Christmas, Sullivan Style

It is safe to say that Sullivan thoroughly enjoyed Christmas this year. This was the year of the Sheldon Christmas. Even though Sully was sick the whole time we were there with a 104 degree fever on Christmas Eve and needing nebulizer treatments for his cough, he was still a pretty happy little bugger.

Sully's favorite thing to do this Christmas:

--Helping to decorate the tree.
--Helping to make gingersnap cookies.
--Helping hand out gifts and then help people to open their gifts after he handed them to them.
--Singing "Jingle Bells" with Dad.
--Playing Play Doh.
--Playing "Match," a.k.a. the game Memory, but with the cards facing up to match the pairs instead of trying to remember where the pairs are like the big kids play the game.

I expect that Play Doh and playing "Match" will be part of a long term trend, but each of those were pretty popular during our Christmas festivities. Here are a few photos of him throughout the month.

P.S. Don't forget to check out the video in the below post. It expires on January 15 unless I hear of great demand for me to purchase the download rights for $5. I think it's worth a couple weeks of funny, but let me know if anyone thinks it needs to live on forever. The stars are we Minneapolis Sandholms along with Gabe's brothers, C.J. and Cole. We're like the Backstreet Boys. Except I'm not a boy. And it's elves. But, just saying. I still think it could be considered as impressive as the Backstreet Boys. Maybe.

Happy Holidays From Sandholm Ranch

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Merry Christmas From Sully & Bear

Sully loves Bear, the bear his adopted Grandma Terri bought him for his second birthday. Earlier this week Sully insisted on having Bear wear the Santa hat, and then he decided he would, too. Gabe got a couple photos on his cell phone.

This kid cracks us up on a daily basis. :)

The Sullivan Sandholm Show

Here they are -- all 184 of Sullivan's professional photos for your viewing pleasure. Let us know what you think! We obviously think he's model material, but we have to -- we're his parents.

Sully Glamour Shots

Sorry for such a short post considering I haven't updated you all in years, but we had photographer Jacquelyn Senske come to our house for an hour on Sunday to follow Sully around and take some photos for his two-year birthday. She posted some initial shots up on her blog here. Jacquelyn was awesome and Sully had a great time with her.

We will have lots more photos to share once we get the full CD the second week of December. And I'll get some other ones up from this fall in the next couple days (hopefully). Yes, I understand that no one believes me anymore when I say this, but I do have the best intentions. :)

And yes, we did just cut his bangs that morning. Hence the "British-rocker-too-short-but-who-gives-a-shit" look. Note to self: don't cut bangs on day of photos.

Sully Does Fall

Sullivan and Gabe went for a walk last weekend around Lake Harriet. Well, it was really more of a 3-mile amble with stops to look at the ducks; pointing out and petting the various dogs; letting Sully out of the stroller to walk in the way of other walkers, joggers and strollers; and then making Sully a pile of leaves to jump in and throw around. Gabe got some super cute photos on his cell phone (yes, we need to get better about carrying around a camera with a charged battery and then actually getting it out to take pictures).

One the agenda for this weekend:

- Go to Shriner’s Circus to let Sullivan see real elephants
- Go to pumpkin patch to get into the Halloween spirit
- Buy Sully a Halloween costume of some sort (probably whatever is left on clearance at Target)

Sully is currently at home with Grandma Pipho as he has these two days off for school conferences. Gabe and I are going to Sully’s conference tonight at 5:30 PM. Will be interesting considering Sully is definitely reaching the terrible twos, as evidenced by the following:

Favorite Phrases
--"No!” (said while flinging his arm at you as if to hit you)
--"My do it!”
--“Daddy!”
(Sidenote: I am currently a second-class citizen at home. This has proven a nice thing as Sully has been sick and only wants Gabe to help him/rock him in the middle of the night; this sucks when I would just like a hug before the kid goes to bed.)

Fun New Behavior Issues
Has begun hitting his teachers and parents when he doesn’t get his way.

He stands and cries inconsolably when he doesn’t get his way or you don’t understand what he is asking. Most recent example was the “Great Breakfast Stand Off” yesterday morning. We made Sully a toaster waffle, but he then decided he wanted Oatscreme instead for breakfast. We asked him to eat one bite of waffle before he could have Oatscreme; he instead chose to cry and scream for 20 minutes. It’s a constant War of the Wills at our house. He’s a stubborn bugger.

