10 months with Sullivan

I am admittedly quite late posting my youngest one's monthly milestones. I figure if he is still 10 months old, then it totally counts, right?! 

He looks incredibly long in this picture! And taking these monthly photos is proving more and more challenging!

We hear from family, friends and strangers frequently how happy he looks and 95% of the time they are exactly right! There are so many things that make him so happy and he has such a pleasant nature. He isn't the most snuggly, unless he is sleepy, but with 2 energetic older siblings to keep up with, he just doesn't have much time for snuggling! His laugh and huge smile are my favorite things about him right now. Some other noteworthy facts...

-he still takes a morning and an afternoon nap 

-he blows kisses with 1 finger (so cute!)

-he waves, but only with his left hand (lefty like Daddy?)

-he still loves baby food, applesauce and yogurt, but also loves finger foods (favorites are bread, Cheerios, cheese quesadilla, pizza, other "bready" things) he doesn't seem to like the texture of fruits and veggies on his fingers yet, so I'll keep pureeing them for now

-this month he finally started crawling. It's slow and only a few scoots at a time, but enough to get him where he wants to go  

-he says mama, dada, bye, dog

-he cracks up at even the mention of a dog

-restaurants are not his thing, so we eat at home for the most part. He can only tolerate the high chair for so long at this point

-he cares nothing for his toys and only wants the things he sees brother and sister playing with 

-we had to move his crib down because he is trying to pull up and seems to be right on the brink of doing so

-his eyes are definitely changing color, but we can't quite tell to what. Some days we think green and others brown 

Just A Thursday morning

As much as we love going on adventures and seeing things, we also love an uneventful day at home where everyone can play and catch up on naps! Watching  my babies play together and be creative with their toys really are the sweetest times. I really think you learn the most about a child by just playing with/watching them play. I love watching them pretend and make voices for their animals or dolls. I love watching them learn how to work things and put things together. I love watching them learn to share and play with one another. Even though that process is frustrating and many times involves tears and time outs, it's time well spent. One of my biggest goals for our kids is that they would learn to have kind, loving, servantly (is that even a word? Well, you know what I mean!) hearts for each other. 

Quick Charlotte Trip

One perk of Sean working out of another city is us being able to tag along when he has meetings to attend. This time, we got to spend a whole day with Becca, Skylar and Reece...

Then check into the hotel and swim for a little while before grabbing a pizza and heading to the airport to watch planes take off and land. Sean and I used to love doing this before we had the kids, so it was fun to be able to take them along this time. 

Then snuggle while watching some cartoons the next morning in the hotel...

We took Sean to his meeting (not before enjoying a hotel breakfast, our favorite!) and headed to Elise's house to spend the morning with her, her sweet boys, Devan and her lovely girls. It was so sweet to have some time to catch up with mommy's "teacher friends" :) 

We spent the afternoon with Aunt Pam and Megan playing Legos, eating cookies and reading magazines (Savannah!). 

Our last stop on the way home was mom's house to celebrate Emma's 22nd birthday...

(Sorry yall, I said I wouldn't put them on FB, I didn't say I wouldn't put them on my blog ;)

Fun trip and relatively stress free, all things considered ;)

4th of July

Last weekend we got to celebrate one of our favorite holidays, 4th of July. Sean was delighted to get to smoke the meat for our dinner, I got a chance to dress the kids in matching outfits, Porter and Savannah got way too much sugar and got to stay up way too late and watch fireworks, and Sullivan had a nice, comfy bed to go to bed when he was ready, so basically it was a win for everyone! We spent the morning at home playing and getting ready for the evening. Then we went to mom's new house to celebrate with everyone. They hadn't actually moved anything in yet, so these pictures serve as a "before" set of pictures :) We had lots of great food and family/friend time. What a wonderful way to celebrate!! 

Dad's helper

My patriotic babes

Ok, this has to be one of the funniest pictures I've ever seen! 

The celebration

And still recovering at 10:30 the next morning. Party animals ;)

Preschool Science

The kids are always up for an adventure and I love science (dorky, I know!) so when this quick, easy experiment came across my Facebook newsfeed, I knew we had to do it! My eager scientists made it even more exciting! 

(And our equally excited onlookers)

First, we dropped food coloring into a container with oil and used forks to separate the drops. 

Then we put warm water into the glass jars and poured the oil/coloring mixture into the jar also. As the color drops fell to the bottom they "exploded" like fireworks. It was pretty cool. Until the end, when we ended up with glass jars full of murky, brown liquid. 

They got to experiment with mixtures and only a minimal amount of things were covered in blue food coloring. I'd call that a win ;)