8 months

So, I haven't posted an update on Sullivan lately. We've been having computer issues.

My baby boy turned 8 months old recently. Has it really been that long since we picked him up from the hospital? Time sure flies through the baby years, so sad. He's changing continually.

-Has 2 bottom teeth.
-Gives high 5's.
-Started crawling the day after he turned 6 months old. Now he's a pro and very quick!
-Screams like a Mandrake. He loves to use his voice in different ways. He growls, screams, sings. It is adorable, especially when these noises come with different facial expressions.
-Saw his birthmom/family twice. He also met his birth great grandpa for the first time.
-Shakes his head "yes" and "no". It is probably just me, but I swear he knows when I ask him if he wants his ba-ba because he shakes his head yes (well, more like shakes his whole body yes) and when he doesn't want something he immediately shakes his head no.
-Waved bye-bye once. We are still working on this. When we try, he usually just laughs at us...guess we look silly.
-Watches sports with his Dad. Actually he is a complete Daddy's boy and when Jeff walks in the door from work, Sullivan is attached to him.
-He hates to sit still and is a busy baby. He also loves to watch anything moving...people walking, cars driving etc.,.
-He's cruisin a ton, he especially loves to walk around this table in a circle. And, he is starting to stand by himself for a few seconds with our prompting.


A friend of Kylee (Sullivan's birthmom)drew this portrait of Sullivan...how cool is that! He did such a good job and I really love all the detail, especially in the shirt/clothing. I am sure this photo of the real thing doesn't do it justice. What a great guy to put so much time and effort into something that Kylee will treasure and love forever.

Reunions

First, we attended a family reunion located near Clayton, Idaho.

They had an in-ground waterslide that Kamryn loved.


London was a little apprehensive and Jeff had to basically put her on the water slide.

And she hated every slow second of it!

She did warm up to it later and ended up going several times.





A cousin of mine is going to beauty school and she put some hair tinsel in the girls hair. They looked so cute, the picture doesn't do it justice!

For our second family reunion, we went camping by Lava. We had a great time making some fun memories.

I am not sure what these are called, but they sure were yummy. Slice a banana and add toppings ie: chocolate chips, marshmellows, pecans, brown sugar and so on. Then wrap in tin foil and roast over the fire.

One challange we faced was that we couldn't put Sullivan down on the ground to crawl because he'd eat the rocks. I tried laying a blanket down, but he just crawled to the edge.



Happy Camper!

We toured Chesterfield, Idaho which is an old pioneer town founded in 1880.


Some of the adults got to float the river in tubes. I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wanted to go, but ultimately decided not to do it because A. Doing activities that don't support my neck can be dangerous and painful and B. I can't breathe walking. So, I stayed behind and helped watch the kids play on a playground that was too hot to play on. The kids mostly hung out in the shade.

Sometimes I feel like I hold my husband back. When first talking about floating the river, Jeff's first reaction was "well, what about Jen?" He knew I probably wouldn't be able to go and felt bad about that and was even willing to stay behind with me. Of course I wouldn't allow that! I was just grateful that he was able to enjoy this and not be held back by my physical limitations as he normally is. I'm so lucky and blessed to have him and don't ever think that a day goes by that I don't realize this!

Here they are right before the rapids.

And, they came back drenched! Jeff had so much fun and commented on how he wished the time wasn't up so that he could go again. I definitely think this will be something he will try again soon!


The kids were so patient waiting for the adults to have fun river rafting that we treated them to the pool at Lava Hot Springs. Jeff and his brother and sister tested out the water slides to see if Kamryn would be able to go on them. During this time, I was keeping an eye on the kids in a very crowded pool. Kamryn wandered all over the place (she's good in the water, but can't "swim" just yet) and I had the most trying time seeing her and Sullivan decided he was going to be cranky. Eventually, I put Sullivan to sleep and Jeff FINALLY returned. I was slightly frustrated at this moment and yes I might have confused my husband who left his happy wife behind and returned to a not so happy wife, but it was all in the name of love for my children. I hate feeling like my children are not safe. Jeff understands that I can get stressed easily and he was such a sweetheart and made everything better, with the help of his sister Ashley. Jeff took Kamryn on the water slides quite a few times while Ashley played with London in the swimming pool. I still had to lounge outside of the pool while Sullivan slept, but still that was so much easier!

