what we're reading...

Aaron, The dream manager. Jaimie, Real Simple magazine... (my new subscription that I'm so excited about from my sister, Thanks Jenna!!!) Dallon, 39 Clues. Dawson, Skippyjon Jones. Easton, Curious George at the zoo.Dallon has been wanting to read this book. It's pretty popular with the kids his age. We made a deal today that if he'd work real hard for an hour for me in the house, then I'd swing him by Barnes and Noble and he could get it. It's fun to see him all curled up with a blanket on the sofa tonight excited about a good book. By the way, he kicked butt cleaning. That kid can work real hard and the two of us got so much done in that time. Good deal for me too!

Look who's standing...

No Hands! Easton has been pulling up to stand, and cruising around for several months along the side of the couch, cupboards, etc. But now, he is balancing on his own and can stand for quite a while. We are so proud of him and we always cheer him along. He's tried to take a few steps and I'm sure it won't be long until he's walking. We'll let you know when that happens.

Easton had his one year checkup. He got lots of shots. It was so sad. He is healthy and happy though. What a blessing. He weighs 25 pounds 7 ounces (80th percentile). He is 30 inches tall (50th percentile). His head is 29 cm (95th percentile). I stopped breast feeding him this week.... soooo sad for us both. He is doing good with it and has taken to the sippy cup.

Easton's one year old pictures

Here are a couple of my favorite pics I took of Easton for his first birthday. It is so much fun for me to take pics of my little guy... I just can't get enough of him. If you want to see more of these pics you can find them on my photography blog. There are tons there.

a picture of dad

Dawson is so proud of this one. He drew this picture of his Dad. He was so excited and said... "Look, I did his nose perfect this time."

Happy Birthday Easton!

We have a birthday boy here at our house this week. On December 28th we celebrated Easton's first birthday. We had a Curious George themed birthday party. This picture at the top might be my favorite from the party. I just thought it was so cute watching Dallon and Dawson present the cake to him and seeing them sing happy birthday to their baby brother!

Here's the cake! We are all pretty proud of this one... because it was totally a family effort. Never before have we all had a hand in making a birthday cake. First of all, I really wanted to make a Curious George cake. But there aren't any shaped pans you can buy and I searched the web and found nothing. So, I told Dallon of my problem. That I needed to find a picture of Curious George that I could use as my outline for the cake or we'd just have to have some other kind of party. Within minutes, my little artist brought me this picture below. I loved it... it was perfect. I started to believe that with his awesome drawing and my cake decorating we could actually pull it off. Dawson baked the cakes with me the night before. Aaron is the one who used Dallon's drawing to carve out the shape in the cake, he cut it exactly how it was drawn, size and all. And I did all of the frosting. It was really fun doing it as a family for Easton. Everyone felt so proud of their part in it!

Easton liked the party hats! He wore it the whole time. He ate a little cake. Mostly, he was into making messes. He started making a game out of trying to wipe frosting fingers on Dawson. I think Dawson may have ended up dirtier than the birthday boy!

Easton and Curious George in the birthday boy chair! Dawson, Dallon and Dad did the decorations for the party and they did such a great job! I love it!

We gave him the two toys in these pics. The Curious George stuffed animal was by far his favorite! We were all so shocked by Easton's reaction to him. He pulled him out of the box and hugged him, layed on him, rolled over with him, hugged him again... etc. It was the cutest thing we'd ever seen. It was like there was an instant bond between them. He loves Curious George. It really was the perfect party for our baby boy. I still can't believe his is already one.

he's not too popular tonight...

Well, tonight Easton's popularity ranking with his two older brothers went down the toilet... or should we say down the drain. He was taking a bath with Dawson. I turned my back for a few minutes just cleaning up the bathroom. Dawson yelled... "Mom, Easton pooped!!!" Dawson was outta that bath so fast. The funny thing is...  when Dawson jumped out and made such a fuss... Easton stood up, looked at him, and broke out into laughter!  I moved Dawson to the master shower and got it cleaned up with Dallon's assistance,  but both Dallon and Dawson couldn't have been more discusted with Easton. I don't know if poor Easton will ever find a bath partner again.  

