Painting some more

So I missed posting about me painting the boy's bathroom and ours back in December so here are some photos of them!  I think I'm getting pretty good at the whole painting thing now:)  I also finished painting the living room last month so I'll add pics of that too.

Our Bathroom

 Carlos' Bathroom

Living room

And that's the last of the painting.  I decided that since we are moving in less than 6 months there is no need to do any more painting.  Luckily I won't have to paint it white again so at least my hard work will last after we leave. :)

oh dear

So I've been slacking again.  Sorry it's a recurring theme for me lately.  I promise to update this as soon as I can, but I will leave you with a little preview of what's to come when I do actually give a full update. :)

He LOVES cars if you couldn't tell by this clip. :)  I will start working on my update and hopefully post it soon!  Thanks for being patient. :)

11 months and counting :)

I think I've been bit by the lazy bug because it's not been easy to just sit down and write on here.  However, thanks to a gentle reminder (read: text message at 6:50 am...)  from my Dad (love you Daddy! :P ),  I am here to update you on the happenings of the Sullivan clan as of late. :)

March was spent just hanging out at home and doing nothing in particular.  We would walk to the park on Thursday mornings for Playgroup and I got to watch Carlos just run around the playground looking for trouble ha ha.  He really loves to be outside and especially loves finding sticks and leaves to play with.  I try to take him more than just for Playgroup as long as the weather is nice.

One weekend we went to the Hale Koa Hotel pool with one of Luke's friends from work and swam.  Carlos liked playing with other people's toys (which caused me to purchase our own set of beach toys so he wouldn't keep taking other people's toys).  I got a couple pics of him playing.

He didn't like being in the water much, but I couldn't blame him.  There were a lot of bigger kids there that were splashing a lot and he didn't enjoy that too much.

Lately he's been into dragging his toy bucket all around the living room and trying to dump it out if he can. One day he was trying to do just that and I helped him out.  Once the bucket was empty though he kept trying to climb into it so I just put him in and he thought that was the neatest thing ha ha.

On the 26th we attended his friend, Holden's 1st Birthday Party.  It was a Pool Party (but I didn't get any pics of us in the pool).  There was a playground next to the pool that Carlos loved playing at while we were waiting for people to show up.  He found some seed pods that rattled when you shook them.  He thought they were pretty cool. :)

April has been pretty laid back so far.  We've been cooped up in the house a lot the last week due to the monsoon like rain we have been getting (can we say Hello Spring weather?) .  I had some friends over to watch General Conference with me and needless to say it is much easier to listen to Conference when the babies are sleeping lol. :)  It was great having friends over though to enjoy such a great spiritually awesome weekend.! :D

April is one of my favorite months now.  A lot of fun people were born this month (one of them being my sweet baby boy) and it's also Autism Awareness Month too!  I hope that each and every year more and more people learn more about Autism and how to help those who have it better.  My sweet brother Logan is one smart cookie and Autism doesn't slow him down one second!  I sure love that kid.  Every time I call home and talk to him he never fails to put a smile on my face. :)  He always tells me how beautiful I am (inside and out) and is full of funny things to say!  Pretty sure I'm the luckiest big sister on the planet. :D Never a dull moment at my parents house that is for sure ha ha.

I'm in the planning phase for Carlos' birthday party right now (p.s.  I can NOT believe it's been a year already!!!  Where did my baby go??).  I'm going to be making his cake and cupcakes and I guess you could say I'm going all out with them ha ha.  It's going to be a rubber ducky themed party and I'm making a ducky cake with little duckies for the cupcakes too (I'll scan the pics from this party book I have to show you guys).  I really hope it all turns out cute because it's not cheap to get all the stuff I need to pull this off.  I wanted to do his party at the pool, but when I tried to make reservations they were booked thru July 9.....kinda doesn't work for an April 21 birthday...  So we are just doing a good old fashioned cake and ice cream at our house kind of party.  We can play Duck Duck Goose with the older kids if they want, but Carlos wouldn't know what to do other than to run around ha ha.  He's getting pretty good at that btw.  His little run is SO funny to watch!  And he has a cute little happy dance he does too.  I'll have to look and see if we have them on film and I'll post them sometime.  He's such a hoot! :)

