birthday party!

happy birthday to me! here we are first thing in the morning, enjoying a little quiet time before sullivan woke up.
and ryan entertaining sully while theo and i sleep a little more...

after we all got dressed and ready we headed down to andreini's for breakfast with the jenssens.

later in the afternoon we had a bbq in our backyard and invited the jenssens and our neighbors, miles and shawna and their kids zachary and natalie. here is the kid crew...

natalie and sullivan...

the boys making faces in the dog house.

and here i am blowing out my candles. i am pretending to do it since ryan didn't get the actual blow out on camera. i like everyone's expression (including theo's) in this photo. :)

all in all it was a great day. ryan cooked AND did all the dishes. colleen and iris made me a delicious lemon blueberry bundt cake. the weather was gorgeous and sullivan had such a fun time playing with all the kids. i can't ask for more than that. :)

here's some video from the day. ollie and sully in the gazebo:

racing at the park:

kids in the dog house:

adam's wedding extravaganza

here are meredith and sully packed in the car, ready to embark upon our adventure to camarillo. It should take 2 hours to get there which should've been no problem. i'll explain after the photos...
here is sully showing us his dance moves after we had arrived....

we ran into construction in santa barbara, and all the stop-and-go motion woke theo up who decided he had to eat RIGHT THEN. i was driving because ryan was in the peak of his mono sickness and i don't know the freeway as well as he does. i got off at the first exit i could and found street parking, which was lucky because i think the beach was only a few blocks away. while i fed theo ryan took sully out to walk around, and by the time i was done sully decided he was done driving in the car. we loaded him back in screaming bloody murder and then had to find a bathroom for meredith. it took us (me) forever to find a way to get back on the freeway because i was flustered and listening to screeching. i finally got back on and found another exit in montecito (of which meredith said, 'everyone is so attractive!')where meredith found a coffee shop to use the bathroom.

getting back on the freeway involved a crazy 6-way stop, but we eventually made it. the whole stop, inlcuding feedings and bathroom breaks, took one hour.

here's a little video from our stop in montecito.

ice cream truck!

i think we've (or grant!) created a monster listening for the ice cream truck...

theo's first trip to orange county

in the beginning of june we took the family down for theo's first trip to orange county. someone (me) came up with the genius idea of leaving after theo's doctor's appointment, thinking it would be right around sully's naptime and he would sleep the whole way.


well.


sully was having a hard time falling asleep in the car AND we got stuck in hideous l.a. traffic. we ended up pulling over in carson so i could feed theo, then we had to put screaming kids back in the car and drive for another hour. the whole journey took over 5 hours when on a good day you can get to o.c. in 3 1/2.

grandma nonie meets theo for the first time! she loved meeting the newest member of the family. we spent a nice afternoon at the jenssen's.

grandpa got a blow-up pool and sullivan spent hours and hours hopping in and out of it and playing with his ball.

the jenssen's were also in town so we spent one morning in dana point harbor. sullivan refuses to hold my hand, but he will hold iris's hand all day. they looked so cute running around looking at all the boats.

sully goes to gymnastics!

i thought gymnastics would be a fun father/son thing for ryan and sully to do while ryan was on paternity leave. ryan got mono and was only able to take him to one class which was unfortunate because he LOVED it! i think all the trampolines were his version of heaven. and ryan said he was an animal...even when all the other kids sat down to take a break, sully was still running around and jumping like crazy. i would love to be able to take him but i don't know if i can watch him and participate while also tending to theo. we'll see, maybe in a few months when theo is a little older.

i posted the pictures backwards; this last shot is actually from when they first arrived and sully is looking into the play area. ryan said he threw a little tantrum before the class even started because he wanted to get in there so badly.

june pictures

i was going to do a separate post for all these different things we did, but just the thought of it was daunting and i knew i would never post very much. so i am posting a little bit of everything.

here is the first picture with me and both of the boys. i have perfected the move of picking up sully while i am already holding theo. i should do it more often; it's like doing squats while holding 30lbs.

ryan is the luckiest guy in the world because he just happened to be on maternity leave during the 2010 world cup! ryan took this picture of early-morning sully with a game on in the background.

later that day, sully watching a game with my dad. 'goooooooaaaallllll!'

look at the beautiful sparkly ryan got me! all i had to do was give birth to his child. it is GORGEOUS. the big stone is theo's birthstone, alexandrite. it is really beautiful because it changes colors in different lights; sometimes it looks green and sometimes it is more of a purple color. i love it and wear it all the time. i need to figure out a way to wear the one i have for sully at the same time.

here is auntie mere on one of our first outings with both of the boys. i want to say this is the first time we got out after sully's virus. we were only at the park for a few minutes--sully wanted to play but still wasn't feeling well and had a meltdown. by the time i got theo into the baby carrier it was time to go. poor sully just wasn't ready yet. it was good practice though, for dealing with traveling with both boys.

here's some video of sully and my dad watching soccer.

a fallen superhero

the week we brought theo home from the hospital was one of the most challenging times for me and ryan. we were dealing with a newborn, i was recovering from birth and it was one of the hottest junes on record. and to make things even worse, sully came down with a nasty virus. when he wasn't sleeping, he was crying or throwing up. it was TERRIBLE. ryan and sully were quarantined from the rest of the family to make sure no one else got sick. poor sullivan was already feeling a little slighted when theo came home and once he got sick i couldn't hold him or give him much attention at all.

i can't remember the situation now, but ryan and i went out for a little bit and left my parents at home to watch sully, who was taking a nap. when we got home this is how we found sully and my mom. my mom said he woke up screaming mad and stumbled around the house yelling 'mama....! daddy....!' Eventually he collapsed into a heap on the floor and fell asleep.

at the time ryan and i told ourselves that someday we'd be telling people the story of when we brought theo home from the hospital and we would be laughing, but we aren't QUITE there yet.