Sullivan Turns One

It's been nearly a month since our little dude turned the big O-N-E. June and July have whizzed by so quickly that I feel like I've just been trying to catch my breath all summer. Lots of trips and changes have been occurring in our lives. I am thankful for all of it but phew...school will be starting before we know it. Marin will be going off to Pre-K at a different preschool. We will be working hard to get our house on the market in the spring. The holidays will be here before we know it. Good things. All good things. 

For Sullivan's birthday, we ended up postponing the party by one week because we all had been sick. I feel like we are all finally healthy. Somehow, Ryan didn't get hit with it and he's lucky. Usually we just keep passing around whatever sickness has made it into our home.

We gathered the family at the Hollen's home for our traditional Raising Cane's Chicken, baked beans, french fries, salad, fruit, and cake extravaganza. We usually do the same for Marin's birthday parties because it's affordable and delicious. I wanted to have everyone over to our house but our back porch is in need of some love and the Hollen's have a backyard oasis. 

The weather was perfect, nice and hot. Sullivan ate his chicken and french fries like a little champ, which is normal for him. After we all ate, we opened gifts for Sully and Grandpa-doo, who's birthday was on the 19th of July. Sullivan is now decked out in some cool new clothes and pjs. He also got a lot of rad toys, a puzzle, a little swimming pool, tons of books, a swing for our swing set out back, and a wagon with a canopy. I can't wait to get the pool out and use the wagon for a parade we are going to on Saturday. 

Having the birthday cake was probably his favorite part. He ended up eating it with a fork like a proper little man. He crashed into bed very quickly that night once the sugar rush ended. 

Thank you to everyone that came to celebrate Sullivan and his first year with us. We are so thankful for this little guy and I cannot imagine life without him. Happy Birthday, Sully! We love you! 

Baby Sullivan | Week Fifty Two, 1 year old!!!

Folks, we have made it. Sullivan James Hollen is officially one year old. Technically he's now 369 days old but we aren't focusing on technicalities. I was hoping to ring in this one year post with pictures from his birthday bash but unfortunately that won't be happening quite yet....

Marin picked out these birthday toys for Sullivan. 

Most of last week over his birthday the kiddos and myself were are very much under the weather. The sickness presented itself last friday and has stuck around in one form or another until today. We are still coughing a bit and our noses are still red and running. Being sick over your birthday pretty much is the worst. Being sick and having to take care of two sick kids is also pretty much the worst. But, we are slowly on the mend and have rescheduled his big birthday bash to next week. I know he probably won't remember the fact that we celebrated his big day ten days after the fact. Oh well...

He is one. He is one! Our little man, our last baby, our wonderful son is one years old now and every time I look at him lately he seems to be turning into a little boy right before my eyes. Everyday he gets longer and his pants get a little more snug. Everyday he starts babbling different sounds and little almost words. Everyday he gets a little bit more excited about food and shakes his little fists in the air in pure excitement because just loves to eat that much. Everyday he inches closer and closer to getting mobile and I'm just praying that it's sooner rather than later. He is stronger everyday. 

It's hard to believe that a year ago today we were just bringing him home from the hospital. The new baby smell and sleepless nights have slowly worn away and now I welcome any little cuddles that I may get from him because he wants to be doing something at all times and is fascinated so much by the world around him. 

Sullivan made me a boy mom and I'm sure we have many years ahead of us of peeing all over the toilet and around it, fart noises, and rough housing. Maybe he will want to play sports and pick up the guitar. Maybe he will love to read or just prefer to be outside in the mud. Maybe he will love music as much as we do, maybe not. Whatever he goes after in this life there's one thing I know for sure, I will forever be his mama and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

He's growing up so quickly and that does make me sad but at the same time I am loving seeing him grow up into the little boy that he will be. I'm thankful that we are getting past the little baby stage and into the little boy stage. This is when it starts getting really fun. We are finding our groove as a family and it's only going to get better. 

Happy Birthday, a few days late, Sullivan James Hollen. You were made to be a part of our little family and we cannot imagine living life without you! 