This one is actually kind of fun – he thinks it’s hilarious to fall down. Whenever he has fallen, we’ve always said, “Oh, ka-boom!” or “Oh, you went boom!” Goal was to make it seem fun and not like a scary thing he needed to cry about. Well, mission accomplished.

Now he will just walk down the sidewalk and then all of a sudden turn himself into a Indian-style seated position and lay on the ground and say, “A-boom!” He did this repeatedly on another Lake Harriet walk all of us did on Sunday. Cute, but you seriously don’t get anywhere, and it’s really annoying to the people around you.

Hopefully he is nicer at school than at home. But he’s still cute, and he’s still our Sully.

We Survived the Iowa v. Iowa State Game

Just a quick update to let you know we had a good time at the Iowa v. Iowa State game! Gabe, Cole and I had a 4:15 AM wake-up call on Saturday morning, and we were off the farm and en route to Iowa City at 5:10 AM. We made it to the parking lot in Iowa City at 7:15 AM after waiting for one of Cole's putzy friends at his hotel for probably 15 minutes.

I have no photos of the tailgating, but some key points to share:

1. An Iowa Hawkeye canopy (a.k.a. tent without sides) is key when tailgating in the rain.


2. Even more key than the canopy is to have neighboring tailgaters who actually know how to put up and take down said Hawkeye canopy.


3. It's always good to have tailgate neighbors who accept beer as payment for their help and as a symbol of your gratitude.


4. If you decide to buy and use a power inverter device, make sure it is powerful enough to run your crock pot.


5. If your power inverter device doesn't work, make sure you are tailgating close enough to a university building that may have outlets available. Gabe managed to hunt and find an available outlet at the EPB (English-Philosophy Building) to get our chili up to lukewarm-ish. Next time we'll just bring our camp stove. Fancy power inverter is getting returned to Best Buy.


6. Target makes a pretty nice rain boot. I bought these to wear to the game. My feet were dry and mud-free!


7. Never be in a rush to get your calzone at Sam's Pizza after the game. We only waited for probably 60 minutes before the waitress even came over. And that was after Gabe finally flagged her down. But the calzones are pretty much worth the wait. Really. Just don't be too hungry or thirsty before they (or the waitress) decides to show up.

And here is a photo of the yahoos who were sitting two rows in front of us during the game (photo courtesy of http://www.fannation.com/). These guys were the only Iowa State fans in probably a five-ish section area, and they were lucky enough to end up next to a very ginormous Iowa season ticket holder who made sure to cheer intimidatingly at these guys by standing up on the bleacher and screaming at them while spittle flew out of his mouth (Iowa guy is seen here with hands over face on cell phone). Not sure what the mix-up was, but I don't think Cyclone dudes were supposed to be sold tickets in our section. Oh, well. No one beat them up, at least.

Oh, and we won! Iowa 17, Iowa State 5. WOO! woo.

Tailgating Weather

Gabe and I are in the midst of enjoying the Iowa football season, and tomorrow is the big Iowa v. Iowa State game. We have major tailgate plans with a crock pot of chili; sausage, cheese and crackers; veggies and dip; and peanuts and M&Ms. And this, my friends, is the weather report:

We are planning to get to Iowa City at 7 AM with an 11 AM game starting time. I think I might need to take along a change of clothes. I wish I had rain boots! Good lord. You'd think living in Seattle for 8 years would have prepared me for this, but this is no Seattle rain -- I expect this will be a flipping deluge. Wish us luck.

And I'll provide some updates soon regarding Sullivan, what else we've been up to -- things of this nature. Promise.

Happy 4th of July!

Ok, so I’m not the most punctual person. However, I did want to share a few photos of Sully celebrating the independence of the great U. S. of A. Due to his early bedtime, no fireworks were on the docket for us this year; however, we did have a good time at Lake Harriet where Sully had his first lake splashing/falling down face first/walking in sand and water experience. We also enjoying lunch at our local Chinese restaurant, Szechuan Star. The Chinese invented fireworks, so we felt this was very appropriate. Who needs barbecue or watermelon?

