My Sweet Boy

Oh, how I love my boy.  He truly is my everything! My heart bursts at the seams just holding him and snuggling him and I just thought that maybe I should jot some of these things down before I forget.   It happens quickly.  Too quickly.  I had to skim through both of my girls baby books a couple of weeks ago just so that I could remember certain things about their "babyhood" stage, because I've already forgotten so much.  Re-reading the passages made my heart swell and smile at the sweet memories.  I only was able to recall these times because of the notes I had written and it reminded me to write a little note about Sullivan.  He is 5 months old and 18.6 pounds and needs to be written about!

My sweet, sweet Sullivan.  How can I even BEGIN to explain how much I love him?  I am his favorite person in the whole wide world, and right now, he is mine as well.  When I walk into his field of vision his entire face lights up as though it's the first time he's seen me in weeks.  Even if it's only been minutes.  He smiles so incredibly big at me every single time.  And then he gets hyper and starts squealing and wiggling all around.  He's grab his toes or starts flapping his arms.  He just can't contain his excitement.  Talk about a boost to my self-esteem :) 

His chub is so delicious! He is rolly-polly and so soft and squishy.  I could just squish him all day.  His thighs! Oh my heavens. I just want to bury my face in them!  His wrist and ankle rolls are becoming white in the creases as his cute little body gets a gorgeous golden tan.  

He is a water baby! He LOVES the pool.  And I am grateful because it is so incredibly HOT here and we need that pool to survive!  We go almost every single day and he is happy as can be in that water.  Half the time he will take a nap in his floaty.  It's great!  

His tiny hands still curl around my finger when he sleeps.  Every night before I go to bed I go and kiss all 3 of my babies.  And with Sully, I'll slip my finger into his hand and wait for it to happen.  That delicate little squeeze he gives me.  It won't last much longer so I make sure to do it every night until it stops.  But I love it.  Sometimes I cry because I love it so much.  I just sit there staring at him sleeping with all of his chubby fingers holding my finger and I can't walk away because there's no greater feeling in the world to hold hands with your baby as he sleeps... Sometimes he still smiles in his sleep and my heart just melts watching him dream.

He loves his voice.  He is squealing and screaming and squawking all the live long day.

He is rolling from front to back.  He loves to eat his toes.  He is sitting up all alone!  He has figured out how to bounce in his bounce chair and his Johnny Jumper and loves it!  He loves to be in his swing in our backyard.  He loves to snuggle with me in the mornings.  Sometimes if I can't get him to sleep in, I'll just press his face up against mine and he will eventually fall asleep.  He sleeps in his own crib until about 5 am.  Then he wakes for milk and I bring him into our bed to nurse him while we both sleep a couple more hours.  I did that with all my babies.  I can't commit to full-time co-sleeping (I would absolutely love that, really.  But I know the repercussions are not something I want to deal with down the road) so I make a rule that we don't co-sleep during the night.  But in the wee hours of the morning, he's mine, all mine.  Snuggled up against me.  His soft breath on my skin.  His baby scent filling the air.  His sweet, soft skin like silk in my arms.... I just love him fiercely.  

He loves to slow dance with me.  He presses his cheek against mine and we dance in the living room. I hold him and we sway to the lullabies that I sing him.  He's my last baby.  I can't help but smother him a bit.  

I've been trying really hard to make sure the girls feel my love for them as well.  I don't want them to feel second best, or like I stopped loving them when Sullivan came.  It's hard, admittedly, to show all 3 of them attention and love at the same time.  So I do the best I can, but mostly I have to take turns with them.  I'll give the girls some Mommy time, and then when they're not around I give my all to Sully.  It's only fair.....

