Christmas!!

As many of you know, I LOVE Christmas.....I love Christmas music (usually my brothers and parents call to let me know when they start playing it on 106.9) I love Christmas decorations, parties, wrapping presents, everything!

I think I am going to love Christmas even more every year with a kid. We had a great first Christmas with Colin. We got to spend a lot of time with family and friends and mainly got to spend almost 2 weeks unplugged from work and together.

Here are a few pictures from Christmas 2010.

Some of Colin's favorite gifts

The biggest stuffed animal at Toys R Us - Thank you Kelly!

Definitely more interested in the wrapping paper than the gifts!

Hiking with the Mooneys on a beautiful winter day

At Snowflake Lane in Bellevue

Santa Pictures 2010

We had a great time visiting Santa this year. We went to Bellevue Square and met with my mom and dad, Kelly, Sean and Sean's girlfriend Jessi. Thankfully we had so many people to keep Colin entertained for the hour and a half wait to see the Big Guy!

Colin actually liked Santa and immediately started pulling on his beard.

It took a few rounds of "The Wheels on the Bus" to get him to look ahead and smile, but finally! What a cute picture - Santa looks a little bewildered though....

Just a picture

I just love this picture! Stay tuned a little later this week for a posting and picture of our visit with Santa!

You're So Vain

We have found the answer to the age-old question of who Carly Simon wrote "You're So Vain" about.....You guessed it - our one and only Colin Sullivan!


You had one eye in the mirror as - you watched yourself gavotte.




I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee!

Ingredients for a great snow day!!

After the "snowpocalypse" as Matt has coined this storm came through yesterday we both decided to stay home from work. Although we both had to get some work done, we had time to spend with our little guy and take him out on his first snowy walk.

Ingredient #1: Wake up and cuddle in bed!!!!
Ingredient #2: Bundle up!!

Ingredient #3: A family walk in the beautiful snow!!
Ingredient #4: A bounce back win by the Zags!!

Good day!

6 months!

Colin turns 6 months old tomorrow. I cannot believe that it has already been 1/2 year since this little man came into our lives. We went to the doctor today and he is 18 lbs 1 oz (75th percentile) and 27.75 inches (95th percentile.) A few more things....he is totally sitting up on his own now and that means he doesn't want to lay back at all, even to have a bottle! He doesn't seem to be close to crawling, which I have to say is fine with me as that will mean baby-proofing!

Wall Street Journal

As if Colin didn't already have enough of a hurdle to get over with his mom as an accountant, now his dad has taken to reading the Wall Street Journal to him. So, instead of Goodnight Moon, Green Eggs and Ham and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, he is hearing stories of how Facebook are creating products designed to compete with Google and the "well-balanced" editorials in the Journal.

The most amusing part of this picture is how interested he actually looks in what Matt is reading! I can't wait until he starts school and on show and tell day, he brings in yesterday's WSJ and explains the ways we could have prevented the recession.

Sitting up and funny faces!

The last few days Colin has been really steadying himself as he sits up. In fact tonight he sat up long enough for me to take a few pictures. He only fell over once and that was the end of the photo shoot!

He is also making very funny faces lately!!

The thing I will miss most....

...about going back to work tomorrow: Lazy, rainy mornings just hanging out in bed!

Halloween!

We started the Halloween celebrations with "Halloween Babyfest." I have a feeling "babyfest" is something we will be adding to a lot of holidays within the next year. It was so fun to see all the kids (and some of the adults) dressed up. I don't think I will ever stop being amazed at how these holidays have changed with having kids (of course we love the changes! So much fun!) A funny story - as we were leaving the party, I looked at the clock and it was 9:15pm. I said to Matt "Back in the day, the party would just be starting!"

Look how cute these kids are!!

And now a few more pictures of our little Twiga (Giraffe)

Pyloric Stenosis Survivors Club

Most people who read this blog probably know that Colin had surgery when he was 3 weeks old to correct something called Pyloric Stenosis, which is an enlarged muscle in the stomach that makes it impossible to keep food down (see post on June 13th for details.) What I might not have included in the original post is that my Dad and his brother Scott both had the same condition when they were infants! The surgery has changed a little since then; nonetheless, my Dad has been wanting to get a picture of the "Pyloric Stenosis Survivors Club." So, here it is!

