Baby Sullivan | Week Forty Nine, Vacation, & Father's Day

This post is going to be a hodgepodge of many things because that is a true reflection of this past week of our lives, kind of all over the place. This past week was a good one in many ways and I write these words today with a thankful and full to the brim heart. I am so grateful for all of the people that I get to do life with. I tend to get so caught up in the day to day of changing diapers or working in Quickbooks that sometimes I forget to step back and realize that our life is seriously great. Our family is great.

Sullivan is now forty nine weeks old. We are starting to plan for his first birthday bash. He was born on July 3rd and will always pretty much share festivities with Independence Day, kind of like those kids that have birthdays at Christmas time. We were originally going to try and celebrate Sully on the fourth of July but decided to divide the two days instead, especially for his first birthday. This is a big day, one that I know he won't really remember but nonetheless I want it to be his special day. The fact that we will have a one year old son in a few short weeks is mind blowing. I hardly have any photos of him this week because we were on vacation or I was working...

Half way through this past week, Ryan started vacation. I worked Monday through Wednesday instead of my normal Tuesday through Thursday schedule. He started vacation by cutting off all of his hair. He's been growing is out for three years now. He is so handsome, man bun or no man bun. 

On Thursday, we took the kids over to the Hollen's house for two nights of slumber parties and we headed up into the mountains for some time away. We booked two nights in Blackhawk, CO. Thursday evening, we went to a concert at the best venue on the planet, i.e. Red Rocks. My favorite songwriter and musician of all time was playing and as always he didn't disappoint. Seeing Ryan Adams at Red Rocks was a bucket list concert for me and now I finally can say I have experienced it. Red Rocks is amazing but also makes me realize how out of shape I am. It's a lot of walking. Seriously pathetic but the show was amazing and the weather was amazing. Living in Colorado is pretty awesome. 

We spent the next two days in Blackhawk. We were able to actually sleep in. I don't remember the last time I really was able to do that. We had a slow breakfast in our room on the first morning. After that we had a couples massage and it was so amazing. Our friends met us up there later that day and we spent the rest of our time a the slot machines and blackjack tables. I still cannot believe it but I won pretty big on the slot machines! Like $800 on a slot machine!!! We pretty much were able to cover our trip and the money we brought with us. I enjoyed our time up there so much and it was nice to spend it with each other and with our friends. Winning some money definitely didn't hurt either. 

We came back home and picked up our kiddos. I missed them a lot while we were gone. Yes, vacation is super awesome, but not being around your kiddos kind of sucks. I kept watching the videos that the Hollen's were sending to us. They lived it up at the grandparent's house with plenty of pool time, park time, and pumpkin scones. They both took great naps after we picked them up because I'm sure they had the best time. They were wiped out. 

Today is Sunday and normally we would be at church but we decided to have a slow morning as a family since Ryan is still on vacation and I am not leading worship at church today. We woke up, gave Ryan his gift, and made pancakes with bacon and blueberries on the side. It was delicious. 

I have to give a shout out to Ryan on the Father's Day...Happy Father's Day! You are our rock and an amazing father to our children. I cannot imagine being on this journey through parenthood without you. Watching you as a father to our children has been one of the best gifts of my life. We love you very much! 

And last but certainly not least...Happy Father's Day to my dad! You taught me how to work hard in life and be there for my family no matter what. You have always been there for me, full of guidance and support through some of my darkest times and my brightest times. You have believed in me as a musician and songwriter and I know you will always be one of my biggest fans. Happy Father's Day, Dad! Thank you for being such an awesome dad and grandfather. I love you. 

Here's Marin at Week Forty Nine! 

Baby Sullivan | Week Forty Two

Sullivan has been living his best life the past few weeks. Everything is new and ready to be discovered. Family vacation was a whirlwind of fun for him as well. I'll blog about our trip to Estes shortly but for now, I wanted to to write about week 42 of Sullivan James. 

He still is not crawling. I've been trying to work with him as much as possible. We are attempting lots of tummy time, which he still really isn't a fan of. He will sit up and play for a long time but once he's on his tummy, he fusses and whines. Poor dude. If only he knew what adventures await once he is mobile. We are going to keep at it and I know one day it will click. I just don't want him to fall behind milestone wise. Crawling is also an important step in his development. Babies that skip crawling can face issues later on and I do not want to face that. He will be 10 months old next week and I'm ready for him to start moving around. It's time. 

He spent his first night out of town with us in Estes and did such a great job. I realized when we were there that he has only ever slept in the hospital when he was born and then in his crib at home. Marin has sleepovers with the grandparents fairly often, but we haven't tried that with Sullivan yet because he still wakes up pretty early to nurse. 

