Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The O'Willhites got all decked out today for my favorite holiday! Although it looks like I photoshopped the green onto Mark's face, he's actually wearing hairy face stickers. Cool, huh? And isn't it great how my husband will do goofy things like wearing hairy face stickers just for me?? Now that's love! But I guess my son doesn't love me enough, because he did not wear the hairy face stickers. I'm not even sure he liked them on Mark's face, since he kept trying to peel them off. At least we got him to sit still for a few pictures. Hope you had a shamrockin' day!

(Look closely and you might notice something special in that last picture. That's right - it's our new couch! And the ugly pillows that came with it - I need to recover them.)

And just because he really is the cutest boy I know, here are two final pictures of our little leprechaun reading his St. Patrick's Day card.

Where does the time go?

So as anyone who has looked at my blog more than once has probably noticed, I have a very hard time posting updates in a timely manner. I thought I would get better as Sully got older, but for some reason I am getting worse. The good news is that I get more sleep at night, but I honestly have no idea where my time is going during the day. (Not to mention the fact that somehow I am now 30 years old, have been with Mark for almost 10 years, have owned a house for 5 years, and have a child who is now 16 months old. So let's not even talk about where that time went...yikes!!) I guess most of my time is spent either cleaning up after Sully (his favorite activity is taking all the toys out of the toy box then going and playing in the other room where he can pull out more toys), telling Sully not to touch things or open things or get behind things or pull on things (like Drogo's tail), preparing meals and snacks for Sully (he's in a picky phase so mealtime always starts with, "So what will you actually eat today?"), or attempting to translate the jibber jabber that is Sully's language. I guess the overall message is that there isn't any more down time now that Sully is a toddler. He may be more independent, but he is much, much busier! So even when he gives me a spare moment to myself, I usually choose to do something unproductive (like sit on our brand new couch or play Diner Dash - I'm totally addicted!) because my brain just needs a break.

But although life with a toddler is busy, it's also very rewarding. Sully has gotten so entertaining and has learned so much since my last post. I don't even know where to begin! He just learned to point out some body parts, and he can find them on his own body or someone else's. So far he's figured out nose, eyes, mouth, hair and belly button. He had also figured out how to climb up onto the couch, but then we went and got a new couch which is much higher - and way more comfortable and presentable. Thank goodness! He's walking like a pro and has even started trying to run a bit. He loves music and we constantly have Here Come the 1,2,3s by They Might Be Giants playing at our house (Thanks Kath!). Sully dances and spins and if we forget to turn the music on he points at the cd player and jabbers until we turn it on. He also likes to push the Swiffer around and he loves to take a bath! He comes running as soon as he hears the water running. He has even started accessorizing - he likes to wear a gold Mardi Gras bead necklace that I call his "bling." He puts it on and then opens the hall closet where the full length mirror is and laughs at himself. The mirror is one of his favorite toys - he looks in it at least 3 times a day and just grins at himself. But who can blame him? He is pretty darn cute!

And to prove it, here is a collection of pictures from the last two and a half months of Sully just being Sully. Enjoy!

What? Christmas is really OVER?

After two weeks of non-stop Christmas celebrations, our life is just finally getting back to normal. Although it ended up being a bit crazy and hectic, our holiday season was very joyous and lots of fun! Sully did really well and really seemed to enjoy himself, even though he partied to the point of exhaustion! We spent Christmas Eve with the Griffiths at my Uncle Bill's house then hosted my parents and Rory for a pizza dinner on Christmas Day. We drove down to Frankfort the following evening, spent the night, then had Christmas at Stately Griffith Manor in the beautiful new room on Saturday morning. We went to Grandma Gerrity's Saturday afternoon for Christmas with the Gerritys, then headed out to Sherrard on Sunday for Christmas with the Willhites. We stayed in the Quad Cities until New Year's Day, and when we came home, the parties continued. Sully and I went to Therese's house to spend some time with my Girl Scout Camp gals on Friday, then went to Aunt Gail's on Saturday because Geny and Faisal and Aman were in from Colorado. On Sunday we had lunch with Priya, Melissa, and Julie (who lives in Illinois again, so we're going to get to see her a lot more! HOORAY!) then our celebrations came to an end. See - I wasn't kidding about the non-stop part!! So last week we did as little as possible in an attempt to get back to some semblance of every day life. Sully only left the house on 2 occasions all week- and that was to go the funeral home so Mark could watch him while I went to teach! He didn't even get out of his pajamas for 3 of the 7 days! (I'll admit it - I didn't get out of mine a few days too!) But as I said, he was a trooper and we had a really fun Christmas with him. He didn't sleep in his own bed for a week straight and was up way past his bedtime almost every night, but he kept on smiling, partying, and being just darn cute! And here are some pictures to prove it!

After six Christmas celebrations, Sully got really good at opening presents. And man, did the kid get a lot of presents. He was quite spoiled! In fact, our living room could be mistaken for Toys 'R Us at this point!

He was also really interested in the tree. He "helped" us put some ornaments up before he went to bed and the next day once the tree was completely decorated, he just sat in awe of it for awhile. He even started pointing at it after a few days to let me know I should turn the lights on. His favorite part, though, was the ornaments. He did well at first with "Don't touch," but after about a week, he spent most of the day just taking off ornaments and carrying them around the house. He loved Mark's boxing hippo - I swear I hung that thing back on the tree 35o times!

Sully also had to pose for many family photos, and although that wasn't his favorite holiday activity, we managed to get at least a few where he's looking at the camera! And we even had all of Mark's family in one place and got to take a Willhite family photo. We were overdue, since we hadn't taken one since Darrin and Miranda got married three and a half years ago!