Anyway, I could go on and on and on about Sullivan.  He loves bath time.  He loves his bunny and glo-worm still to sleep with.  We almost never get him dressed unless we go out; he's in a diaper all day everyday- even sleeps in just a diaper- it's too hot for clothes.  He LOVES his rice cereal and is a great eater- both nursing and from a bottle.  He almost always falls asleep in the car.  He's so curious about everything.  He is holding rattles and tries so hard to pick up tiny little objects but can't quite figure that one out yet.  He rakes his fingers across every surface.  He pinches and it HURTS!  He gets distracted at almost everything these days; craning his neck to look at where he heard a noise from.  Turning around to see who walked in the room.  Leaning forward in his car seat to stare at his sisters next to him.   He is so curious and engaged and alert and happy.  He is SUCH a happy baby.  Yes, he loves to be held and a lot of times is NOT happy with me when I can't hold him. But since he's been able to play more, he's content for periods of time in his jumper, saucer, and just on the floor with toys around him.  He LOVES TV.  Really.  He will stare at the screen.  He gets that from his Daddy, haha!

He's the light of my life and my darling everything.  I just wanted to remember some of these things.... :) I love my Sullivan. 

Thank you for filling my heart with everything I never knew it needed, sweet boy!

Ooooooklahoma!!

WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN?!?! Life. It's been NUTS.  Mine has been, anyway.  I can't speak for you, of course.  But if you've moved a family of 5 halfway across the country, then you understand exactly what I mean.  Just nuts.

First, yep.  We moved.  We went from New Hampshire to Oklahoma.  Here's a recap of the last month:

We closed on the house here in OK back in NH on June 22nd.  We did a remote "courtesy close" so that 1) whenever we rolled into town, the house would be "ours" and ready for us to move into right away.  and 2) We couldn't have the banks see huge U-haul charges on our credit cards right before closing.  If you've bought a house, you know what I'm talking about.  Anyway.  Back to my story:

Bruce flew into NH on June 22nd.  On the 23rd, Shawn and him brought the moving trucks over.  On the 24th we loaded it.  We hired 3 movers from a company to help.  2 showed up, and one was a girl (they did not tell me they were bringing a girl.  I've never had to specify that I needed men).  And NOT a strong girl, but an extremely overweight girl who did NOTHING.  I was livid. They told me she was "training."  So, not only were we shorthanded, but we had a girl who we had to pay to stand around all day watching how to load a moving truck.  Not only that, but the one mover guy who DID show up was slow as molasses.  Like, I'm talking SLOW.  And chatty. He never stopped talking.  He would stop working to talk.  We planned on loading the truck with 3 guys (plus Shawn).  We thought it would take 3-4 hours, with me cleaning up as they loaded.  Nope.  It turned into an 11 hour day.  Because one guy couldn't shut his yapper, one girl stood around all day, and one other loser never showed up and couldn't be reached for questioning.... (can you tell I was mad!?) Shawn and Bruce did all the work.  When the mover's time was up, they bailed quickly and left us with more than half a house to load up.  I can't even tell you how mad I was.  They literally didn't even get HALF of it loaded.  Bruce had planned on taking the girls out for us that day to get them out of the way (SUCH a big help).  But after the disastrous morning, Shawn called him and said "I need your help, Dad."  So them 2 spent the next 7 hours loading up.  I was on my hands and knees scrubbing all day long and I got blisters on my knees.  That was SO painful!  Seriously- moving INTO New Hampshire was a nightmare (do you remember that?!  THEY LOST OUR STUFF!) and leaving NH was a nightmare....not much in between was much better, to be honest. Oh, except I got a sweet baby boy out of the deal :)  But for real.  I felt like I was drowning out there.  New England people think their world is the center of the Universe.  No one leaves because they don't think any part of the world could be better.  Nothing progresses.  It's like stepping back in time.  And I craved the modern way of life.  I couldn't get used to life out there.  I hated it!  Ok, not all of it.  Let's be honest: I loved going to Red Sox games.  I LOVED the beauty of the Summer and Fall.  I LOOOOOVED living near the Ocean. I loved driving through rolling hills and seeing God's beautiful earth.  But that's all that I loved.  I didn't like the cost of living.  I didn't like the prevalent drug use (mostly heroin).  I didn't like that there were no Targets, Costcos, etc.  I didn't like the lack of churches.  I hated Winter.  HATED.  I hated burning oil and wood to keep warm.  I hated that God wasn't in ANYONE's homes or hearts.  I didn't like the crass sense of humor.  I didn't want any of that for my kids.  Plus, we were SO isolated.  The closest family we had was a 26 hour drive away.  My family was 44 hours.  To see them was a nightmare of travel and cost MORE than an arm and a leg!  I didn't feel like I was a good Mom out there because I was so tired and lonely and I NEVER HAD A BREAK.  Never. I didn't make friends like I usually do everywhere else that I go.  People were different and I really didn't fit in.  They thought I was weird!  Sometimes, Moms need breaks to keep their sanity.  I never had that.  Therefore, I was impatient a lot.  I yelled at my girls a little too often :'(  I felt sad.  No, not all the days were like that.   We did have really good days.  We did make some amazing memories that I will always cherish.  I did have moments when my heart was happy. But after awhile, all I could think of was GETTING OUT.  For myself, my kids, my family.  I felt trapped.  