He slept in a pack n' play in our room where we were staying. He was pretty wiped out by the time he went down at night and slept decently well. The first night he woke up quite a bit though. He woke when I came in to go to bed. I picked him up to change his diaper and he was pretty confused as to where he was at. He realized that he wasn't at home. It was pretty cute. The second night he slept through the night without waking. 

He ate all sorts of fun stuff on the trip. He tried pizza. He had grilled cheese sandwiches and broccoli. He tried a little bit of pie. He was living it up, that's to be sure. He has been taking less and less formula and breastmilk lately. I know a lot of that has to do with how much actual food he is consuming. 

He had his first dentist appointment this week as well. He has four teeth and three more are swiftly on the way. We are now brushing his teeth as well. We found out that he has an oversized labial frenum which is an extra piece of gum flesh that comes down between the two front teeth. Once he is older, he will probably have to have it surgically cut so it doesn't cause issues later on with spacing and gum recession. It's pretty common in kids and a lot of time it causes the infant to not be able to latch well when nursing, like a tongue or lip tie. Luckily, we have had no issues with nursing from day one and I'm super thankful. 

Here's Marin at Week Forty Two. 

Baby Sullivan | Week Forty One

Week Forty One. As of today, Sullivan is 292 days old and every day with him is a new adventure. I see a new piece of the puzzle in terms of his personality and the little boy he is becoming. I'm starting to see this little boy slowly coming to the surface. Soon he will no longer be our little baby but our little boy. I try to not think about that too much because I love the age he's at but I also know that time passes so quickly and he is growing up so quickly. 

We are not planning on having any other children so this is the last era of diapers and sleepless nights, of baby giggles and teething. In many ways, I am alright with living life beyond that season but in other ways, I am slowly starting to mourn the loss of that season. I'm soaking it in while I can. I am trying to soak in the moments when I am still nursing him, in the early morning hours or right before bed time. I can feel those moments slowly falling away. 

Sullivan has been loving all food lately. He is such a good eater and I am sure that he will pretty much eat us out of house and home when he hits the teenage years. Seriously, we will buy so much food! Just yesterday for lunch he had turkey, half of a grilled cheese sandwich, peas, carrots, and a mum mum. Good gravy. The kid loves to eat! He has been slowly taking less and less breastmilk and formula. 

He's definitely working on some more teeth. His nose has been running, his cheeks have been rosy. He's been gnawing on anything he can get his hands on and drooling like crazy. I can see three more teeth, one on the bottom and two on the top, just waiting to break through. He has his first dentist appointment next week with big sis. He has gotten teeth so much earlier than Marin ever did. 

He still is not crawling, not even a little. He is not a fan of being on his tummy. He will sit and play to is his heart's content. He will stand and lean on things for an extended period of time. But crawling, not so much. I know it will happen when he's ready but I'm ready. 

Ryan is on vacation this week and I'm excited to spend some time together as a family. Since I started my new job, I feel like our weeks move so swiftly and we don't really have any days or extended periods of time to spend together as a family. We have some fun stuff planned and I am so looking forward to it. I will still be working a bit but overall, we get some time together and it's much needed. 

Here's Marin at 41 weeks. 

It's the Weekend | Number Nine

Prego belly and lots of prints. 

It's been raining again and I always love this weather. Just give me all of the coffee and we will all be okay. This week has been pretty normal in the grand scheme of things. I am no longer feeling sick from the flu from last week. Once I felt caught up in most areas of our lives, this week just carried on per usual. 

Next week, we are going on a mini-vacation up to Estes Park for a few days and I am looking so forward to just getting away and relaxing. This is the first time we are taking Marin with us to a hotel. We've been talking up the trip for weeks and she is very excited about the hotel pool. We might also take her to her first movie in a big theatre. I do wish we would have had her travel with us at a younger age, but it's better to start now than not at all. Vacation is so close and we are so ready. 

Here's where I've been clicking this week. My inner nerd is showing with one of these. There's some food posts per usual and some home stuff. I've also really been realizing how much screen time our kiddo gets and I'm not alright with it. It's too much. The girl loves Daniel Tiger with a passion and I love being able to keep my house somewhat picked up while she watches, but I also realize how bad it is to be in front of a screen too much. I'd like to change that. 

Heres are some decor worries to abandon. It's going to be ok. Your home is a process. 

Here are 6 household rules that you hated growing up but totally understand. Mom was right. 

I'm pregnant and I love food. I'd love to make this granola bark. This maple bacon grilled cheese (with Brie!!) looks amazing. Yum. 