Here's Marin at Fifty Two Weeks! 

And for good measure...he's Sully's birth story. 

Baby Sullivan | Week Forty Eight

I can feel summer inching its way in a lot lately. Our air conditioner has been working overtime the past few days. It's been a hot, sticky kind of heat and I'm never really ready for it once it arrives. I am much more of a fall kind of gal and long for the days of hot coffee, tall boots, and falling leaves. I'm pretty basic like that but I am alright with that. Pretty much just let me live in an episode of The Gilmore Girls during the fall season. I'm set. 

This week has been filled with a few days of work, helping lead worship at church, a garage sale. Marin has lived in every Elsa dress from Frozen that she can get her hands on. I finally had to pry one of the dresses out of her arms just so I could wash it because it was nearing the point of being able to stand up on its own, covered in apple sauce, chocolate milk, and who knows what else. It was getting pretty stinky. We've been re-watching Frozen a lot lately around these parts....that and Finding Dory is a current favorite. 

I've been working with Sullivan still on crawling. We are even at the point where I have placed some puffs just out of his reach in hopes that he will just crawl to get them. The little man loves his food and what better way to get him moving than tempt him with banana puffs. He just looks at me like.."Seriously mom? Not happening. Even for a puff." He is getting there and kind of scoots a little bit, mostly in a backwards direction. It's still a process. 

He is growing at such an alarming rate. I will have a one year old in less than a month and I can hardly believe it. We just moved him up to size 5 diapers. Size 5! I'm not even sure that Marin ever wore size 5 diapers before she potty trained. He's not tiny. That's for sure. 

His new thing is splashing during bath time. It's become kind of an annoyance because we are pretty much completely soaked by the end of the bath. He shares the tub with Marin and we worked really hard at getting her to only make "little splashes." She always says..."Little splashes are okay, Sully. Just little splashes." I know this is a phase and he thinks it's the coolest thing ever but I would prefer to not be soaked by the end of bath time. I usually like bath time. It's one of my favorite times with both of the kiddos. Another work in process. 

This week has me thinking a lot about life and how it can come and go so swiftly at times. My grandfather, my mother's dad, is not doing great health wise and everyday I wake up and pray that he would be comfortable and have peace during this time. I just realized too that he has never met Sullivan and that makes my heart hurt. I think the last time I saw him was a few weeks before Sullivan was born. Visit the ones you love, spend time with them when you are able to because you might not get the chance at some point. That's resting pretty heavy on my heart today. 

Here's Marin at Week Forty Eight. 

Baby Sullivan | Week Forty Six

This week has been a doozy, one of unexpected frustrations and financial burdens. It's almost strange for me to write these words because most people don't believe what I'm saying until I show them photographic evidence of the spring storm that totaled our car. Yes, totaled...

Tuesday evening, I was driving home from work ever aware of a dark storm rolling in. I knew that I should get home before it hit and that I might not be able to go and grab that drink with my lovely friend that evening at a local brewery as planned. The sky continued to get darker and darker as I made my journey across town to our home. 

We were able to get the mom van in our single car garage. I tend to not park in there very often so we needed to move boxes and a bunch of other stuff. As the storm was starting to hit, Ryan moved the van into safety. Little did we know what would hit next. There was a lot of hail and rain. We knew Ryan's car was probably going to hit with some gnarly hail but we didn't have a garage to pull it into in time. We got the kids ready for bed, potty time, diaper changed, teeth brushed, stories read. In the course of probably about ten minutes, the storm hit hard. 

After the kids were in bed, we looked outside to a sight I wasn't expecting. Our entire street (we live in a cul-de-sac) was under water. The water was reaching up our drive way. Our neighbor's mail box was almost underwater. Ryan's car was toast. If only we had moved it up on the driveway, it would have been safe. But, our car is ruined. We vacuumed out 25 gallons of water the next day. The city had to come and haul away all of the hail. I couldn't even drive out of our street the next day...in the month of May! Our neighbor's basement has flooded. Numerous cars have been totaled. We have all been picking up the pieces this week. 

