Our First Christmas

Sullivan had a wonderful first Christmas.. He is overjoyed with all his new toys and clothes. We spent the weekend at my parent's new home and then on Christmas day we headed back to Cedar Falls for Mike's parents come to visit. This Christmas seemed extra special for me. I really enjoyed my time with family and just sharing the holidays with my little Sullivan. I look forward to many more Christmas' and building our own family traditions. 

First Snow

Last night and early morning we got our first snow for the winter. Boy did we get snow!! It's reported Cedar Fall got a total of 10 inches of snow. Now, today wind gusts picked up to blow the powdery white stuff all over the place. 

It was great waking up this morning and showing Sullivan his first glimpse of snow. He didn't know what to think of it. After an hour and twenty minutes of shoveling a path with no snow plows in site. Mike decided to stay home. We didn't want to risk getting stuck in the snow with Sullivan in the car. I, on the other hand had to go into work, so a coworker picked me up along the way. 

By noon it was clear that no one was out and it was useless to stay open. So yay for me, I got to go home to see my boys. It was so great to spend some relaxing time at home. Everyone had a great day. Sull had naps and got to watch daddy shovel more snow, Mike watched ESPN, and I finished wrapping and made some Christmas goodies. 

Let's all hope the roads are clear before Saturday.......I can't wait to go home for Christmas!! 

Sullivan's first look at snow!

What our backyard looks like. Look Dad, Portly Pete is back for the winter!!

Saying Good Bye....

It's been 27 years of memories in my parent's house on Clay Street. 

My parents have lived in the same house for 30 years. We've been making memories, everything from me being brought home from the hospital, graduations of all three children, daycare with kids who are now grown up, marriages and grandbabies. On Friday this house will be sold and someone else will be making memories in it. 

Although it's bittersweet and sad to say good bye to house that hold so much meaning I am glad to see my parents in a more updated and nicer house to make new memories in. I am so happy my parents have moved, the new house is wonderful. 

Here are some photos I'd like to share, enjoy....

My last photo of the house as I said good bye last weekend.

Taken the year my brother graduated from high school in May 1994

Handprints placed in the cement floor in our garage, mine are the prints next to 1990

My dad and I hanging out in our living room. I was 6 years old

My parents' new home 

Party Hardy!!

This past weekend Mike, Sullivan and I headed home to celebrate my nephew, Landon's birthday. He turned 5 years old. I can't believe how fast time flies by. I remember always going to my sister's house after he was born. I don't think I missed a single week for the first 6 months of that boy's life!! 

Last weekend was also the first night we slept over at my parent's new house. More to come on that..... Sullivan did so great sleeping, he's actually been sleeping fantastic since we started cereal. We are so blessed to have such a happy, healthy boy! 

Here some snap shots from the party....

Mmmmm!

On Thursday, Sullivan turned 5 months old. Even though our doctor recommended to wait to start cereal until he's 6 months old, I decided to give it a try. For a while now Sullivan has been following our spoon/forks when we eat and he's been licking his little lips when we go...mmmmmm.

Thursday night I whipped up a little batch of organic rice cereal and he's been loving it ever since. He devoured his first batch like he's been doing it for months. I can't wait to try more foods. Here's our little guy eating his first few bites.

Xmas photo shoot

The weekend after Thanksgiving a friend of mine who is starting to get into photography held a mini photo shoot for Sullivan and a bunch of other little children. Dani had an indoor and outdoor set up but it was a little to cold that day for Sullivan to be outside. We stuck to the indoor location only and I think they turned out pretty good. Gotta love his facial expressions!

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5 months old

Today is Sullivan's 5 month birthday. He is growing so fast! This boy needs to slow down. I may be jumping the gun a little but tonight as he was laying on his tummy I could see him trying to push off of his feet, I think crawl is in the near future. I'm sure it won't be long. 

My apologizes

Can you believe it has been almost a month since my last post! My apologize to all my readers, family and friends. Time is flying by but I can say I am back and will resume to regular posting (I hope). 


On top of Daylight Savings messing our schedule up, I have also have more hours and a more hectic schedule at work, plus the holidays in full swing and a growing baby boy. I am trying my best and keeping up and then one thing I'm slacking in is blogging. 

Sullivan had his first Thanksgiving a couple of weeks ago. It was a wonderful time with my family. We also celebrated two of my nephews birthdays that day. Derek turned 2 and Nolan turned 6.

We are now preparing for Christmas in 23 days. Tree is up, some Christmas cookies have been made, shopping is over half done and Christmas cards were ordered tonight. It's hard to believe it's December already let alone Christmas coming with temperatures in the 50s this week. We will enjoy it while it lasts!