I've been thinking a lot about maternity leave and returning to work. Here's how to win at work after maternity leave. 

Some fellow musicians have a kickstarter for their new album. These are good dudes that make great music and love Jesus. Win, win, win. 

In an effort to out myself as a total nerd, I am so excited that the X-files will be coming back to TV this fall. New episodes!! 

I need more ideas for less screen time in our house, especially ones that don't take a ton of prep. Here are 15 things to do instead of tv and 75 TV free activities for toddlers.  We played with homemade play dough at our Tot class the other day. The recipe is so easy and doesn't have anything weird in it. We will need to make this soon...

Have a great weekend! 

The Great Road Trip | Days 7 & 8

The last two days of our trip were pretty predictable. We were driving and driving......and driving. Overall, from our little home to Portland, it takes about 20 hours to get there or back. I've only driven it straight through a few times in my life and I'm fine with not trying to accomplish that feat yet again. I'm getting to old for stuff like that. All nighters and driving in the dark? No thanks. My eyes just can't handle that like they used to. (I sound old...)

Saturday morning we packed up our bags and hit the road. Our half way goal is always Twin Falls, ID. Saturday was like most days on the road except for one little thing.....It was our 6 year wedding anniversary. 6 years. I found it pretty fitting to be out on the open road the day we celebrate 6 years of marriage together. There's just something about being in a car together, just driving. You can read about our past anniversaries here, here, here. Looks like I failed to blog about it for a few of years.

These past 6 years have been incredible. I am very blessed to have a wonderful marriage. We own our home. We get to do life as parents and raise Marin. We are able to provide for each other and support one another. I cannot imagine waking up every morning and not living life with Ryan.

On our trip, we spoke of what we want the next year to look like. I am very goal-oriented, so conversations like that always get my brain going. We talked about when we would want to start trying to have another child. We talked about jobs. We talked about playing music again and how much we miss it. We talked about health. I want to be able to do life with this amazing man for a very long time.

Over the past few years, we have celebrated our anniversary with pie. It seemed only fitting to find the local Shari's and partake in a tradition while we were on the road. I had the Sour Cream Lemon pie and Ryan has the Smores pie. Add a cup of coffee and I'm set.

The rest of the trip consisted of driving, driving, and driving. We stopped at many questionable gas stations. We ate too much junk. I totally nerded out and started reading the Outlander series. I know...I know....It was very good to pull into our driveway and finally arrive home. Picking up Marin from the Grandparent's house was something we had been looking forward to all week. Marin is making sure that we don't go anywhere for a while. Next time, she's coming with us.

It is good to be back and to slowly get back into the swing of things. I need vacations like this. It helps me focus on all of the other areas of my life. Next vacation though...I want a lot less driving and a lot more beach.

The Great Road Trip | Day 5 & 6

Clearly, I am behind on my posting considering I am sitting in my living room with Geoff the cat next to me. But, I want to document our trip. The last few days were a total whirl of goodness and I don't want to forget any of it. 

After a day spent in Seaside, OR on Day 3, we hit the road for Longview, WA. Longview will always hold a dear place in my heart. I moved out there, blindly, in 2005. Back then, I was in a pretty awesome band that was heading to the northwest to record a record that pretty much no one has every heard. After we tracked our songs, I stayed in Washington. The years I spent in Longview were life-shaping. Heartbreaking. I learned more lessons than I care to count but I truly don't regret a single moment spent in the beautiful northwest. I came away from that season in my life with friendships that I still have today. So much of me wishes we all lived closer together and could just go hang out at the coffee shop all day like we used to. It was like our very own version of Cheers. We had some good times. I made some pretty big mistakes. Overall though, I am who I am 

because of this little town in the Pacific Northwest. 

Ryan and I had been wanting to be spontaneous somehow on this trip. I am calculated. I am boring most of the time and prepared for whatever comes our way. We decided that if it all fell into place, we would get tattoos done by Scott Spears at Unruly Tattoo. Eight years ago, Scott gave me my first tattoo and 3 more after that. He's a down to earth kind of guy and a great tattoo artist. All of my work from him has held up better than a few of my others. 

I didn't think it was going to happen due to scheduling, but we received a call while in Seaside that he had some availability and we decided to go for it. This was Ryan's first tattoo and my 8th. (Sorry parents....) I wanted to get something for Marin. Her name means, "Little Queen of the Sea." An anchor was fitting. It was a great experience all around and I'm so glad Ryan finally got to experience it. Getting tattoo is a pretty crazy experience in itself. 

Later that evening, we went out to our very favorite pizza place Bruno's and ended the night with some frozen yogurt with friends. I am so thankful that I was able to see everyone on this trip. My heart is full. 

