Pictures say a thousand words...

Okay, so I've gone a little crazy with the pictures the last few days.

It's been fun. The boys are interacting more. Oliver is crazy bossy, and Sullivan's dramatic personality is starting to creep out... our life is never boring, that's for sure!

At any rate, enjoy the pics :)

Excited about standing!



Oliver started to feel like he was losing control of the situation, so he had to step up and boss Sullivan around for a minute.
Alright, that's better :)

We pulled out the activity walker this week for Sullivan to try out. He's slowly getting the hang of it!


Okay this one is really sweet...
Seth was preparing to leave to lead worship for a camp, and Oliver was asking lots of questions about it. Seth was explaining to him a few intricacies of what it meant for him to lead these kids in worship, and after a minute, Oliver left the table where we were sitting, and we thought nothing of it. A few minutes later, I didn't hear anything, so I thought I'd go check to see what Oliver was up to. This is what I see...He's sitting on his bed reading his bible. I did not put two and two together right away - I just thought it was really cute that he was sitting by himself on his bed, intently flipping through his bible. When I came back and told Seth what he was doing, Seth realized that Oliver ran in there to do that right after Seth was explaining to him about Jesus and leading worship, etc. It's so cool to watch their brains really get this stuff!
And while Seth was gone, we had a little issue with our air conditioning...meaning it went out. Which is all fine and dandy unless you live in a part of the country that is 90 degrees with about 95% humidity. Awesome. Needless to say, Sullivan did not need clothes on for his nap :)Never fear, we were able to quickly (and inexpensively, thank goodness) get it fixed after one night at a friend's house. This week we are really appreciating having air conditioning!
Oh, and this one was fun. Yeah. So I'm getting ready for the day this morning - doing my make-up, and Sullivan wakes up from his nap. I leave him to play in his crib for a bit, but after a few minutes he starts to get bored. So I tell Oliver to go in and say hi to Sully. I hear over the monitor Oliver go in and chat with him for a minute. Then I hear no words, but some banging around. After a few seconds, I figure I better go in and see what's going on. Well, this is what was going on.
At first I was just mad, but then I realized that I really needed to get a picture, cause these are the kinds of things you hear about and just laugh. Does this look like the face of an apologetic child to you? Yeah, me neither.


Yesterday we got the chance to head over to my brother and sister-in-law's house for the boy cousins to play, and we had a great time! The 3 older boys played with the water table, and after awhile I thought I'd let Sullivan join in on the fun. Sometimes I'm a little slow to remember that he's really old enough to do this stuff!
He was loving the water.
I asked Oliver to go over by Sullivan for a picture, and this is all I got. Oh well, I'll take it.
4 boys under the age of 3...now there's trouble!
Oliver L-O-V-E-S his Uncle James. I mean loves. It's quite cute, actually :)
And I wish I didn't have to censor this pic, cause it is downright adorable!! But you can get the idea :) What's better to a 3-year-old than getting to pee naked in the yard?!?
Seth was so thoughtful while he was gone - sent me flowers and Oliver a balloon! We were so surprised to come home one day to this delivery on our front porch. What an incredible Daddy/Husband we have :)
These roses are absolutely gorgeous. And they smell as good as they look! I've been carrying them around with me from room to room so I can enjoy them wherever I'm spending time :) Thank you so much, Babe!
Yesterday I went in to check on Sullivan (confession: I can't get enough of my baby that sometimes I sneak in his room while he's sleeping just to look at him), and this is what I found:
He's just recently become more mobile in his bed. For the longest time (way after he could roll and sit up) he'd still lay in mainly the same spot I laid him in. Now he's all over the place. I love all the crazy positions they get themselves in...and that they actually can sleep in them!
And here's my big boy in his new jammies. I was realizing the other day (probably during our air conditioning outage) that all of Oliver's jammies are long sleeves and pants, and the only 2 sets that are short sleeves are size 2T and waaaaaaay to small. So, I figured we'd grab him a summer set while we were at the grocery store today. He loves them and is very proud :)

Get ready, it's gonna be a long one...

Goodness, has it really been over 2 weeks since I last posted? I know the story gets old... "I've been meaning to post for days now, but..." I have to say, the longer in between posts, the harder it is for me to post. A good lesson for myself to do it a little more regularly. Then you wouldn't have to look at 25 pictures at a time :) Oh well... enjoy the long post!