But God is good.  And if you rally up enough people to really pray for you, He works miracles.  I had so many people praying that we could move because they knew my heart was hurting.  My Mother-in-law said she was so sad to see me sad.  I cried and broke down to her when we were visiting and she just said "we will all pray for you."  The whole Gilley family was praying for us!  And guess what? Four days after we left Louisiana and went home, we got the call.  A very unexpected call.  The call from Shawn's bosses saying that "we don't normally move people before their 2 years' is up, but a position SUDDENLY became available in Oklahoma and would you like to relocate?"

So that brings me to the treacherous drive out here.  Eventually, covered in dirt, sweat and, yes, tears, the truck was loaded, the house was clean and we buckled up and drove almost 5 hours to Albany, NY.  We had to leave that night because we had already made a hotel reservation and if you cancel they still charge you.  So even though we didn't get out of NH til 8pm, we still started our journey that night (if the day had gone as planned, we would have left NH at 3.....grrr). 

Luckily, the kids slept most of the way on that leg and we woke up bright and early the next day for an 11 hour trek.  11 gruesome hours with 2 crazy kids and a 4 month old.  It was miserable.  "Are we there yet?" every 2 minutes.  Potty breaks every 2 hours.  Food stops galore.  Baby needs to eat.  Baby needs to be changed.  We need gas.  "STOP LOOKING AT MY TV SCREEN" (fights from the kids) etc.  It sucked.  I'd like to say that was the end of our road trip.  But it wasn't.  We got to Ohio that night and the highlight of the WHOLE day was seeing fireflies!  The kids were ecstatic! We even caught one and brought it into the hotel room so they could watch it flicker all night! Ha!

  

The next day was tough.  What was supposed to be a 7 hour drive turned into 10 and we were all struggling with our sanity at this point.  The trip was longer, partly because our fender almost ripped off and we pulled over and Shawn spent an hour under the car on the side of the highway trying to get it back on.  Also, the kids were just pesky again (teeny tiny little bladders!).   We made it to St. Louis that night.

The next day was our last day! Only 7 hours and FINALLY we made it!  A 24 hour drive turned into 33 hours, but other than a broken cell phone (Bruce's) and a missing screw to the fender (ours) we made it to Oklahoma safely.  I've never had a move go so smoothly, once we were on the road.  No truck breakdowns, no getting lost, no over-heating (Bruce was pulling a 24 foot truck, WITH a car trailer on the back towing our Yaris in 105 degree heat for 4 days).  Not a single issue!  HALLELUJAH! Like, the only way that was all made possible was thanks to all the sweet prayers and God watching over us all.  We saw other U-hauls with blown out tires.  We saw wrecks.  We saw moving companies with trucks that broke down.  But we didn't have any issues this time.  Thank you, Jesus! 