Sullivan is learning so much. By now he is:

• Holding his own bottle
• Screaming all the time
• Rolling over like a pro, mostly from on his right side although he can roll to his left. 
• Sleeping from 8 pm to about midnight, eating then going back to sleep until 6 or 7.
• Knows his mommy and daddy and can get scared when others hold him.
• learning on sitting on his own, slowly we've been working on this mainly we need to work on him not fling himself backwards or hunching forward to face plant himself.

4 months

Where does the time go? This kid needs to slow down because he's growing up way to fast. 

At 4 months old, Sullivan is:

• rolling over 
• sleeping about 5 hours starting at 7-7:30 at night then get up around midnight then 4 in the morning and the for the day around 6-6:30
• talking/screaming
• knows momma and daddy's voice and smiles when he hears us
• loves the sound of crunchy paper
• loves to grab his toes
• loves baths
• always has either first two fingers or first finger and thumb in the mouth
• loves his blankie and spiderman
• enjoys kicking and pushing off almost anything

Can you hear me now?

Well someone has found his voice and loves talking screaming. Check out this video of our little bellering bull.

Happy Halloween!

Sullivan's first Halloween is down in the books. We started the week of by wearing a Halloween shirt everyday leading up to the big day.

Monday

Tuesday

Halloween Day

Look out Sheriff Sull is in town. Last night I whipped up some treats for daycare. Are these the cutest?! Gotta love Pinterest.

This evening Sullivan slipped into his trick-or-treating costumes and we hit the town. Okay not really, we just walked over to our neighbors, Don and Sandy's house. No tricks but we still got some treats for mommy and daddy and took some photos. Here's our cute little banana.

Celebrating 40 with Cali Girl in town!

I have been off work since Friday. Big things happened in the Nelson household. Michael turned 40 and Michael's sister Kelly from California came to visit us and meet Sullivan. On Friday I was SUPER busy cleaning, getting groceries, picking up birthday cake and running other errands in preparation for a big weekend. 

Kelly arrived into the Des Moines airport last Thursday night and then drove to Cedar Falls last Friday. It was great seeing Kelly. Mike and I have been off  work enjoying our time with her and Mike's parents this week. We did a lot of talking, cooking, eating, shopping and more eating. Kelly was a wonderful guest and she will be missed. Hopefully when Sullivan gets older in a couple of years we can venture out to California to visit her and her two girls. 

On Sunday we celebrated a big milestone for Michael. He turned 40! I believe all four of us were awake around midnight wishing Michael a very happy birthday. We didn't do much that day except what Michael loves best, watching football. We went to church that morning, watched football all day, presents in the afternoon, dinner including yummy taco pizza at Godfathers that night, followed by the best birthday cake. I follow this blog which is so adorable and came across a lady she uses for birthday cakes. I decided to give her a try and wasn't disappointed. The cake looked fabulous, tasted oh so yummy and was very reasonably priced. We will be using her again. 

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent shopping in Waterloo and downtown Main Street in Cedar Falls. Wish I would have taken more pictures but here's what I got. Love you Kelly and we hope you had a wonderful time with us!!

 

Watch Out World!

I have been long overdue for a blog post. So much has happened to. I feel our little boy is growing too fast for us to even following. About a month ago he started rolling over from his back to his tummy. It took him way to long to show mommy. He was showing off his skills to Mike and Christi, our daycare provider. 

Then he started rolling over from his tummy to his back about two and a half weeks ago. I knew it wouldn't be long and as I suspected this morning at 6:45 when Sullivan was bright eyed, bushy tailed and happy as a clam he rolled from his back to his tummy and then from his tummy to his back and back to his tummy. Did you catch that??

On top of me being the first to see this new trick I managed to catch it on video for everyone else to see. Watch out world, Sullivan is on the move. Need to baby proof asap....

3 months old

Yesterday Sullivan turned 3 months old. Where does the time go..... This boy is growing so fast it's making me sad. Here's what Sullivan is doing at 3 months old:

• Smiling and showing off his dimples to anyone who talks to him
• Saying "who"
• Holding his head up really well, he loves the boppy
• sleeping anywhere from 4 to 7 hours straight at night before needing a feeding. On average it's 4 to 5 hours. We got 7 hours on Thursday night and it was wonderful.
• Putting his hands on the bottle when he's eating
• and here's the big one.......ROLLING OVER!

Yes this kid is already rolling from his back to his tummy. We are hoping to catch it on video soon, but you have to remember this is a stubborn little boy so we have to be sneaky.