Sully at the lake, looking forlorn while playing with his belly button. Dad and sandwagon are in the background.

Sully reading his fortune at Szechuan Star. Note: he did not eat anything while there, but he did insist on having his fortune cookie opened.

Sully wearing his 4th of July Parade hat from daycare. He put it on himself, and on the back is where the little cut out bear is that he colored. He has a bear on his hat as he is now a "Bear" at daycare. He graduated this month from a Duckling. He's getting so big!

The Homemade Cookie Bouquet

This past weekend was our niece Katelin's high school graduation. For her graduation party, Katelin decided to not go the typical graduation cake approach and instead have various cookies and bars available for the party attendees. I thought this was a pretty cool idea, and it also made me think, "You know, a cookie bouqet would be awesome!" However, I am cheap. The cookie bouquets I'm familiar with tend to be a bit expensive.

I'm not a crafty type, but I decided that it would be cool to see if I could make some cookie bouquets for Katelin's graduation. I didn't ask her if that would be OK -- I just went ahead three days before her party and just bought the stuff and started in on this project. Glad she is laid back and didn't mind that I decided these bouquets needed to be the centerpieces for her tables.

I really didn't know what I was doing and was fully expecting this entire project to not turn out, but it wasn't too bad! There was a lot of help and input on this project, and I'd like thank the following (it's like the Oscars!):

• Mom for designing the "Pat Pipho Open Heart Surgery Zipper Method" for keeping the dowels in the cookies while they baked, and also providing the double ovens and manning them to ensure the cookies were baking appropriately (we only burned one pan's worth).
• My niece Brittney for cluing me into buying frosting in bulk at the grocery store bakery to save time on the whole frosting situation, as well as helping me frost.
• My friend Staci for coming over and helping frost cookies.
• Deb (another of Katelin's aunts) for helping me put the bouquets together the day of the party.
• My loving husband Gabe for buying the frosting and wrapping several cookie sticks with floral tape to make them look like real stems.

This was definitely a family affair, and something that probably won't ever need to be recreated unless someone asks me for it specifically. Then I will do it. Probably.

Over 100 cookies with sticks in them later, and we were done. A few photos for your enjoyment. That one that turned into a word jumble says "Congrats, Katelin!" That layout isn't my best work, but hey -- if you stare at it long enough, you might be able to read it. :)

The Sully Paparazzi

Mother's Day brought me a new camera, and we have been busy taking loads of Sully photos. Here are a few from the month of May. Since we moved to our permanent residence in January, we've misplaced the old camera cord again...once we find that, you will be able to see some more Sully milestones. Most notably, his first birthday. Ahem.

Most of the time we really are pretty good parents. I swear.

"I love walking around. It's fun."

"Hi, Mom!"

"Dad, pick me up -- not take my picture!"

Best Mother's Day Card Ever

When I picked Sully up from school yesterday, I had this little gem waiting for me. This is the best Mother's Day card ever. And, in case you can't tell, yes, he is happy and laughing in this picture! I had a few colleagues who thought he was really mad and screaming. Nope, this is definitely him laughing. Love it.

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March Madness

March has been a bit nuts for us, chock-full of a lot of running around and not enough relaxing. The biggest contributor to the craziness has been the amount of travel that both Gabe and I have had. Gabe started off March in Louisville, Kentucky for a couple of days; had a weekend in Vegas for a friend’s bachelor party; flew directly from Vegas to Santa Barbara for a day; flew to Sacramento for another day; came home. Once Gabe returned home, I flew to Vegas for five days to work at a client’s user conference. Then it was Easter. Now Gabe is gone again to Anaheim and San Diego, returning on Friday. While this amount of traveling may be normal for some families, I don’t like it. I’m more of a homebody type. The good news is that I believe that most of my travel is done for the year. Gabe, on the other hand, will always have as much travel available to him as he is willing to take. Funny how traveling becomes less fun the more you need to do it.

Gabe was also busy this month taking two classes which he finished with his last final yesterday. Just four more classes to go until he has his MBA. Yahoo!

