Christmas 2013

Merry Christmas!

Decorating cookies for Santa using Nana's cookie recipe. Ivan loved helping cut out the cookies. And yes, he's in his underwear. Hey, it's Christmas eve, who cares. 

After opening Christmas pajamas, since we got icing all over the other pj's we were wearing, Ivan wanted to take a picture with his cookies. He was quite proud of the work he had done. And I'm really impressed that he could ice the cookies so well. I made royal icing and he used a spoon to color the cookies. . . And himself.

Christmas morning! This year I got 4 different patterns of wrapping paper and each of us got our own kind of paper. 

Charlotte was quite excited for the festivities to begin. Ivan and I woke up around 6 and I tried to contain him as long as I could so Michael could sleep in a bit. Around 8 we both decided it was time for presents. So we woke him and Charlotte up and this is what we got!

Ivan was a maniac with opening presents. Santa and Nana really gave us a magnificent Christmas for the kids. And last year Ivan wasn't all that interested in opening presents. So I was worried we had too many presents to open this year and that he would get bored. Boy was I wrong! All he wanted to so was open presents! He tore into them like the Tazmanian Devil with a flurry of paper and he was on to the next as soon as he saw what was inside. After he opened all of his presents, he opened Charlotte's. Then some of mine and Michael's. 

This is all the interest Charlotte had in opening the presents. 

Aw! I love this face! This has been her favorite toy. She loves this little rattle. 

Here's Charlotte with the other rattle just like the one in the previous picture. And the other set of her new pajamas since she likes to overfill her diapers... Needless to say, those pj's have been a fantastic buy! 

This is the puzzle my sister got for Ivan. He friggin' loves it! I thought it might be a little challenging for him, especially when the box said for ages 3+. But he figured it out before the day was over. And he's learning shapes, colors, and numbers from one puzzle!

Ivan put on all of Charlotte's new necklaces. This is his attempt to say cheese. 

I got Michael Connect4 so we could play together. Ivan thought it was for him. 

The Nature Park

We like to feed the ducks at the Nature Park.

We took Ivan before the snow came and got one last chance to run around outside without snow to hold us back.

We didn't have very much bread to take. So we used some old cookies and a few other snack things that had been in the diaper bag forever. 

The birds were all very excited to be fed. 

Ivan was a little nervous about that big momma goose. And he had all the right to be. We took a walk about the pond and stopped the see the birds when we came back. Ivan had a granola bar in his hand for a snack and this goose walked right up to him and snatched right out of his hand! He was so sad. He started screaming and ran away. Another granola bar later, all was right in the world. 

Halloween 2013

Friday the 13th is supposed to be scary right? 

So does that make Halloween on the year ending with 13 even scarier?

We did all the good things that are October. 

Carving pumpkins. 

Ivan thought the guts were pretty gross. He barely wanted to help. 

Trying on costumes.

Charlotte didn't like the hat. I'm impressed that Michael snapped this picture before she ripped the hat off her head. 

We found this little shark costume, meant for dogs,  and thought it would be fun. Not to mention it was a lot cheaper than any other costume meant for babies. 

 Played in the huge piles of leaves outside.

 A couple of us in the neighborhood had a leaf raking party.

It wasn't super thrilling, but it was great to not have to rake the leaves by myself. 

We did 3 or 4 yards in all.

We also had a couple Halloween activities. 

At the school, there was a Halloween party for the kids. Last year they had an open gym with different activities set up and the kids had all the room to run and be free. That's what we were expecting, and hoping for, this year.

Waiting in line. That kid can't go anywhere without his juice. 

Michael, the pro golfer, holding our little shark and Ivan is photo bombing in the background on the right.

Instead, they anticipated the small attendance they had the year prior and planned accordingly. They had a much smaller space set up and had the families walking through small aisles where they were handing out candy and had small games set up. This would have been great if the turnout was the same as last year. The thing went from 5 to 7. We got there at 5:20 or so and the line was curled all the way around the building. By the time we actually got in the thing the kids were crazy and they were only handing out one piece of candy to each kid. They even had to count out the pieces of candy they had left and stop letting people in because they were gonna run out. The decorations were amazing, but it was incredibly crowded. Ivan was pretty scared with all the people around. He wanted to be carried the whole time. Lucky us, it only took us 2 hours to get through the activity including all the time we spent in line in the hallway. Thankfully, there were a bunch of other little kids tired of standing in line, so Ivan was able to make a few friends and play on the stairs.

Fishing for candy! 

On Halloween we went to a trunk or treat at an apartment complex across town, where we don't live... Michael has a friend living there and he invited us. I'm glad we went. It was kinda rainy and cold so we didn't want to spend too much time walking around outside. We also skipped Charlotte's shark costume and dressed her as a diva instead. 

Ivan got a pretty sweet haul from this. He even said trick or treat a few times. He got quieter and quieter each time he said it. By the end, he pretty much only mouthed the words. 

He loves knocking on doors lately. Like whenever Melanie comes to watch them in the mornings, she'll knock, then Ivan knocks and says come in. 

The vet tech group I'm working with this semester had a little get together. Ivan had a blast running around, showing off, and being crazy. He loved, seriously loved, giving Charlotte a horsey ride. 

And we had a ward Halloween party too. That day happened to be my birthday, so we got a baby sitter, went hiking at Harriman State Park and found out about a trick or treating thing there that was later that night, went to dinner in Island Park, stood in line at a spooky thing at Harriman State Park and decided it wasn't worth it, went to the very end of our ward party, crashed another ward's party where the Bishop is the teacher I work for, and went to Walmart. Turned out to be pretty fun. 