My Mom's birthday was the 7th so we called her on Skype to wish her  Happy Birthday!  Carlos loves to talk with his Grandmas and Grandpas and it is so neat to be able to share with them just a glimpse of the sweet little boy I get to spend my days with. :)  We cannot WAIT to be closer to them!  Just 6 more months! :)

We also are very very blessed and grateful that the issues with the Federal Budget and Congress passing a Bill on it were resolved.  Not getting any income for who knows how long did not sound like a good idea at all.  If it had come to that though we are prepared with a decent savings and a small food storage and I know we would make it work with what little we had.  I'm so glad we have never lived paycheck to paycheck and that we have been building up our Savings (and will continue to do so).  I can't imagine what life would be like for that to happen and I hope we never have to experience that.  Thank goodness I have a husband who is very smart with his money and has rubbed off some of that on me so that I am much better about what I buy and when. :)  He pointed out to me the other day that we are actually classified as "Poor" due to his income (under $30,000) and I was kinda shocked.  Not shocked about the income because I knew that already, but because we really are considered poor, but you wouldn't know it by how we live and the things we have.  Living within our means feels so good!  I am totally happy being poor if this is what if feels like. :)

Anyway, hope you all are doing well and that life is kind to you!  I will try to be better about updating this, but as you can see, that lazy bug is a terrible creature. ;)

Update time! (aka Playing Catch-up with my life)

February just flew right on by and now it is 2 weeks into March!  Holy Cow!  Not too much has gone on here in the Sullivan home, besides my cute boy turning 10 months old (he'll be 11 months in a couple weeks...EEK!) and I did some more painting.

view from the living room

shoe area

wall by the stairs

Carlos learned how to climb the stairs (with supervision and assistance from his father...) and Luke surprised me with a dozen red roses on Valentine's Day (after all kinds of hints were dropped on him that flowers would be nice :D ).

he likes to try to walk up the stairs (with assistance of course)

my beautiful roses :)

 We also spent some quality family time at the Waikiki Aquarium on Feb 19 (which was neat!).  None of us had been to the Aquarium here yet and since I had a coupon for BOGOF adult admission I figured we'd better take advantage of that.  Carlos loved looking at all the fish!  It was so cute to see him try to grab at the fish as they swam by him :)

Luke just loved the Aquarium...the poop lol

We had a great time though!

Not much else happened in Feb from what I can remember.  The beginning of March didn't start so well for us though.  Carlos got his first cold on the 1st and is just now starting to recover from it.  Luke and I both got sick too, but mine only lasted for 3 days and Luke stayed home from work on Monday and Tuesday this week because he felt awful.  Hopefully we don't get sick again for a loooong time because having a sick baby is the WORST!  On a different note, I gave Carlos another haircut last night and he did much better this time than the first time back in December.  Luke and I only had to hold him still for a little bit and then he calmed down and let me cut his hair.  He looks so different with it shorter than normal, but he's still just as handsome :)  Luke told me that he thinks Carlos looks weird with short hair and I said that he looks just like him when his hair is short.  Luke took that to mean that I was telling him that HE looks weird with short hair (and I was ha ha).  Anyway I took some pics of him before and after I cut Carlos' hair so here they are.

before the haircut

after :)

playing with Papa

my goofy boys :)

Well there you have it!  I'm now up to date (so now I can slack off again, right? lol).  Hope you all had a wonderful February and that your March is the best one yet!  Hopefully I don't wait so long to update again (and hopefully Carlos doesn't get sick for over a week again any time soon).  Love you all!

baby has new shoes :)

here's the video from yesterday.  Sure do love my baby bug :)


baby has new shoes :) from Nicole Sullivan on Vimeo.

9 months old!