In addition to traveling and studying, we’re also in the process of demolishing our basement. Well, let's be clear -- Gabe's brothers Cole and C.J. began the process of demolishing our basement. While Gabe and I have been running around like crazy people, his great brothers have come over to help us get going on some of our house projects. So very nice of them.

While we had in mind to tear out the basement and sheetrock it, we had a new issue pop up when things started to thaw around here a couple weeks ago. A wet spot appeared on the carpet. We were actually hoping that the cats were beginning to pee on the carpet, but no. It was some sort of basement water issue. Our goal is to someday (soon, hopefully) have our basement be this awesome recreation room good for movies, playing and lounging; however, this sort of usage requires a dry place so as not to wreck everything in the basement. So, we called a basement guy from Complete Basement Systems to give us an estimate on what it would cost to get a dry basement.

According to this guy, it will cost a lot. About $10,000. Ahem.

The $10,000 includes digging a drainage trench around the perimeter of the basement, putting in gravel and something that looks like rain gutter in said trench, re-cementing it. It also includes a wall vapor-lock system that will keep moisture from wicking through the walls and directing that moisture into the new trench. It also includes a sump pump and a drainage system into the front yard. And, it includes digging a trench down the middle of the basement floor to capture any water that may be leaking in through the seams of the house beams and the cement foundation.

All we need to do is completely demo the basement—which we are already in the process of doing. What we weren’t planning to do, though, is dig out the finished bathroom that is down there. Because the bathroom is on an external wall, we would have to completely rip out the bathroom, including shower, for the trenching to happen. Yet another expense.

Our next steps are to get a couple more estimates and see where things shake out. We really want to ensure we are fixing the basement infrastructure up right so we never (well, hopefully never) have to have water be an issue down there again. However, what does “right” look like? A full system with trenches and vapor lock walls and a sump pump? Or is it the $169 sump pump that was advertised at Menards that we bring home, jackhammer a hole, stick the sump pump in it, call it good and hope and pray everything will work? I’m guessing it’s somewhere in the middle, but not quite sure what the answer is yet. If you have any ideas, let us know.

And I can’t believe I just wrote on forever about sump pumps and basements.

Sully @ 15 Months

I took Sully in for his 15 month check-up last week, which -- unbeknownst to me -- included shots. I had no idea. Oh, well. He now has his MMR and chicken pox vaccine. No thimerosal was in either shot. I'm currently paranoid about autism and external factors -- like preservatives in vaccines -- increasing the chances of or even causing autism, so I was sure to ask the doctor whether or not there was any thimerosal in either shot. Our doctor's office doesn't use thimerosal in any shots for children under 3. Good to know.

As for vital stats, Sullivan is still pretty runty. He's only in the 7th percentile for weight; 18th percentile for length; but he's sporting an 85th percentile for head circumference. Little body, ginormous noggin. Still cute, though. :) Here are a couple photos I took of him at the doctor's office while we were waiting for the nurse to come in and give him his shots.

Sully is also a walker! He walks around like a champ. He started really taking steps on Gabe's birthday (February 9), and has been improving ever since! So fun to see him running around. He likes to be chased and also to just run off, have you say, "Hey, where you going?," and then he just keeps going off and laughing. Such a goof ball.

Cleaning Out Cupboards

Sullivan is one helpful little soul. While we are trying to put things away, he thinks it's more useful to take the Tupperware out. While I anticipate it is more fun for him to take the Tupperware out, I am quite sure having it all over our teeny kitchen floor isn't so useful.

Oh, well. It's still cute, and much safer than having him dig out the cleaning supplies from under the kitchen sink. And, no, our kitchen isn't baby-proofed. Yet.

Preparation for Gabe's 30th Birthday

Gabe is working out of his company's Kirkland office, his original office where all of his colleagues are that have helped him to celebrate several birthdays, threw us a gigantic baby shower in advance of Sullivan's birth and also ensure that he has a Christmas gift or two during the holiday season. His department took advantage of him being in the office this week to help "pre-celebrate" his 30th birthday that is coming up on February 9, including putting the flyer pictured above around the office. You might be able to read the conversation bubble if you make the picture bigger, but it says, "I wonder if anyone knows that it's almost my birthday?"

Nice.