I want to cast blame to our neighbor that loves to blow all of his yard debris and leaves into the storm drain pretty much every day. That probably has a lot to do with it and it irritates me that he's already back at it with his leaf blower. The storm drain filled so quickly that it couldn't handle the storm.  But, this freak storm obviously wasn't planned. So now, we have a rental and get to go car shopping. Big bummer. It's been a crazy week. 

But, even in the midst of this situation, Sullivan is growing like crazy and is forty six weeks old. He's so close to crawling and I can't wait to write those words...it will happen soon. I know it. We are giving him lots of floor time even though he still hates it. He's close. 

Sullivan also decided that he was done nursing this week. I was not ready yet and was hoping to make it to one year, even though we were only nursing once, maybe twice a day. But, we woke up one day and he just decided that he didn't want to any longer. He's our last baby and this mama heart wasn't quite ready for this abrupt change. Luckily I had been only feeding him once or twice a day so I'm not in nearly as much pain as I was when Marin quite nursing. Now I walk around smelling like peppermint oil because it helps ease the pain. At least I smell minty fresh. My little baby is growing up so quickly. 

I'm ready for a new week. I'm not ready to go buy another car but that's what has to be done. I plan on working with Sully a lot with crawling this week. Hopefully we will get some time spent getting dirty outside in the sunshine. Hopefully there are no more freak storms. Lord willing and the creek don't rise. Literally. 

Here's Marin at week forty six. 

Baby Sullivan | Week Forty Five

I keep letting the weekend come and go before I get these posts written. We are on the home stretch....seven weeks to be exact...to when Sullivan will turn one. 12 months old. Holy cow. I did these posts for Marin as well, for all 52 weeks. After that, I let myself off the hook and only blogged occasionally. I would like to continue with our posts in some form but we shall see what they end up actually looking like. Anyhow....

This week I've really been thinking about what matters most in our lives. This is cliche...but life is short. We only have so much time here and I want to make the most of it. What that looks like for me: I'm still working on that. But, for the most part, that looks like time spent with my family and running after the things that I'm passionate about, living creatively. 

It's important to me to have a home for our children to grow up in and for us to come to as a place of rest. It's important to me to take better care of myself so I can care better for others. It's important to me to make time to be creative and live out that path in my life, the one that has been pretty silent over the past 4 years of my life. Family dinners. Getting outside and allowing our children to get messy sometimes. My clean house won't matter in the grande scheme of things. What will matter is if I experienced joy and learned something new with my children. That matters. 

Anyways...this week has been fairly normal for the most part. Marin graduated from her preschool class on Thursday and I can't believe we survived being a part of a co-op. We have to do one last clean up day and then we are done. I love that school but I didn't love the co-op requirements. Especially after my job change, it felt pretty unrealistic. Now Marin gets to enjoy the summer and it will be nice to have a break from rushing out the door twice a week to get her to school on time. She's going to a different school this fall across town and that will be even more of a rush I'm sure. Our preschool this year was pretty much across the street from our house. We are also already starting to research kindergarten because in all reality, that will be here before we know it. 

Sullivan still isn't crawling. I'm going to write those words until he starts moving. He will get it, I know he will. I'm ready now, little buddy! You can do it! He's growing leaps and bounds in every other area. He's becoming more vocal everyday. His expressions are getting super fun. He knows how to wave now. I just love him to pieces. 

I'm still nursing him once or twice a day. I nurse him early in the morning when he wakes up and sometimes again late afternoon. I'm just not ready to give it up yet. In many ways I am ready but in many ways I'm not. He is my last baby. I will never breastfeed again. That's a big deal. I know my supply has dropped a lot but for now it's our little moment once a day and I will soak it all in. My goal is one year and I want to make it. We are so close. I've already breastfed him a lot longer than I did with Marin. It's been pretty special for me. 

Here is Marin at forty five weeks.  It's crazy to me how different each child is. At this point with Marin, she was crawling everywhere and starting to say words but wasn't quite catching on to eating a lot of solid foods. Sully is the king of baby led weaning and loves food. No one child is the same and that's a good reminder. All in good time.