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The next morning, we woke up and got ready. We drove up the hill I lived on for my first few years in Longview to the Hopkin's house. They took me in when I didn't know anyone, housed and fed me for 2 years. They are an amazing couple and I count myself very blessed to have journeyed through life with them. They live in a home that overlooks the town and the view is still as amazing as I remember it. We talked about life, prayed, ate great food. I always walk away from their home feeling encouraged. 

The afternoon was set aside for my for an activity that is good for my soul: recording music. It has been a long time, a few years actually, since I have found myself in a studio recording my own material. Life has gotten in the way. We had a baby. Everything changes after that and so does your schedule. Years back, Stephen recorded my first solo record. Now, he has a studio in his home and still records a ton of people. Our friend, Josh, also joined in on the recording and totally rocked the guitar and bass. 

I felt so alive. I love listening to a song come together, layer after layer. You write a song and for so long it sits in your brain, soaking. You hear parts here and there but until someone else come along and solidifies a line or instrument, everything is still just an interpretation. I've had a few songs that have been unrecorded for the past few years. We tracked two of them. You can listen to them below...

NOVEMBER (just me and the keys)

HONEY (full band) 

We went to bed after day 5 and my heart and soul felt like they could burst. Music wakes me up. I am so thankful for the friendship that I still have in Longview, even through all of these years. I wish we could just hang out and record music all day, everyday. 

The Great Road Trip | Day 3 & 4

The past two days have been a good blur. Full of friends, super great food, and scenic drives to the coast. Vacation is being very good to us and now we are half way through our trip. As I write this, we are sitting in our hotel room in Seaside, OR. The ocean is right outside our balcony. This is the life. This will probably be a long winded post, so prepare yourselves. 

Day 3 was our full day in the wonderful city of Portland. Aside from the weather being pretty hot, we have enjoyed ourselves. After our pretty decent breakfast at our hotel, we hopped in our car and drove downtown again. The one place we will always stop at while in Portland is Powell's Bookstore. It's a must. It's like a rite of passage when you come to the City of Roses. You have no excuse not to go to this book haven. We bought far too many books and wandered through the isles for a good chunk of time. 

Next, we perused Buffalo Exchange and didn't find a single, awesome piece of clothing. That's a first. For pretty much every thrift store we've gone to on this trip, we have left empty handed. Our wallets are ok with that I guess. 

After the thrift shop, we found the Food Truck Mecca of Portland. After debating about which two trucks to choose from, we decided on some excellent eats and were not disappointed. The first place we went was the Grilled Cheese Grill where we split The Cheesus (two grilled cheese sandwiches as buns with a hamburger and fixin's inside.) Oh my. Our second choice was The Bento Box where we had grilled chicken, brown rice, veggies, and lots of delicious sauces all tossed into a glorious box. We were told that we could go sit and eat at a park a few blocks away. It was wonderful. I'm going to have to detox my diet when I get home. So much goodness. 

We visited a dear friend at work only a block away and got coffee in Pioneer Square. I walked down memory lane so much on Day Three. 

Later that evening, we met many of our wonderful friends at no other place than The Montage. Any place that has amazing mac n' cheese is a place we will go. If you have leftovers, which you usually try to have leftovers, they mold your leftovers into foil sculptures of awesomeness. I loved sharing a meal with people I love and miss so dearly. The night ended with drinks at a pretty awesome dive bar. Good drinks and good conversation. I love this city. I love the people that I call my friends even after all of these years of not living in the northwest. 

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Day Four started with checking out of our Portland hotel and heading to the coast, Seaside, OR. The drive included everything I love about the northwest: cooler weather, lots of trees, and lots of green. We ate delicious sandwiches once we made it to Seaside. Since we weren't able to check into our hotel room until 4pm, we decided to head to Astoria, OR. 

In Astoria, we split a beer flight at Rogue on the Pier. We went to a few more thrift stores and found nothing. We walked around. We drove back to Seaside, OR and walked on the beach, getting our toes sandy and the bottom of our pants soggy. Later we had delicious gelato before finally checking in. (Do you notice a pattern...we eat. We eat a lot of great things.) 

Our room is amazing. We are right on the beach. We have a balcony and a jacuzzi tub. We are planing on ordering in this evening and relaxing since the last few days have been such a whirlwind of craziness and wonderful friends. I can't wait to take a relaxing bath later and look at the ocean. 

We are half way through our trip and I feel the insatiable need to soak it all in. We will be back to reality before we know it. I can't wait to see Marin. I can't wait to take her on a trip like this some day. 

Day 3 & 4.