Christmas Morning

Our kids started waking us at 3:45 am this year... talk about Christmas spirit! We managed to hold them off until 6 am because of baby brother. But at six we were up and celebrating. Santa was good to us. The kids favorite things they got were... Dallon a PSP, Dawson loved his Iron Man, and Easton got a sock monkey. We spent the day at home just hanging out and playing. I am so thankful for my family.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve the kids woke Aaron and I early! Yes... that's right. Christmas eve? Who does that? Well our kids didn't want us sleeping in on christmas eve. Too much fun to be had. Dallon and Dawson started the day off practing how fast they could run down the stairs for Christmas morning. Once they felt they had that mastered we made cookies for Santa. The whole day was fun and full of family traditions. We had waffles for dinner. Dawson helped make them this year. I've eaten waffles for dinner my whole life... this tradition goes waaaaaaaay back. Then we decorated stockings... another Sullivan family tradition. We had lots of extra christmas cards left this year, so I was in a hurry and decided to slap a family pic down on my stocking... others ideas came from that and before we knew it everyone was using the family pic in some way on their stockings. Dawson's head is riding a reindeer. Easton's head is in the star on top of the tree. Dallon made a funny face on all of us by giving me a mustach, Easton glasses, Aaron wacky hair, and Dawson a beard, nothing on Dallon's face of course. Aaron had us all riding in santa's sleigh... his was my favorite. (Aaron has a special stocking decorating talent) The kids were so excited for their favorite part of the night... the christmas eve present. They all opened pajama's. The bottom pic is them all in their pajama's. Easton's have sock monkey's on them, Dawson's are cowboy... and he kept saying "next time we go to Mammy's and Pappy's I'm taking these", and Dallon's were sports pj's. We hung out and Dallon read Twas The Night Before Christmas to all of us.

fun with gingerbread

For family home evening tonight we decorated a gingerbread sleigh and reindeer, and a train. We always decorate gingerbread houses each year but this year decided to do something a little different. Dawson's is the train and Dad helped him on it. Dallon's is Santa's sleigh and he and I did that together. I was very busy also holding Easton so it was mostly Dallon. They both turned out cute. It was a fun change.

first night of BMX bike racing

Dallon and Dawson have wanted to do bmx bike racing for years. When we first moved here they discovered the tracks. We live right by them. They have been interested in it because of watching Daddy's home video's of his old bike racing days when he was a kid. Aaron and his sister Melissa raced for years. (I'm sure I'll cover that a little more in another post.) Anyway, this was at their very first practice. Both of the boys did great and had a fun time. As you can see in the third picture, the hills are pretty steep and Dawson didn't quite make it up his first time around. If you know Dawson though, then you know he's really tough and a wild man at heart... it didn't slow him down a bit! (These aren't the best pics. It's at night, and under lights. Hopefully I can learn how to take good pics under those conditions so that I can capture them better). Both Aaron and I are excited for the boys to have a sport that they can do together, both practices, and race nights. And it's so fun to have lots of different childhood experiences.

I am now going to share with you the things that Dawson said to us in the car on the ride home after practice.

Mom, I want to tell you a secret. Lean in close... " I took first place." "I took first place 4 times tonight but Dallon only took first once." (I think that is why it was a secret... Dallon wouldn't have stood for him talking smack about him like that.)

The boys made one new friend at the tracks. He took them under his wing and was showing them the ropes. He was a real nice 8 year old who has been racing every week for a year now. On the drive home Dawson said "Logan only took one first tonight... and he's older than me."

We got a hoot out of all this talk. For one, this was only a practice. There were no official winners and losers. But it was so cute to see that he was seriously racing all those around him and in his mind he was definately the winner.