjoyed it thoroughly. We have LOVED having the Thompsons here this week and are so thankful for their wonderful family. We have laughed, played, and talked multiple nights well past midnight. It has been a great week!

We spent great times in the pool, which all the kids loved.
The kids had several movie times and enjoyed the theatre. Hannah missed the theatre times, but she enjoyed her new movie "Nemo" anyway.

We have A LOT of swing time since this is one of Hannah favorite things ever.

The weather this week was more than gorgeous and we spent a lot of time outside visiting which was a blast.

Sweet Allie

Hannah pretty instantly loved Allie and latched on to her very quickly. She would grab her hand and attempt to drag her everywhere...it was pretty cute. Allie was a great "big sister" to Hannah too.

Hanging out at a park in Waco.

We are all leaving for AL tomorrow morning to end our week together. We will hopefully see the Thompsons again sooner rather than later.

Thank you Thompsons for coming to hang out this week! We love you guys and are so thankful for you!

Whitlarks, out

We are currently "roughing it" at Papaw and Granny's house enjoying wonderful time with friends and family. Our friends Joey and Brooke and their 2 kids came out from Alabama on Sunday to spend a week with us. We have had a blast so far swimming, swinging, talking, watching movies, laughing, and generally enjoying good company! Tomorrow we will head back to Waco where we will stay until Friday. We will then head out for Alabama where we will stay with Jason's family for a week. We will also get to meet our sweet new nephew Dawson who was born recently.
So, the Whitlarks are out galavanting around and enjoying every moment of it!

Birthday Boy

Birthday week continues here in the Whitlark household. Today my wonderful husband turns 34! I am so blessed by this guy and thankful to God for him as well. I thought in celebration of his birthday that I should put up some fun pictures from his baby book. This is listed as his "first photograph" and certainly shows him in his wee hours of life.

Here is Jason at 3 years old. He looks pretty much like I always thought he would at that age...what a little cutie!

Here is a little birth certificate from the hospital with his little footprints below.

And here is my sweet husband now...a wonderful Daddy, a great teacher, a brother, a son, and a Godly man that I am so thankful for! Jason - Happy Birthday! I am so blessed by you and I love you so much!

2 years ago today at 1:23pm we were blessed to have Hannah Alathea join our family. She has been a joy to us since the day she got here and we are so thankful to God for her! I still fondly remember the day she was born and the rush of emotions that overtook both Jason and I. The anticipation that was leading up to that day was nothing compared to when you get to hold your child for the first time. What an amazing joy! As I think back upon those times, I am so thankful to God for this gift of a child and all that has come with it. Hannah Alathea - I am praising God for you today and your 2 full years of life. We love you dearly and are so thanful for you!
Check out this yellowed jaundiced baby! She was adorable though.

Look at these little froggy legs! That can't be comfortable!!

2 years ago today, this Mama was the happiest girl ever as I welcomed my daughter into the world.

This was one proud Daddy as he held his daughter for the first time.

This picture melts my heart and shows the tenderness that Jason has for sweet Hannah. He is a great Daddy to her and she loves him dearly,

Since she could not stay a baby forever, this little one grew and turned 1 in no time. This was her on her birthday last year enjoying some cake.

If you have followed our blog from the beginning you might remember that Hannah was fortunate enough to be born on my Dad's (Papaw's) birthday. So, the two of them share that special bond. And no, I will never be able to top that birthday gift to him. Everything I find in a store just seems to fall short. Here were Papaw and Hannah enjoying a sweet moment last year on this date.

We are excited to be able to spend today with Papaw celebrating both his and Hannah's birthdays. As we look back upon these last 2 years we are full of joy, delight, and thankfulness to God for the fullness in our lives!

So, happy birthday sweet Hannah and Papaw, we are so thankful for both of you and we love you very much!!!

Only 1 more day

I only have one more day of my baby being 1! She is no longer a baby, but I am not sure I am ready for her to be 2 either. WOW, why does all of this have to go by so quickly? I am soaking up the hugs she gives, (if you have been on the receiving end of one lately, you know what I am talking about...this kid is an amazing hugger!) the sweet kisses, the giggles, the fun toddler games, the endless list of new words, and the joy that comes with having an almost 2 year old!

2nd Birthday Party

Like I said yesterday, we had a wonderful time celebrating Hannah's 2nd birthday. We had family and good friends over for a fun little party. Of course, Hannah's favorite part was the cupcakes! I absolutely love these cupcake cakes! They are so fun and easy with no cutting required!

We all sang Happy Birthday to Hannah, which she was a bit overwhelmed by. Just check out her face as everyone sings to her...priceless! She did, however, manage to blow out the candle all by herself on the second try! I was pretty impressed!

And of course, she got the icing all over herself. The funny thing is that she took so long just eating the icing that she did not eat any of the actual cake part. She was "all done" by then.

The above picture was the normal family picture that I desired, and the below one was the one that Jason requested. Silly Daddy!

Hannah was totally disinterested in the cards, but they were all so sweet that we had to read them out loud anyway.
She dug right into the gifts and enjoyed each one!

YEAH for fun summer clothes!

Crayola Color Wonder is awesome! I had never actually used this before she got it, but it is great. It is totally mess free but allows her to color with markers. What a great idea!

Caleb even got in on the present action and started helping her unwrap gifts. I won't tell you exactly how Hannah responded, but the word "mine" was thrown out there more than I care to admit.