Jeff's Mom (and brother) had birthdays during the family reunion. Ashley brought along this pinata for the kids and Grandma to whack open.

Don't we look comfortable! We had the girls in their own sleeping bags on the ground and Sullivan in his car seat right beside our air mattress, though they all ended up in bed with us by dawn.

4th of July Weekend

We really didn't know what we were going to do for the weekend of the 4th. Jeff has responsibilities on Sundays that he doesn't like to miss and so with the 4th of July on a Saturday, our usual festivities almost went down the drain. We have a nice little set up... for the 4th of July we visit Jeff's family and for Halloween we visit my family. Having these holidays with the Grandparents usually free's up Christmas to ourselves...which is a must according to Jeff. And, of course, this isn't the only time we visit the Grandparents throughout the year! Anyway, so with the 4th on Saturday and staying up late to watch fireworks we initially cancelled our trip to visit Jeff's family. But, as the 4th got closer we ultimately decided to just go and come back really, really early on Sunday morning so that Jeff could attend to his duties.

It was a great decision! We arrived by noon on Friday and the festivities were non-stop. We split into two teams, boys vs. girls and went on a scavenger hunt to find the weirdest most interesting things in 3 different parts of town. The girls ended up winning with a 1/4 pound piece of beef jerky...it was HUGE!! Who would really buy that big of a piece of beef jerky. The boys got second and third place with a little yellow smiley face doll and something else I can't remember. I really thought that our random ceramic ostrich or hunter in a jar would have won, but I guess the judge thought differently. Then we ended the night by buying fireworks and playing games.

The morning of the 4th started with a rush! Jeff woke up with Sullivan so that I could sleep in and by the time I woke up we had about an hour and a half to make a quick run to Walmart (forgot to pack a few things) bathe and get 3 kiddos ready and shower and get ready myself. We made it to the parade with time to spare. The parade was quite disappointing though. They didn't throw candy this year, so people just walked up to the kids and put a piece of candy in their bags. It just isn't as fun as running out in the road and collecting as many pieces of candy as you can. I was all for the lack of sugar though!!

Poor London had a terrible view of the parade.





Then we walked through a farmers market where Jeff was suckered into buying some Jam. I whispered in his ear that I could make him some for a fraction of what he'd pay here, but he put me in my place when he whispered back that we need to support these small businesses. On the way home from the parade and farmers market, we stopped to get the kids some ice cream.



Grandma and Ashley baked some cupcakes for all the kids to decorate in red/white and blue frosting. These kinds of activities are always a success with my kids because they like to lick their fingers as they go along. Kamryn has an addiction to sugar (what kid doesn't) and her cupcakes ended up rather low on the frosting! Not to mention, she ate a few cupcakes through out the day, and her parade candy...can you imagine what she was like that night!! I don't believe that sugar makes kids hyper, but with Kamryn sugar seems to make her talk. She seriously chatted ALL night long, she wouldn't stop to breathe or get an answer to a question or listen to our comments after her stories. At first it was cute and fun, but by the time we went to watch the late night fireworks I was telling her to calm down, take a deep breath.





What 4th of July is complete without a BBQ for dinner. It was quite yummy! After dinner, we decided to get a start on our fireworks. We always buy quite a few and it takes awhile to go through them. We had barely let off a few when we were hit by a freaky summer storm that had huge balls of hail coming from the dark clouds above. We all ran inside waiting for it to pass. Jeff and Jamie ran outside in the hail for a bit...crazy boys! Then it started flooding the basement, so all that was able ran downstairs with buckets and started removing the water from the window wells. It was quite the fun storm, of course I didn't have to help with the bailing of all the water so I'm not sure that the others would have labelled it as "fun".
A double rainbow after the storm.

The storm left this cool lake in the front yard that the girls had a fun time playing in.


Look at the size of that hail!

Bailing out the window wells.

The storm passed and we were able to light all the fireworks and still make it to the big show that night.

Looks like someone has had a long day...

Summer is a Verb