Trevor, say "Cheese!" (or "milk"?)

Check out our little Trevor!  He started smiling and cooing last week, and we're absolutely crazy about it!

Here's the wind-up: He hears us calling him and his face lights up.

He's going for the hit: He starts cooing!

It's a home run!  Let the smiles begin!

Fix- It guys

Jaron and his trusty assistant fixing the window of the Saturn.

Car Tales

You know you're officially grown up when your dream car is a minivan with automatic sliding doors!  Yesiree, Jaron and I have officially crossed the threshold of true adulthood; we bought a minivan last week.  It was an adventure.  I had found a great deal on craigslist.org from a private seller in Chicago, so we made the 6-hr trip, hoping that this would be the one for us.  And, luckily, it was!  So now I'm not "just" a mom, but a true-blue soccer-shuttling/carpool-carrying/ grocery-getting mama!  I feel really grateful to have found a super deal on a really nice car, and Jaron's glad to be done car shopping.  Now all we have to do is sell our "3rd" car--a '99 Saturn station wagon.  Jaron has demonstrated his mechanical genius by fixing numerous things with this car, including a water pump, automatic windows (nothing a little wire won't hold together) and other complicated-sounding things an auto dunce like me can't remember.   (Anyone out there want an 'adorable' and affordable car...?)

Winter Fun

Here's some things we've been up to this winter:

Mikey's Joyschool class went on a fieldtrip to the firestation.  Mikey got to go in a real firetruck and talk to real firefighters!

Jaron and the boys made a bona fide snowman (snowballs for eyes, stick nose, smoking a candy cane pipe, and hard candies for buttons...oh, and mama's scarf).

Spencer and Mikey are taking swim lessons at our local Rec Center.  Here's Spencer with his buddy, Jordan.

You'll notice that the majority of our winter activities aren't actually outside, so we have tried to discover all the fun indoor things Iowa has to offer.  There's a great (and free) Natural History museum downtown, and a good sized children's museum.   And when we just want to stay home (which is more often for me lately with a baby in tow), we have fun swinging on our basement trapeeze, building couch-cushion forts, and making soups and homemade goodies.  Jaron and I agree that, while winter can get stinkin' cold here, it's also fun to have a change in seasons.  We like the cozy feeling of being in a warm home with family, sipping hot cocoa after playing in the snow.

Trevor at Home

Here's some peeks into the Sullivan household since Trevor has joined us.  He's such a joy!  We feel so blessed to have his sweet spirit in our home!  

I love reading to the boys, and since I'm holding/nursing/burping the baby a lot, there are lots of golden reading moments at the Sullivan's! (Jaron's taking this photo from upstairs looking down at us in the living room--you gotta kinda tilt your head to see it well.)

We LOVED having Nana stay with us for a week right after Trevor was born!  I think she loved it too, especially when I would ask her to be on "Trevor duty" to burp or rock him!

Trevor, about a week old, and Nana Runyan.

Okay, I love this one! I was in the kitchen cooking and had just put Trevor on his Boppy pillow in the living room, when I heard Mikey say, "Mommy!  I'm holding baby Treb!" (He calls Trevor "Trebo" or "Treb".)  I ran into the living room to see what was going on and found this--Mikey had slid Trevor off the Boppy and was holding his hips and legs.  Not too bad, but we've had talks since about only Mommy and Daddy picking up the baby!

Trevor is lucky to have such a sweet Daddy!  And I'm so lucky too to have scored him!  He's been able to be home more lately, and he helps out SO much with the kids.  I've been able to take several outings by myself already with Jaron caring for the boys at home.  I hope I can help our kids appreciate what a fabulous dad they have (though I'm sure they'll figure it out on their own)!

Big Brother Spencer REALLY loves his little bro.  Spencer is SO helpful whenever I need a hand.  He loves playing with Trevor, although he's getting anxious for the baby to interact more.  But he loves holding Trevor, talking to him and being silly for him (no courtesy laughs yet though).

Gotta Love Those Boys!

Everyone asks how it's going with 3 boys in the home...Well, Jaron and I can honestly say that we're loving having a precious third, and our two "big boys" are keeping us laughing, frustrated, and warm-hearted...sometimes all at once!  I have to share a "warm-heartening" experience I had with them not too long ago.  Since Trevor has been born and I've been in the night-feeding routine, I'm not such the early riser and will squeeze all the minutes of sleep I can get out of each morning until either Trevor or the boys' frolicking wakes me up.  On one such morning, I went down to the kitchen to find Spencer and Mikey, food storage buckets pulled up to the counter, unloading the dishwasher.  They looked up at me with huge smiles and announced proudly, "Mom! We're doing the dishes for you!"  I was so touched by their sweetness that I didn't have the heart to tell them that they had just unloaded a dishwasher full of dirty dishes!  (I distinctly remember forgetting to start the dishwasher the night before!)   Not many days later my "helpers" were back at it.  This time I heard Spencer coaching Mikey with sweeping the living room floor and washing the mirrors.  I was nursing the baby when they ran in to tell me the good deeds they had done.  "And Mom, " said Spencer, "don't worry about us using the cleaning stuff (the cleaning solutions I won't let them touch) because we washed the mirrors with water!"

What can I say?  Gotta love those boys!!

Trevor's First Photo Shoot

Our friend Rachel Eng took pictures of Trevor (and Em) when he was a few days old.  She also took shots of the birth.  She's an amazing photographer and we're so grateful that she offered to do this for us!  Here's a sample, and if you want to view the whole photo shoot (set to music), you can go to: 

http://racheleng.com/juliet/index2.php

Enter "Sullivan" for the password.  Enjoy!