Sully Busts a Move

Gabe is out of town this week in Seattle, and I mentioned to him that yesterday during Sully's drop-off at school that Sully really started shaking his groove thing when he was playing with a little plastic bus toy. More specifically, it looked like Sully was air-humping the bus and trying be a bull-rider all at the same time, doing pelvic thrusts toward the bus with one hand in the air. It was awesome.

Gabe noted he really wanted to see it, and -- as luck would have it -- the bus was out to play with again this morning when I dropped Sully off. I took my cell phone in with me to capture the below video. Unfortunately, Sully decided today wasn't bull-riding day and instead was doing more of a low-rider gangsta hump. Regardless, it was still funny. Sully rocks. :)

Baby Rave

Yesterday, Gabe and I took Sully to his first rave. Well, it wasn't really a rave, but I anticipate it's rave-y enough for a 13-month old. We went to an event called "Rock the Cradle" at the Children's Theater in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and they had all of these fun, music-related things for kiddos ages 2-8 to do. Given Sully wasn't even in the age range, technically, he couldn't do everything there, but that was OK.

We spent a lot of time at the Kid's Disco, which had a DJ spinning songs with strobe lights going and kids and their parents dancing and having a good time. It was pretty cool. Sully was a little intimidated by the volume and lights at first, but he never cried. He then did let us put him down on the floor, standing and holding on to our hands, but he just stood there and looked around at the lights and the other kiddos dancing around. Finally, a Gorillaz song came on with a good beat, and he did a little bouncing dance move. But that was it. We'll see how it goes again next year.

We also went to the "Instrument Petting Zoo" where kids were allowed to try playing different instruments like a guitar, tuba, saxophone, drums and others. We found a percussion instrument table and tried to let Sully hit an xylophone a bit, but he was a little too distracted watching the other kids shake the instruments to focus on what he was doing. And after we left the percussion table, we realized that we probably butted in line without knowing it by just walking up to the table and letting Sully try and play. Oops. Nobody seemed to mind, at least (or were just too polite to say anything).

Overall, it was a really good time! Lots of hip kids with their hip parents, and then we were there, too. It will be fun to check out again next year, and not a bad way to spend a January day in Minnesota.

Sandholm Family Redux

Yes, we're still around. Just in case you were wondering.

Things have been a bit hectic this past month; here it is in bullet form. Each bullet deserves its own discussion in its own right, but -- unfortunately we're a little too busy doing, that there hasn't been a lot of time for blogging. No offense to all of you. :) Here's the month rewind:

--Sully's First Birthday. It was great.
--Gabe's Grandma Kragt Passed Away. We went to her funeral in Iowa. She was a great lady and we're so glad she was able to meet and enjoy Sully.
--Christmas. We went to my parents, but later than expected due to a snowstorm.
--Went to Seattle for a Week. Was a great time; celebrated New Year's Day, stayed at the Hennessey's, saw the Haslam family, and had a great weekend at the coast.
--We Moved. My mom and dad came up this past weekend, and Gabe's friends Kyle and Scott helped us move four stock trailer loads of stuff from our rental to our new house. We currently live in chaos. Utter chaos.

And that is the Sandholm family in the past 30-ish days. Oh, and we still have to work. Suppose I should get back at it.

The View From Here

While I have lots of other things I could blog about, just wanted to share with you the view from my new office. I just got moved to a new space yesterday, and it has a window overlooking the lake across the road. And that mound of snow you see? That is an actual place to ski. No joke. Chair lifts and everything. I've even heard someone refer to it as a mountain. Are you kidding me? A mountain? These people are precious.

And, I realize this view isn't the Olympics or Cascades, but cute nonetheless. There is even a guy out on the lake doing what appears to be ice fishing right now. Not sure that it's super wise to be out there given it's getting up to 40 degrees today and things are softening up a bit, but more power to him, I guess. If I see him fall through, I'll be sure to call 911.

Oh, and I now also sit three doors down from an apparently famous hockey person: Brian Lawton. He seems quite nice and introduced himself yesterday. Brian works for one of my company's sister companies called Octagon Hockey, and they are all agents for NHL players. Too bad I don't know anything about hockey to be super impressed when their clients come walking in. Oh, well. Should be fun nonetheless.