Speaking of Darrin and Miranda, Christmas was a big deal for them because it meant they finally go to meet their perfect nephew! Sully pretty much spent our entire visit to Sherrard being the center of attention (much to his Uncle Todd's chagrin), and it didn't take long for him to win the heart of Auntie Miranda. (And Uncle Darrin's too - but since he is a Willhite so he had to be a little more nonchalant about how much he loved Sully...)

While we were in the Quad Cities, we also had a chance to see all of Mark's high school friends. We spent New Year's Eve with Sarah and Jon-Mychel and the boys (don't our dudes look so cute in their jammies?), and on New Year's Day the gang came over with wives and kids in tow. Claire is the only girl offspring among the bunch, and although she arrived in a really cute girly purple dress, she ended up in Riley and Connor's hand-me-down overalls after a very messy diaper change. So she fit right in with all the rough and tumble boys. And I enjoyed hearing the big boys discuss things like whether cloth diapers are worth it and the best way to get a baby to go back to sleep in the middle of the night instead of which girl in high school had the biggest boobs or reminiscing about the ridiculous things Mark used to do when he was drunk and single! (Next time you see him ask him about the jumping jacks....)

That's the overview of our Christmas craziness! I have to admit, I am a bit relieved that it's over. But thanks to the creative gift giving skills of Uncle Rory, Sully will be able to help me remember his second Christmas every time he strikes a chord. He's already working on a modern arrangement of a traditional song - check out his skills in this video!

It's Winter!

To commemorate the start of December, the weather gods apparently decided we needed about 4 inches of snow. It started yesterday afternoon and didn't really stop until early afternoon today. Sully just kept looking out the window and saying, "ooohh..." So since I had to scrape my car off (rather, I had to shovel the heaps of snow off of it), I bundled Sully up in his warm winter clothes, plunked him into his new wagon, and pulled him into the driveway where he sat and watched me clean off the car. I didn't get as many "oooohs" as the window, but he was still pretty captivated by the whole winter wonderland around him. He also had a good time watching Drogo jump and dig in the snow. So even though I am not ready for it to be winter (although it's looking like I don't have much of a choice), I think there will be some fun times ahead with my little snow bunny!

I also wanted to show off how handsome my boys were on Thanksgiving. They sort of had matching outfits - unintentional, I swear! We had fun at my aunt and uncle's house in Crown Point, IN and Sully was a good boy all day. Although he needs to work on pacing himself - he kept asking for more bread and snacks before dinner (he has gotten really good at the sign language for more) so by the time we all sat down for turkey he wasn't hungry and refused to eat anything! Mysteriously, once the pie came out he was ready for "more" again!

In this picture Sully was watching Uncle Dave carve the turkey. Every time the electric knife was going Sully got that goofy look on his face like he was trying to figure out what the heck was happening! He's a funny little man!

That's about it - although hopefully there will be news on the walking front soon. On Saturday Sully took 2 independent steps before lunging toward Mark, and he stood alone for a good 10 seconds today. But he is still pretty lazy - or maybe just scared. He'd still rather just crawl everywhere than even attempt to walk. We'll keep you posted!

One year olds are difficult!

So we took Sully to get his 12 month portraits taken yesterday and we thought, "Let's get some family portraits, too." Bad idea. The whole thing was a debacle, as Sully refused to sit in one spot, didn't want to look at the camera, and kept putting his hand in his mouth. There were only 2 decent shots of him solo, and there was one ok family shot (and it was only ok after the salesgirl cropped it and shifted it to hide my muffin top!). Of course, after we left the portrait studio and took our little stinker to the Olive Garden for dinner, he was happy to say "Cheese" and even smiled for the camera. Here's some funny shots from the restaurant, all of which are better than his portraits. Boo. And the family self-portrait I took is so much better than any of the ones from the photo studio. Figures, huh?

My first video posting!

Here's a video of Sully taking his first steps on "his own"! He's got the car walker to keep him up, but this is the very first time he walked with it. He did great, but then he got bored and did some light reading. Enjoy!

Now that we've finally loaded the software to import videos from our camera, I will hopefully be able to put more videos up. There are some funny ones from Sully's birthday party and since he's growing and changing so much I've been trying to take lots of video so I won't forget how cute and funny he is at this stage. Of course, I can't promise to post videos in a timely manner, but at least I am now capable of doing it and that's the first step!

Someone is a year old!

Since I last posted, (which has been two months - oops!) Sully has gone on a lot of fun adventures, learned many new skills, and most notably - he had his first birthday! I still am not sure how it is possible that my little baby is one year old and is now a toddler. I was just looking at pictures of the day he was born and it really does seem like it was just yesterday! But at the same time it's hard to remember him being so tiny! Here's a photo comparison of Sully from birth to one year - what a difference!

So here's what the little man has been up to:

He went on his first museum trip to Science and Industry with Kathy and Piper. Those girls just love him! (Do you blame them?)

He went to the pumpkin patch with Grammy and Uncle Rory where we checked out the petting zoo, explored the corn maze, and picked some pumpkins.

He went to Bloomington to spend some time with his godparents and Sidney. The babes were so cute crawling around in their Halloween costumes!

He had his first spooky Halloween dinner, went trick-or-treating, and was so good about wearing his costume. He never tried to pull off the dog hat. Now the socks....that's a different story!

And of course, he had a birthday party and ate lots of cake!

He also took a Kindermusik class, got some more teeth, got really good at feeding himself finger foods and drinking from a sippy cup, started cruising on the furniture, and even learned how to give a belly foof! (Some of you may call it a raspberry - either way it's hilarious!) He's also pretty close to walking - he's started taking some steps on his own while holding on to his car walker. Hopefully I can post a video of that soon! But until then, enjoy this new collection of photos of the cutest one year old I know. He's especially cute when he's covered in frosting and being a ham.

I wonder who he gets that from??