Conversations

I love this picture of Colin and my mom having a conversation!

Pumpkin Patch at Camp Korey

I love the Fall! I love pumpkin spice lattes, the changing colors and of course...the pumpkin patch! We took our first trip to the pumpkin patch with the Selfridge and Bodmer families. The babies were pretty good while the parents took about a million pictures. Maybe next year Colin will be a little more interested in the petting zoo, hayrides and picking out a pumpkin. At least this year he looked pretty cute in his pumkin hat (Thanks to my friend Kim for knitting it for him!)

Flexible!!

I am convinced I should take Colin to yoga so that he never loses his flexibility. Also - maybe I should teach him that if he keeps putting his foot in his mouth (literally) he might have a tough time making friends :)

First Family Vacation - Maui!!

Well, we did it - we successfully took our first family vacation, which included a total of 12 hours on a plane and 7 nights in a one bedroom condo with a 4.5 month old!

We were fortunate enough to get a great deal on a condo in Maui, on Kaanapali Beach! We had a great time relaxing, getting some sun, doing some sight seeing and just enjoying each other's company.

Our trip started off great; Colin was easy on the plane and we sat next to a great couple headed on a kid free vacation for their 10th anniversary. It was funny to run into them a number of times at Costco before heading to our respective hotels for the week. Their cart at Costco was a little different than ours - we had formula and diapers and they were getting beer and mixers. We were laughing about how life comes full circle :)

Colin LOVED the pool and Matt and I enjoyed the time together reading and relaxing. We also got a chance to do the Road to Hana which is just beautiful! I cannot wait to take Colin back when he is a little older and will really enjoy playing in the pool!

Seattle Greek Festival

We headed into Seattle today to experience the Seattle Greek Festival at St Demetrios. This festival has been happening for 50 years, and you can tell - it is a well oiled machine. I have always wanted to check it out, so glad today ended up working out. This weekend was actually Festa Italiana at the Seattle Center as well, we didn't make it to that, but next year I propose a Mediterranean weekend and do both festivals!

We were excited to see some Greek dancing but even more importantly...eat some gyros, baklava and spanikopita. We had a great time with the Bodmers and Mooneys! Love to see the Dads wearing the babies in the Ergos!

We squeezed us and the Bodmers into our new car - it is nice to have a car big enough for that!

Family trip to the Zoo

For those of you who don't know - I love the zoo! I always have loved the Zoo! So, having a child has made it even more appropriate to go there as often as I can. We purchased a membership, so I plan to make many trips - hopefully Colin will love it as much as I do!

Today, we went and brought Matt! It was a BEAUTIFUL day in Seattle. The Zoo was crowded with people who were looking to take advantage of the weather. We did get to see my favorite exhibit though - the gorillas!!

Gotta love Dad and the Ergo!

The gorillas are my favorite!!!

At the African Savannah - I love how they have some Swahili phrases on the trail there. Twende! (Lets go!)

4 Months!!

Colin turned 4 months on September 20th!! I can hardly believe it and Matt and I always say we can't imagine our lives without him. So many developments, I hope I can remember them!

• First things first - he is growing like crazy! At his 4 month appointment he was 15 lbs 3 oz (75 percentile) and 26 1/3 inches (90 percentile)...No wonder he is eating like crazy!
• Colin loves to laugh, so I find myself doing MANY ridiculous things a day in order to hear that sweet sound.
• He has never liked tummy time, but he doesn't want to roll over either. That is ok, he has a very strong neck and loves his exersaucer and also his johnny jump up a couple times.
• He is back to sleeping through the night after a short stint of 4 am wakings (Mama thanks him for that!) One of our favorite things is to bring him back in our bed on weekend mornings and snooze, he loves his sleep!!
• Bathtime is getting more and more fun as well as more and more messy! Colin LOVES to splash. We moved the infant tub from the counter to the bathtub awhile ago so we could try to contain the water.

First foods!

Our little Colin is not so little - and he has an appetite to show for it. So, we recently started introducing "real" food. So far - he likes rice cereal, carrots, sweet potatoes and applesauce. He has also had spinach and peas, but he doesn't love those quite as much. It is so much fun giving him something new and the last couple days, he talks the whole time he is eating! I can't quite tell if he is saying "yummmm" or just learning bad habits early :)