Happy Birthday Claire

Some fun images from Claire's birthday today. These two years have gone fast and have been a lot of fun. She is growing up and learning so much every day.

She's Two

Merry Christmas to All!

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

(click to enlarge)

Arizona Trip

I had a great time in Tucson visiting my family. The only downside was that Casey was not able to come. Hopefully he will be there next time! We spent a lot of time playing with kids, eating, playing Wii and board games and just having fun.

Claire really enjoyed playing with her cousins. She love little kids. Here they are helping her walk. She is getting much better and yesterday walked across the whole bedroom on her own.
I tried to get a picture with all the kids, but as you can imagine, its a little tricky. 5 yr old is holding 18 month old's head still and I'm trying, unsuccessfully, to keep Claire still.
Claire and her buddy cousin enjoying a meal together. If they sit too close, they will steal each others food.
Another attempt at a group shot.
I also got to see an old mission companion who lives in Tucson now. Her little boy is super cute and just a few months younger than Claire.

I thought this was a funny shot. She is just going to rip the keys away in one second.
The weather wasn't perfect, but it was so fun to see all the kids and my parents, and my brothers and their wives. I wish we all lived closer, but I guess we'll just have to enjoy the moments when we have them.

Need Your Help!

Okay, so I need all of our reader's help with an experiment I want to try to test the viral spread of websites...

But first, let me give you a little background. As many of you probably already know, my dad is an artist. A really good artist. Over the past few months I have been helping him in his job search by building him a website.

The website, minus a little tweaking here and there, is done.

The website has been helpful to him as he has searched for work, but it really hasn't been noticed by many or been found by many people. Now here is my experiment.

I want all of you to visit his website here, but not yet! Finish reading the instructions first.

Then, if you like his work, I want to ask you to blog about it, post it on facebook, tweet about it, email the site to friends, and generally spread the word about his new website.

When you blog, tweet, email, or facebook it, please ask your friends to do the same if they like the art.

I promise that I will constantly update my blog here about the progress of our "experiment."

My goal is to get at least 1,000 new visitors to the website by the end of March. Please help with this, I know my father will be appreciative.

The website can be found at www.ksean.com.

To wet your appetite for his talent, here is a sample of what you will find...

Cyclorama and World of Coke

Last Saturday we went to the Cyclorama and World of Coke with my mom. It was fun to see some of the tourist attractions of Atlanta as we haven't seen too many yet.

The Cyclorama was really neat. It is a giant painting (the world's largest oil painting) that is connected all together in a big circle and there is a platform that spins around so you can see the whole painting. The painting depicts the Battle of Atlanta. It was very interesting and they also have other civil war artifacts on site.

Here is Claire trying to get her hand blown off by a cannon.

Claire and Ya Ya by the big train.

Unfortunately the weather was not too good on Saturday. It was very drizzly. After the Cyclorama, we drove over to World of Coke which is on the olympic plaza. It looked like it would have been a fun place on a nicer day, but it was freezing and raining and we weren't dressed all that warmly.

This is us at the soda fountain. Anybody want a coke?

Big Coke bottles.

The favorite part of the trip...tasting coke from all over the world. Favorites included Pineapple Fanta and some Japanese pina-colada mix. The least favorite was the infamous Beverly soda from Italy. Its made from the rind of a grapefruit, and if you can imagine what that might taste like as a soda, then times it by 5 and you have Beverly. The first sip isn't too bad, but watch out for the second.

We had a great time and can't wait to have more visitors so we have more excuses to go check out more stuff!

Nick's Wedding

The main reason that we went to Utah for Christmas was to see my brother Nick and Jessica get married. Here are some pictures from the wedding.

Addie, Claire and Suzy trying to stay warm while we waited outside the temple for Nick and Jessica to show up.

Cory walked into the shot right before the picture took. I love the look on his face as I am trying to wave him out of the way.

Claire and grandpa.

Nick and Jessica and their three nieces.

My siblings.

Christmas Recap

We traveled out to Utah for the week leading up to Christmas. We had a wonderful time and we want to share some of our pictures of the trip.

We went to visit my grandparents and let them see Claire again. It was good to see them, but also sad because their health is deteriorating, and my grandmother's dementia is getting worse every time we see her. Most of the time now, she has no idea who any of us are.

A nice family picture with 4 generations represented.

After my grandparent's house is Salt Lake we wanted to take Claire to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights. It was really cold so we bundled her up nice and tight. We were not able to find a parking space so my parents dropped Suzy, Claire, Addie and I off and we took a whirlwind 15 minutes run around Temple Square to see the lights. Claire seemed to enjoy the cold wind in her face more than anything else. But Temple Square at Christmas time is one of the most beautiful sights, and Suzy and I would have been disappointed it we had missed out on it.

Claire had her first real introduction to pets while we were with my parents. At first she was very afraid of Chloe, a 6-year-old toy dachshund, but over the week Claire warmed up to her, and Chloe was very gentle the entire time, what a good dog!

Claire in her new Christmas Eve pjs.

Claire enjoying some Grandma time!

Christmas morning. Claire got some great new toys that she absolutely loves.

She even got into the present opening!

California

It has been almost a month since I went to California with Claire. It was really great to see my Grandma and Grandpa and lots of other family members.

The four generations.

Claire and I got to meet my newest cousin, Jared. He was born a month after she was. It was so fun to see them "fight" over toys. Neither one really cared who got it, but they both like to grab everything in sight, including each other.

Claire with her great-grandma. Isn't this a sweet picture?

I also got to go to my cousins wedding. This isn't a very good picture, but its all I've got.

Unfortunatly, my grandpa was in the hospital the whole time we were there. We did get to do a few things to help my grandma out since she was at the hospital with my grandpa most of the time. We also got to take a few walks around the neighborhood in the beautiful California weather.

Overall, it was really good to get to see my grandma, grandpa, cousins, aunts and uncles and introduce them to Claire. I wish it hadn't involved a 5 hour flight with a squirmy 8 month old who doesn't like to sleep anywhere but her bed, but we made it through and it was well worth it.

Claire's New Tricks

So we've been busy and have been slacking on blogging. We'll be catching up in the next week. In the meantime, Claire has changed so much in the last month. Here are a few pictures to update.

She is now an expert sitter. She had to figure out how to get down once she was up, but she has pretty much mastered that now too.

This isn't really new, but Claire LOVES Baby Einstein. You just turn one of those on and she is glued. It keeps her still for at least a few minutes which is quite a feat.

This is her new favorite face to make. She especially loves to make it during bites when she's eating. I'm not sure if its supposed to mean no more food, or I'm highly enjoying the food in my mouth right now.

Her hair is long enough that it can do pigtails in the front. She has worn off the hair everywhere but the front, so it makes things look a little more balanced.

Pigtails and a BIG bite. This girl LOVES to eat and eats a lot.

She now has two teeth. Warning, don't let her bite on your finger anymore. You might lose one.

Claire has been rolling/scooting/army crawling for a few months now, but she's just now trying to do hands and knees. This is her attempt at a push up.

This is her attempt to "crawl". She gets on hands and knees, but then thinks she needs to push with her feet. She hasn't quite gotten the idea that she should move her knees forward yet.

She is a bundle of energy, but its so fun to see her learn lots of little new things and see that brain of hers working.