Merry Christmas to All!

Merry Christmas from the Sullivans. Below is our annual family Christmas newsletter...

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To make up for the lack in blogging...

Big News! Claire is going to be a big sister. Baby #2 is due May 21st.

We couldn't be more excited for the newest addition to our family.

The Only Constant is Change...

Well, we made it here in Georgia for a record 17 months! The longest we have lived in one area in our marriage.

Unfortunately, earlier today my company, in a cost cutting move, let me go. We have loved our time here in Georgia and have really enjoyed our friends here.

But in about 4 weeks we will be packing up and heading back to Utah. We look forward to being closer to family. For the foreseeable future we will be camping out at Suzy's parent's house in Farmington.

So if any knows someone in Utah looking for a marketing guy let me know...

Care Bears and Stairs

Claire has the biggest eyes, especially when she sees something interesting.



I got her this giant Care Bear at a consignment sale and she loved it when she first saw it.
We finally took the chair off the bottom of the stairs and Claire loves her easy access to climbing.

New Shirt and Pigtails Again

I tried pigtails on Claire again as last time they came out pretty easily. We'll see how long it lasts today...

I got a new shirt a few weeks ago and Claire was very interested in it, so I let her try it on. She was a little confused by it, but she looked adorable!

Nightly Routine

We have gotten in a nightly habit of taking Claire to the park after dinner and before bed. We are lucky enough to have a little park just a few houses down from where we live. She loves it and gets so excited when we tell her to go get her shoes.




She loves to go down the slide with Daddy or by herself.
And if she ate enough dinner then she gets to have dessert when she gets home!

Wagon Ride

Last night Claire discovered the joy of a wagon ride. First she discovered how to climb in by herself. She is also discovering how to climb on chairs, couches, coffee tables, etc. I'm a little nervous about where she is going to climb from there...

Lately

Here's what we've been up to lately. Since we missed blogging for the whole month of June...

The first ones are from a photo shoot I did to try to get some good pictures of Claire for Father's Day. These are some of my favorites.





Claire's is really into "shows". She just starting to say a few words now and if the show gets turned off you will here a lot of "mo" (more) from her.
She also loves water. She loves swimming in her little pool or taking baths. She also LOVES fountains.
I went blueberry picking with some friends on my birthday and decided to make myself a blueberry pie. It was my first try at pie making and it turned out very well if I do say so myself.

4th of July in Nashville

We took a quick trip to Nashville over the 4th of July weekend. It was great fun. We were able to go to the temple which was really nice, especially because the one in Atlanta has been closed for the last year! Casey has a friend from BYU that now lives in Nashville and she was kind of enough to watch Claire for us. It was such a blessing!


It was a little windy.
Then we went to check out downtown. There was a moose convention, an international moose convention.
This is what the fireworks/concert area looked like on the 3rd of July. Very nice. There was a free concert, but we didn't stay for that.

I wanted to get a picture of Claire in her cute 4th of July dress, but of course she did not want to cooperate.

This picture pretty much sums up what the rest of church was like.

Then we went on a little walk around Vanderbilt. Very nice campus.


This is what the same park looked like on the 4th of July. Between us and the stage WAY back there was wall-to-wall people. There was no place to sit and hardly any place to stand. We ended up going home early as Claire was really struggling.

On our way back to the car we found this lovely fountain. Claire loves all forms of water. This was the highlight of the trip for Claire.

We parked near the State Capitol.

On Monday we went to a plantation, Belle Meade, in Nashville. It was very beautiful and very well restored.
This was our tour guide.
Claire didn't like the tour much. Its hard when your one and a half and you can't touch anything. She loved running around outside though!

First Pigtails

Claire has always had a lot of hair. Yesterday I got it to go into two ponytails. It was so cute and it made her look like a little girl. I can't believe how big my baby is getting.

She wouldn't hold still for pictures, so these are the best we could get. I had to put on Veggie Tales so I could do her hair.
This is what happened when I turned off the Veggie Tales to go to church! Life is so hard when you are 15 months!

Disney World!

We had a wonderful time at Disney World. Claire did quite well condsidering the circumstances. She even managed to take a few naps in her stroller (which never happens) and she enjoyed a lot of the rides. We're also enjoyed being with my parents and we couldn't have done half as much without them.


Hollywood Studios.
Casey showing Claire the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse. I'm glad to see they didn't change this to Tarzan as they did at Disneyland.
The people movers was one of Claire's favorites.
She also REALLY enjoyed the Finding Nemo ride. She loved the live fish that were in tanks there as well.
The Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground was another favorite. She loved the water that was flowing off the giant plants.
She got very wet and then enjoyed the slide.
Animal Safari.
This is what we hoped she would do at least a little. Poor girl was quite exhausted from all the traveling and not getting her normal amount of sleep. It was a great trip though, and I'm so glad we went!