 

The next 11 days were a blur!  Movers showed up on Tuesday, June 28th to unload and guess what?  ALL 4 of the guys hired showed up and they were all MEN! Strong men!  They had the whole truck unloaded in 3 hours.  Mary drove up a couple days after we got there and picked up Bruce and the girls' to take back to Louisiana.  While they were in Louisiana for a week having a blast with all their cousins, Shawn and I unpacked the whole house!  We would wake up and spend hours unpacking and then at night we would relax and just enjoy the peace and quiet!  With his work giving him the week off to move, plus the 4th of July and no little girls running in and out and all around, we were able to unpack and decorate the whole house and start making it our cute home! And I LOVE it!!!  It was spotless for a couple days while the girls were gone.  And the minute they got back- POOF!  The whole thing was ruined.  Haha, ok, not ruined.  But a crazy mess.  They were SO excited to see all their toys again that I packed up weeks ago.  Lucy exclaimed "my Princess room is just MAGICAL!" :) Bruce and Mary left on Sunday and here I am blogging because the chaos is officially DONE!  It was an 18 day process from the day Bruce got into NH until yesterday when him and Mary went home, but now we are done and oh-so-happy.  

Our neighborhood has 2 ponds you can fish in and 3 pools and a park.  It has kids everywhere!  It has an HOA! FINALLY! We get to live in an area where everyone keeps nice yards!  The HOA is so strict, but I love it.  I'm tired of living in places where people have junk cars in their driveways and overgrown lawns.  See how spoiled I sound? Haha, but I'm just finally in a really nice place and we are in love!  We feel settled for the first time EVER.  It's a really, really nice feeling.

My Soul Man got his 2 first teeth and didn't fuss at all!  Now, he is currently cutting 4 teeth at once and is just miserable :(

WE MADE IT! This is my HOME!

We had a whole week ALONE with this little dude.  It was the best!

I always pictured Oklahoma as being brown but surprise! It's not! It's actually really green!  

The next few pictures are kind of disorganized.  There are pictures of our house.  Not all of it, but most of it.  And there are also 4th of July pictures mixed in.  The girls spent the 4th in Louisiana.  I missed them a lot, but they had so much fun! Also, just general pictures of them in LA and us here in OK.  And then more from when Bruce and Mary came back for the weekend.  We celebrated Mary's birthday on Saturday! Happy Birthday Grammy!

We put Sully in one of the girls strollers while we were unpacking their room. Haha, he is so fat!

  

I made it to the DMV.  I'm an official Okie now!

The girls BOTH learned to swim yesterday! We took them to the pool and told Lucy that throughout the Summer we wanted her to start practicing her swimming.  After some begging on our part, she took her floaties off and never looked back.  Once she realized that she could kind of already swim from years of floaty practice, she was super excited to keep going!  In no time she was jumping off the wall without floaties and everything! Shawn and I were SOOOO proud!!!! Piper copies Lucy, so of course Piper had to do it too.  And she was almost just as good! Can't wait for these girls to be floaty free by the end of Summer!

Right before we left NH, the girls caught a frog!  The first frog we've ever seen there.  Here, however, there are frogs everywhere!

Sweet Sully took an hour long nap in his floatie yesterday while kids splashed and swam all around him.  What a guy!  Shawn called it a Waterbed :)

Sully left his mark on our bed before we left NH.  HAHAHA!

 A couple more milestones!!  I cut 7 inches off of Piper's hair last night.  It pained me to do it.  But her hair was ALWAYS tangled.  It was getting in the worst knots and if I didn't brush it mid-day, it was practically dreaded at night.  It had to be done.  It was to her bum and I didn't like cutting it, but she felt proud of herself for being brave! (she was afraid it was going to hurt).  And today it was so easy to style and wash!  I hope when it grows back it stays just as blonde and comes in thicker.  She looks so adorable with long hair!
Next milestone- Sully had his first solids!  He loves rice cereal (no surprise there!).  He got used to the spoon so quickly and chows down!  Good job little dude!

   

And here we are now.....happily saying "good night" to everyone!  :)