Has 9 months gone by already???  Seems like only yesterday we were on our way home from the hospital with Carlos in tow... Now he's not only crawling all over the place, he is walking (that's right people, walking) too!!  Where did my little baby go??  He is really into EVERYTHING he can get his hands on now ha ha.  He just loves to keep us on our toes :)  He hasn't figured out how to stand up on his own without using something to pull up on, but I'm sure he'll figure that out soon enough.  The only major issue with him walking already is that his feet are still too fat for most shoes ha ha.  I used to have to keep a pair of grippy socks in his diaper bag all the time so that he could get down and walk around when we weren't at home.  I was able to find a pair of tennis shoes last night at Wal-Mart that fit him!  I had him wear them for a little bit this morning to get used to them and took some pics and a video (which I'll post tomorrow after I get it uploaded).

my cute big boy in his new "kicks"

He has recently (as in the beginning of the month) started eating and enjoying baby food which makes his Mama VERY happy :)  He loves the orange veggies and most fruits so far, but since he broke out in hives around the 4th or 5th so we have been taking it slow in introducing foods to him again.  Speaking of hives I don't ever want to see them on my poor baby again!  They were HUGE!  We had a follow up a couple days later to make sure he was ok (which he was and still is). Here's a couple pics that we took of them on him before we took him to the clinic to get some Benadryl.

still happy, even with hives

He hasn't broken out since the above incident, but we are more aware now of what they look like and I'm monitoring his diet (and mine) better so we can possibly pinpoint the cause faster (we never figured out what caused them).  Thank goodness for Benadryl.

Anyway, here's a pic I took of him after one of our feeding sessions.

Baby Food: good to eat and makes a great hair gel too!

What a ham, huh?  We sure love him!  He also loves taking a bath!  He will stand next to Luke while he is waiting for the tub to fill up and just babble at him until his bath is ready.  Once in the tub he doesn't like to sit down to play.  He would rather stand up the goon ha ha.  His favorite thing to do is dip the toys into the water and then suck on them and then dip them again ha ha.  He sure is a nut!

action shot of him falling down onto his butt

mm tasty tub toys :)

He is "talking" more and more lately and it is so fun to watch him play and learn.  He says Mama and Dada A LOT now and loves attention from anyone who makes eye contact with him!  He makes the funniest faces and sounds too!  He is definitely a Mama's Boy.  There are pros and cons to this ha ha.  Cons being I can't leave the area without a protest from him unless Luke has thoroughly distracted him or he is in his room taking a nap (and therefore can't see me anyway).  He even gets mad at me for sitting on the couch when he's playing with his toys on the floor, but as soon as I sit on the floor with him he is all happy again the brat!  I still love him though, even if he is a stinker sometimes ha ha.  Especially when he makes faces like the one pictured below at me.

Life would be pretty dull around here without these two turkeys that's for sure ha ha. :D

We had his 9 month check up this afternoon so here are the stats:

Weight: 17 lb. 15 oz (below 5th percentile)

Height: 26 in (between 5th and 10th percentile)

Head Circumference: 45.1 cm (between 25th and 50th percentile)

So to sum up, he's short, kinda chunky (looking) and has an average sized head, but he's still healthy and that's the important thing. :)  Just gotta keep feeding him more baby foods and be better about giving him rice cereal and such.  The doc was surprised that he is walking already (we get that a lot now) and let us know that he is doing good even if he's on the small side.  Short people do great things, too!  It's not like I'm the tallest person ever (and Luke is average height, too).  He'll just take after his Uncle Dusty :)  Luckily, we didn't have to get any shots today so my baby bug is a happy bug and not a grumpy one :D

Any who, hope everyone is having an awesome month so far!  Luke will be turning 27 next Monday so that is our next exciting thing that we are looking forward to.  He doesn't want me to get him anything (no surprise there) so I'm gonna make him dinner and get him some ice cream sandwiches for his "cake" (it's the only dessert that he will eat, that or vanilla ice cream) and call it a success.  Wish he wasn't such a poop about getting gifts from people, but that means we can put that money towards something useful, like new clothes for Carlito... :D

Anyway, gotta go figure out what we are having for dinner tonight. Have a great rest of the week (and month)!  Loves to all!