Jason and I got Hannah this little suitcase full of paint pens and Hannah really seemed to like it. The problem was that Caleb liked it too, and you will have to look below to see what ensued.

A bit of a grabbing fight occurred between these two...oh my! They were holding on for dear life too! I guess I need to go back and talk about loving our neighbor and sharing again...and again..and again. (Sorry for the sideways picture)

Many bubbles were blown and the swing set was in full use. I am so thankful for our little backyard and the joy that it brought the kids this weekend.

Gramma was able to come out for the party this weekend, so Hannah enjoyed her time spent with Gramma this weekend too. It was a bonus that it fell on Mother's Day weekend so we were all able to celebrate together today.

Gramma, Mama, and Hannah on Mother's Day 2009.

What a great weekend, and a great way to celebrate this sweet little one as she is about to turn 2!!! I am so blessed by her and the joy that she is to our family. We sure do love you Hannah Banana!!!

Bithday Party Galore

We had a wonderful time today with friends and family celebrating Hannah's 2nd birthday! I will take time tomorrow to post pictures of the festivities. She is one blessed little girl!!!

A "not funny" story

Hannah has started telling me (in the middle of my disciplining her) that things are "not funny." So, I will say something like "Hannah this is totally unacceptable and you are not allowed to do that" to which she will reply "not funny." I don't know why but this always makes me giggle and I have to say "you are right, it is not funny."

Well, let's just say that today, I didn't giggle...not one bit! This morning I decided to take Hannah to Kohl's so that I could buy some shirts for me. Side note - isn't it amazing that once you become a mother it is way more fun to buy your kid clothes and then you finally realize that you don't have anything decent to wear anymore. Anyway, we strolled into Kohl's and I was armed with snacks, toys, and juice for Hannah's entertainment while she sat in the cart. We did quite well for awhile and I found some nice shirts for me and so we moved onto the kids section where I was just going to check for any good deals on clothes for Hannah. Bad idea! The aisles are REALLY narrow at Kohl's and Hannah decided to take out her boredom on the clothes racks. As I strolled by a shelf with clothes neatly stacked on it, Hannah took her entire arm and sideswiped them ALL off the shelf! She probably knocked off 3 piles of 8 shirts each with one fail swoop...I was becoming irritated at this point, when she said "not funny." YEAH, tell me about it!! Anyway, I quickly picked them up and put them back on the shelf and hightailed it out of the kids section. I should have been smart and left at this point, but no, I decided to quickly run to the shoe section to look for sandals for Hannah. See, buying things for your kids gets you in trouble sometimes. Well, if I thought the clothes aisles were small, the shoe aisles were worse. So, I quickly went down a shoe aisle where I spied some sandals that I thought were cute. My fatal mistake was when I stopped for a fraction of a second to take a closer look at one pair. Hannah grabbed the bottom shoe box and took it and the 5 boxes above it to the ground. At this point, I was ticked! So, I stopped to tell her "this is totally unacceptable" to which, of course, she replied "not funny" with a smile on her face might I add. My level of impatience was skyrocketing and so was her level of fun. As I bend down to pick up the boxes and shoes off the ground, she grabbed another bottom box and took it and all the above boxes to the ground. At this point, I was so angry that I attempted to move to whole cart out of the impossibly tiny aisle but since there were boxes in the way, I was not quite quick enough. Hannah managed to get another pile of boxes down before I could get her away from the shoes. Suffice it to say, I was beside myself! We did both finally calm down so that I was able to tell her, again, that we do not act that way along with a swat. It was a miserable ending to our shopping outing....and it was "not funny" to say the least!

Praise God for grace and patience when dealing with 2 year olds, because on my own I would be undone by these moments. May His grace abound even more in these days!!!

By the way, Jason found this story to be HILARIOUS....I am not sure he would have found it to be funny if he had been the one there!

More fun pictures

Our backyard was transformed from this to a 2 year olds dream yard!
The slide was definitely not as much fun when it was just sitting on the ground. But, don't you think for just one minute that Hannah did not try it out anyway...many times.
Here were 20 of the 35,000 pieces that came in the 2 boxes.

Jason and Papaw hanging the canopies. I really just think that Papaw wanted to try out the new fort for himself!

Hananh was sure to give Papaw a BIG hug for his help in setting up her swing set. Cute!!

Typical Hannah shy pose.

One lucky girl!!!

Hannah was overcome with joy this weekend when she got her very own swingset for her birthday! Can you believe that our baby is going to be 2 in about a week and a half!!! All of the grandparents were gracious enough to purchase this swing set for Hannah for her second birthday and she could not be any happier!!!

Check out her reaction to seeing the swing set for the first time. Warning - this is a long video, but the beginning is the cutest.

Papaw came down for the weekend to help us put the swing set together, and we could not have been more thankful for his help (and his air ratchet!). I don't know if Hannah was more excited about Papaw being here or the swing set, but she was certainly wound up by the end of Sat.

On behalf of Hannah, we want to say a HUGE thank you to the grandparents for this wonderful gift! So, thank you Gramma, Grandpa, Papaw, Granny, Mimi, and Pop. I know this will bring much joy to our family for many years to come! Thanks for this amazing blessing for our sweet Hannah!!

Little fix it

Hannah saw me taking the parent push bar off of her trike the other day. She sprung into action with the screwdriver to further "fix" her bike.
She even sported the "fix it" look with the diaper showing. This is when I am thankful for her wearing a diaper.

She truly is a Clark kid!

A joyful noise

If this is not a joyful noise, I don't know what is!!!!