Christmas 2011! :)

Luke wasn't able to join us for Christmas, but Carlos and I still had a great time with family to make up for it.  Here's pics of Christmas Day.

the tree with all the gifts under it :)

Carlos' stocking and Santa gift

Talking on his new phone

playing with his ABC Dino 

the kiddos were decorating sugar cookies

Carlos' Christmas loot :)

Carlos' gifts from Grandma and Papa Johnston

My/the Family gifts

my gifts from my parents

I took a lot of videos of Carlos opening his gifts, but I haven't converted them yet so I'm not sure if I'll be adding them any time soon.  All in all, we had a pretty great Christmas!  Next up- driving to GA to be with Papa again! :)

It's the most Wonderful time of the Year!

Luke's favorite pic of the 3 of us lol

Merry Christmas everyone!!  This year has flown by soo fast for us!  I love this time of year and all the feelings I get from thinking of Christmas' past and present and what the future holds for us with each passing year!  I had the opportunity to participate in my Stake's Christmas Concert this year which was so much fun!  I absolutely love singing Christmas songs!!  I was able to record most of the concert so that Luke could see it (he had to work a 15 hour shift that night) as well as family and friends that aren't here with us too.  I'll post the clip with my duet and trio on it since it's the shortest one out of the whole event (which is still almost 10 min long I think. And compared to almost an hour of video total, that's short) so you can see me doing something I love with some awesome friends :)  Just remember, it's a loooong clip so you can skip ahead if you want and I promise I won't be hurt :)

Christmas Concert (Duet & Trio) 2010 from Nicole Sullivan on Vimeo.





The week of Christmas was busy for us.  My friend Joy and I had started going to Hot Yoga the week before as a start to a New Year's resolution kind of thing.  I have developed a love/hate relationship with the practice, but I will keep going because I know it's good for me :)  We had a couple of friends over for dinner on Christmas Eve (Joy being one of them).  We drank 4 bottles of sparkling cider (have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE that stuff?  Well, I LOVE IT! ha ha), ate pecan topped sweet potatoes (Thanks to Shelly for giving me that 3rd Ward Cookbook many Christmas' ago!),  ham loaf and cheesy (funeral) potatoes too!  Everyone seemed to enjoy the food too which made me happy :)  After dinner we played a game of Settlers and a couple games on the Wii, too.  All in all it was a fun night with friends and I'm glad we got to enjoy it together :D

Christmas Day at the Sullivan Home was most wonderful and I attribute that to our sweet little boy, Carlos.  It was his first Christmas and he was so fun to watch as he opened his gifts and played with his new toys!  We recorded him opening his gifts (see clip below) and watched him play with his toys (and the wrapping paper too ha ha).  We ate breakfast first before introducing him to his gifts, but once we did all he wanted was the wrapping paper until we traded him for a toy instead.  As of right now his favorite toy to play with is the activity table Santa got him.  We forgot to show him his stocking, but retrieved the toy car from inside of it later for him.  I also forgot to turn on the lights on the tree before we opened gifts and I usually have The Forester Sisters playing softly in the background, but forgot that too.  Oh well, there's always next year.





Carlos' First Christmas from Nicole Sullivan on Vimeo.


Well, that's it for December and the end  of 2010!  Can't wait to see what 2011 has in store for us!  Love you all and see you next year! :)

my baby boy starting to walk at almost 8 months old

    

He's Home!

Luke got back yesterday afternoon! It's been wonderful to have him back! He's gotten to feel the baby kick a couple times too (which I think is super cool ha ha). I think he thought it was pretty neat too :)

We had my friend Joy take some pics of us this afternoon for our Christmas card that I will be getting mailed out hopefully tomorrow or Tues at the latest. Our Landlady came and looked at our leak in the bathroom today too (as well as the stinking dishwasher that's been on the fritz). Hopefully nothing else breaks or goes wrong! It would be great to have my dishwasher fixed before Christmas Eve since I'll be making dinner for 6 people that night...that's a lot of dishes to do. I only have to work 2 days this week! That is super exciting! Especially since Luke has the same days off as me too! I love it when that happens :)

Well, just wanted to post a little update and let everyone know that Luke got back safe! Hope everyone is ready for Christmas! Just 4 more days!

I'm off to bed now because it's waaay past my bedtime. Goodnight!

~Nicole

Just one more week

Luke has been on a TDY (Temp Deployment something or other..) in Ogden, UT for a language class for the last 2 weeks. I have been so lonely and bored without him here! BUT he comes home next Saturday!! I can't wait to have him back! Plus there's only 12 days till Christmas! We are going to do a Christmas Eve dinner at our place this year. And since I wanted to make this year special for my friend Joy, we are going to try to go "sledding" at one of the beaches here. Try being the key word in that sentence ha ha. She normally would be home in Michigan for the Holidays, but couldn't this year. She was sad that she couldn't go sledding on Christmas Eve with her family (it's a tradition for them) so I suggested that we try to do it here! It's not like real sledding with snow, but it's the best I could come up with for our situation. After that little adventure we will come back to our house and have some Eggnog smoothies (since it would be silly to have Hot Chocolate here)!

Basically I'm super excited because this is the first year I've done something like this. I wanted to do something special, since last year was pretty blah for us (didn't help that Luke was sick on Christmas morning). I think it will be so much fun to have dinner with some friends and spend time together! And I love helping friends feel special (and I'm pretty sure trying to go sledding here in Hawaii is considered special ha ha).

Oh, I almost forgot, we will be sending out Christmas Cards, but they will be a little late this year since I wanted to get a pic of Luke and I for them (and since he's not here with me till Saturday, that makes things a little difficult). We will hopefully get them mailed out before Christmas, but for sure before the New Year. Hope everyone is having fun decorating their homes for the Holidays! I know I always have fun decorating hehe :) Love you all! Later!

~Nicole