Picking Beans with GREAT-Grandparents

Whit is so incredibly blessed to have 3 of his great-grandparents still living. My mom's parents, Bill and Betty, are still alive, and so is my dad's mother, Elsie. After swimming one morning this week, we visited my mom's parents with my mom, "G", to pick beans and of course, as always, let Grandmother fix Whit a snack of Sprite and cookies!  My Papa Bill has had a garden since I can remember and when my Grandmother was able, we always had fresh, canned or frozen veggies throughout the year from their back yard! Whit absolutely loves going to visit them and we try to see them at least every other week. Grandmother and Whit usually sit in the kitchen and eat their snack and then head outside to throw a white plastic ball back and forth. I'm so thankful that Whit will have memories of them and going over to their house. My great-grandfather died when I was in my early 20's and I'm so glad to have known him. Here are pictures from our adventures...

Our Little Fish

Here he is prepared and ready for the water...

 Here is Whit's favorite thing to do at the pool so far this summer...

And he's ready to do it all over again! Such a little fish!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Whit!

This past weekend we had a great time celebrating Whit's 3rd Birthday! It's so hard to believe that he's already 3 - time sure does fly when you're having fun! 

Kevin hurt his ankle after falling in a grain bin on the 17th and spent that evening in the ER. Our family tradition is to fix French Toast (Kevin's special recipe) on Birthday mornings, but since Kevin had torn some ligaments and tendons in his foot, I decided to go easier on the breakfast menu! Cinnamon rolls out of a can worked just fine and I think Whit loved them just the same!

 He loved blowing out the candle and realized quickly just how yummy it was to lick the icing from the bottom of the candle!

We got him a sea turtle t-shirt from one of my new favorite websites, Pitter Patter Art (we also got our Africa shirts there) as well as a special Day out with Thomas the Train to commemorate our day at Tweetsie!

In this picture, Whit is telling Thomas to "smile at the camera"!

The day after his Birthday, we had his "big" party at a shelter at Rich Park in Mocksville for close friends and family. It was of course Thomas/train-themed, so he had another cute t-shirt from Pitter Patter Art that had a train on it with button wheels. Laura did such a fabulous job with both of these shirts!

We all had such a great time playing on the playground beside the shelter, eating pizza, eating cake and cupcakes and opening presents!

 Kevin's parents gave Whit this cute horsey swing made out of a tire that they got at Tractor Supply, so they came over to do the honors of hooking it onto Whit's play set.

We went to my Mom's house Saturday night after the party to continue the celebration with the Hall's. We had a dual Birthday/Father's Day dinner and Whit had so much fun blowing out more candles and opening more presents!

Happy 3rd Birthday, sweet boy! We love you so very much and are so thankful for you!

Spring Catch-Up

Consider yourself warned: this will be a l-o-n-g post with lots of pictures, as I'm going to catch you up on our lives from the end of March until Whit's birthday (I'll do a separate posting for that).

After the cold and snowy Winter we had, we were so glad to see Spring come! Whit loves to go over to G's house and play on "G's playground" (the playground in her neighborhood).

He loves to swing...

and slide...

and play on the whale...

and "call Diamond" (G's next door neighbor's dog)...

and then go inside to play with a few of Papa's trains (Papa asked for these for Christmas so he could play trains with the grandchildren)!

We celebrated Mother's Day at Saratoga with my Mom and Grandmother and then went on to Granddaddy and Nanny's house to give Nanny her gift. We finished up the day at Anna & Todd's celebrating Mother's Day with Kevin's Mom (Nana). 

 Whit also had his end-of-year programs at both Hillsdale Baptist Preschool and Bethlehem United Methodist Preschool. The Bethlehem program was while we were in Africa, but Tammy Gi-Gi was good to take a few pics for us!

And speaking of Africa, while we were gone (May 22-May 31) Whit did a WONDERFUL job with Tammy Gi-Gi! He sported his Africa shirt often while we were gone and she took pictures of him daily. She said he would tell people that "Mommy & Daddy went on an airplane with Jesus to Africa to tell the children that Jesus loves them." How sweet!

We headed on our first Tweetsie adventure of the season in mid-May. Whit didn't want to ride the train (likely because they had to switch engines while we were in line and blew the horn no less than 100 times while doing so!) but loved the deer park and of course, drinking Sprite - a real treat! Ha!

We celebrated Father's Day with dinner at G's house Saturday night, then a lazy Sunday morning, lunch with my dad at Mi Pueblo and dinner with Kevin's dad at his sister's house.

We had some other random fun times this spring, like when Whit came into the den from my bathroom and told me that he had on "Mommy's hat"!

We also had fun eating doughnuts and playing with Sanna at one of our favorites, Krispy Kreme!

We had some fun riding our gator with cousin, J.T.

And even wore some cute smocked outfits. Daddy says this is the last summer Mommy can get away with cute smocked jon-jons. :(

We spent a Day with Thomas at Tweetsie in mid-June and Whit had an absolute blast.

It's amazing what a few months difference can make - Whit LOVED riding on Thomas and even loved it when Thomas blew his whistle! Below is a "classic" Whit face that he made when he heard the whistle.

Whit loved getting a James train tattoo (that he called a "stamp")

We rode the merry-go-round (although Whit wanted to ride on the bench instead of a horse?)

We also met Sir Topam Hatt

And Whit had his picture taken beside of an Emily train picture - Emily is one of his favorites because he has a cousin named Emily!

Whit gave one of the "conductors" all of his pacifiers in a baggie (see pic above). We had talked about this all week and he was actually really excited to give them to Thomas. Whit likes to tell people that he gave Thomas his pacis so that Thomas could take them back to the Island of Sodor to give to all of the babies there. In return for giving him the pacis, "Thomas" gave Whit a new Henry train and a t-shirt from our Day Out with Thomas at Tweetsie! Being without a paci has gone so much better than I ever imagined! He hasn't missed a minute of sleep due to not having his paci! If only every transition could be that easy!

What a great Spring!