It seems a lot has happened since I last posted. Mostly with Sullivan. Big events include turning 10-months old, crawling, standing (holding onto things)...there are probably other little things, but those are the big ones. Oh and teeth. More teeth! He's got 3 right now, and we're working on the 4th. He's a trooper.

We had his 9-month well-baby checkup a few weeks ago (he was more like 9 1/2 months), and here were his stats: 20 lbs. 12 oz, and 28 inches long. Both near the 50th percentile. I forget how big his head was, but I do remember that it's in the 90th percentile :) He has lots of brains! At least that's what we like to think. He's doing well and growing up. Great sleeper (11-12 hours a night), great eater (seems like he will not follow in the picky-eater footsteps of his older brother, thank goodness!), and he continues to be a little delight to us. As he's getting older we're noticing how rough he is - I think he's gonna be a little more of a "rough and tumble" kind of boy. If you get your face close enough to him you might get whacked - don't worry, it's all out of love :) And he loves all jewelry. And chewing on anything and everything he can get his hands on. And a recent one I've noticed as he's aging... if he's up past bedtime (7pm), he becomes a bit of a bear. ("Bear" for Sullivan, anyways - which really isn't that bad.) Just whiny and needs the pacifier. Which is in contrast to his brother who seems to get more social as the night progresses (even though he does still have an early bedtime as well)....until it's actually time for bed...then sometimes a meltdown ensues...

It's fun watching him grow and learn new things - it's fun to learn what his quirks are and get to know who he is. I am still in total awe that I have children. 2 of them. 2 incredible little boys who I love so much my heart aches.... the good kind of ache....

Alrighty, on to pics! Sullivan really loves water, and here he is workin' his new sippy cup.

Oliver and I spent some time playing with his tool table the other day. It came with a bird house that you can build, so we decided to tackle that project. Here's Oliver's first attempt. It was so cute, because he meticulously put the pieces next to each other and tucked the nail in there ever so gently... cracked me up :)Then Mommy helped, and here's the final product! Oliver was proud :)
Since Sullivan has been mobile, I have the pack 'n play set up in the living room so I can put him in there if I need to go in another room for a minute to do something and not have to worry what he's finding on the floor to stick in his mouth... Oliver loves playing in there with him, and you can see that Sullivan is mesmerized with anything his big brother does :) It's super cute.
Big boy standing!And the other boy being a monkey :)
Sullivan finally figured out how to hold his own bottle. We always hold him when we feed him, but mid-feed Oliver needed my help with #2 on the potty :) So I laid Sullivan in his pack 'n play and gave him his bottle - he was happy!
Our dear friends, (and the boys' godparents) Tim and Sarah and their son, Alex, came to visit on their way through town heading to visit Sarah's parents. We had a great time seeing them and catching up!
Alex and Oliver.
Since they were in town, our old Community Group thought it'd be fun to get together at Chuck E. Cheese to catch up and play. It was great fun! It was Oliver's first time, and he definitely loved it. I'd say we'll be going back.

The Evans left on Friday, and that same day my best friend from high school Danielle and her son Asher came to visit for the afternoon! It was SO great to see them and catch up. And wouldn't you know it, I didn't get a pic of Dan and me...what was I thinking....... We enjoyed a fun afternoon together and then took all the boys to Chick-fil-a (love that place) for dinner. Thanks so much for making time to visit us on your trip, Danielle!
The other day I was thinking that Oliver was around Sullivan's age when we started putting him on the train, so I thought we'd give it a try. The boys had so much fun! I love these pics :)
Crazy boys. Man does that kid have a huge mouth :)
If you click on this picture to blow it up, you can really see Sullivan's expression and personality! He's grunting at me - trying to tell me something! Or maybe just excited... who knows. All I know is he "communicates" (by grunting in different ways) all the time these days! Too funny.

And here Sullivan is mid-crawl. He's getting around great these days!
Sorry, buddy, for the horrible angle of this picture :) It was the only way to show you his latest tooth! The one next to it is getting close to popping through as well!
Sullivan loves this music table! One of his favorite toys these days, I'd say.
Tim and Sarah brought a few birthday presents for Oliver when they came, and boy was he excited! He got a great Nemo matching game cards set, an awesome laptop (mouse included!), and a shaving kit complete with shaving cream, "razor", shaving brush, comb, and mirror. He loves it! We got in the bath to try it out - he's a regular pro :)



And lastly (for now), here is Oliver in the new outfit M'laine sent last week - too cute! Oliver especially loves that it has a "3" on the front - cause he's 3!! And a kid can never have too many flip-flops. Thank you, M'laine!