This is Dr. Quirl at the other ward's party. They had a Twinkie eating contest. They put whipped cream all over a Twinkie and you had to eat it the fastest. You can see his wife, Pat, in the background. She's about to smush his face into the Twinkie. 

This is my costume for the haunted Harriman 

Had tons of fun spending the day with my sweetie on my birthday. 

After the trunk or treat on Halloween, we went back to our neighborhood and went to 3 houses. In those 3 houses we completely filled Ivan's bucket and the pocket on my sweatshirt. Guess the rain really kept a lot of people from trick or treating!

Ivan's 2nd Birthday!

Today Ivan turns 2. I can't believe this little guy has been around for 2 years already! Time sure flies by too fast. Over the weekend we were able to have a fun little party for Ivan.

We had grapes on skewers, chocolate covered oreos, jello jigglers, juice boxes for the kids, old fashioned sodas for the big kids, mini cupcakes, and a bunch of other snack foods. I found the cutest mold for the jello, it's zoo animals! There's a giraffe, monkey, elephant, lion, and hippo. All the kids loved the jello. And it was really nice to have it be handheld.

Probably my favorite picture from the whole party. This is Kristen with her daughter Ember, Ivan's future wife... that is if Ellie Romero won't have him. 

For activities, we kept it simple. The kids love our long hallway, so we let them run up and down the halls. Then we had coloring. And Michael let Ivan pop balloons. They both really enjoyed that one.

Apparently coloring was too complicated? In the pink is Abby and the other girl is Savannah, Abby's cousin.

His eyes are already closed cuz he's prepared for it to pop. Yep, that's a skewer he's holding. 

A lot of people showed up to give some love to Ivan. Some of his friends there were Ember Sellers, Abby Blackwell, Savanna Burns, and Beckham Ward. He loved seeing all of them! And all his friends went home with awesome part favors. Foam stickers, sun glasses, marshmallows, an on the go applesauce, and a little recorder. 

Light pink is Abby, dark pink is Ember, Ivan is superman, and in the back is Beckham.

We seriously had so much fun at his party! His grandparents (on Michael's side) were able to make it, plus a billion of Ivan's old baby sitters and friends from church.

The Wampler grandparents

When it came time for singing happy birthday, Ivan didn't know what to do. He kinda stood there like he was in shock and he got really shy. He was excited for blowing out the candle though. I told him to blow out the candle and through the corners of his little smile he actually blew it out! (With only a little help from mom) He was so funny to watch eat his cupcake too. I think it's been a while since that kid has had cake! He licked the frosting off the top then made this super sour face and kept eating it! He did have a couple more cupcakes after that but managed to only eat the icing off the last ones.

Blowing out the candle. 

Licking off all the frosting. 

Yum. 

This kid cracks me up! He does this happy dance of stomping his feet really fast in the same spot when he's excited. He has this excited giggle when he gets to have or do something that he really really wants. It's like a hehehehehehehehe really fast and in a low voice with his head tilted down. He likes to be tickled. He likes to scare people. He'll get his deepest roar and come up behind you and try to scare you. And he says scare mom, then he roars at me. Lately he's been saying "cow coming" and getting excited and scared at the same time. I have no idea what it means. He relives Balto every day. That movie must have made an impression. Randomly he starts to talk about Balto, then says "oh no" and "bear coming" and gets really concerned. He loves his fish tank, but gets sad when fish die. We bought some older fish from someone and one of the sword tails died. Every day since then Ivan gets really sad and says "swordtail died" with his lip pouted and his head down and the saddest voice I've ever heard. Then the next second he's fine. Ivan also really likes to be swung. Michael swings Ivan from his feet, ankles, hands, one foot and one hand, pretty much anyway you can imagine (except for his head cuz that's too much even for us!). And Ivan loves it! He also really likes to take toys from Charlotte, go figure. So we have a rule of if you take a toy, you need to give her a new one. It works pretty good and Ivan likes it enough that I don't have to tell him to do it anymore. Lately, the toys he chooses for Charlotte to have are not what she wants, so he gives her a stern little lecture about liking what she has and trying to convince her that she doesn't want what Ivan wants. Ivan loves horseback rides, the kind where mom and dad are the horses, but regular horses too. Any time we're on the floor, Ivan will try to climb up on our backs then hunker down, grab onto our armpits, and hug us for dear life just hoping for a ride. And if he doesn't want a horsey ride, he wants a hug. So instead of climbing on us, he gets a head start and runs full speed to slam into us for a hug. He thinks it's best if we fall over. One of the toys he got at his party was a nerf gun. Man does he love that thing! He'll play with it all day and sleep with it at night. He is also really fascinated with puzzles. He is learning the alphabet by playing with his foam puzzles. He thinks it's hilarious if he sees anyone do Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. Ivan is really tuned in to people's emotions. Any time anybody around him is sad, Ivan says he's sad or Dad sad or Mom sad. He is also like a parrot. I say, you're driving me crazy. Ivan says "drive me crazy." I say, you're killing me. Ivan says "kill me." He likes to talk about his britches, but leaves out a significant consonant in that word.

Opening presents! He got a puzzle, stuffed animals, nerf guns, books, shirts, and lots of other fun things. 

Playing under the table, cuz that's the place to be.