Such a Cutie!

Looking back at all of Ivan's baby pictures sure makes me want another baby. Good thing that's happening in about 3 months! Woo-hoo! I'm super excited. I miss the snuggly, little tiny baby. I miss the tiny hands that cling to your fingers. I even miss the little newborn cry, maybe not as much as the others, but it sure is quieter than Ivan. I miss how much they really really need you. I'm so excited to have another baby, to make our family bigger, and to not be pregnant anymore! Not saying we won't have more, but when this little girl moves, it causes some serious pain! Plus I want to get back in shape, I've got this soccer season looming over my head, plus Brenda is getting married a little over a month after I pop this kid out and I want to look good for pictures. :] I'm excited for Ivan to be a big brother. He's been training well at being a little brother since he gets pushed around at church and kids take his toys and he doesn't care. Now how to train him to be a good big brother? We're working on soft. When I say be soft now he rubs his head instead of hitting. I'd say we're getting somewhere.

Other things about Ivan:
He really likes nutra grain bars, eats one every day for breakfast.

He loves being chased.

He's tough. Gets knocked over, pushed down, falls down, whatever, and doesn't normally cry.

He likes making the sour face (like he's eating a lemon) all the time.

He's a little ham. He's cute and he knows it, crazy kid. And he sure uses it against us.

He loves yogurt, macaroni and cheese, fruit, and Ruffles cheddar and sour cream chips.

He'll say 'mmm' to get something he wants, especially if you are eating something he likes.

He really likes pacifiers. This is a recent thing, would never take them til about a month ago.

He loves stuffed animals. He goes to sleep with one tucked under his arm every night and can be found carrying 3 or more around the house at a time.

He likes to drive around his trucks on his hands and knees.

He loves the snow.

His best friend is Ellie Romero, she is a month older than Ivan. They play really well together and even hug each other.

He loves animals. He's really interested in cats and dogs right now but isn't afraid of horses or cows.

He loves to play 'where's dad?' I say that and he searches the house for Michael.

He loves to play 'where's Ivan?' He hides in or under something and laughs when I ask where he is.

He loves to climb. We had to block off our whole kitchen to keep him off the counters. He would climb on the bench to get to the table to get to the high chair to get to the counter after having pushed the high chair into just the right place.

He's really into puzzles right now. He mastered the ring stacker and now it's not enough, so puzzles it is. Part of that is putting the lid back on things, like tupperware or bottles or anything with a detachable lid.

He chugs his water like it's going out of style, gulps super loud, then throws his sippy cup as far as he can when he's done.

He's been afraid of the vacuum for a while. Recently he started yelling at it and running away. Today Michael suctioned his face (his own face, not Ivan's) and Ivan thought it was hilarious. So funny that he had to try it out for himself. He wasn't quite sure what to think. We'll try again soon.

He is a prince in is bed. He has this giant giraffe, which was a gift to me and was used as a body pillow before Ivan stole it, as a pillow. He also needs a stuffed animal and his blanket and pacifier to sleep with. Now he's not all that particular about which stuffed animals (referred to as 'friends' in this house) or blankets he sleeps with, but he does have his favorites. Favorite blanket: puppy dog one that Laura gave us. Favorite friend: puppy dog that Michael got him.

He says "ooo" to just about anything. If he's excited about something, or he hears a cool noise, or he wants something.

When he hears a dog barking outside he says "gug" and points and gets all sorts of excited.

In the morning Ivan gets a bottle. He wakes up around 6 but I can't convince myself it's worth it to actually get up yet. So bottle it is. Instead of trying to climb out of the crib to get the bottle faster, he lays down when he sees us come in. He pretty much collapses, gets comfortable, and reaches up for the bottle like 'hello, I've been waiting!'

Since Michael is back in school and Ivan is my full time job, I've had to get some regularity in our schedule. For the most part, Ivan is pretty good about taking a nap early or late or eating whenever and not really following a schedule at all. For the sake of my sanity, I decided to change things up. So far it's worked really well. Ivan wakes up around 7 or 8 and has breakfast, usually a nutragrain bar. Then he can play with blocks until his first nap which is at 10. He'll sleep til 1130 or 12. Then we have lunch. He likes ham and cheese, pb&j sandwiches, and fruit. Then I let him play in the play room, which is his closet, but it's big enough to be a room. He really likes having his own space to play and there's nothing he can get into so I'm not having to hover over him the whole time. This way I feel like I won't be sick of him after a few weeks of being a stay at home mom. Then he takes another nap (yay for 2 naps!) around 3 or 4. By the time he gets up from that nap Michael is home, we have dinner, and Ivan plays with some toys in the living room. Bedtime is 7 or 8, depending on his attitude. A major part of changing up how we've done things is the change in time of when we attend church. Ivan used to take one nap a day from 12 to 2 or 3. Church was from 9:30 to 12:30 last year, so Ivan would take a nap when we got home from church and be fine. This year our time got change to 1-4, right at Ivan's nap time. To keep him from being a total terror, he takes a nap before and after, but you can't just change it for one day a week, it has to be consistent. I really like how well Ivan is handling the change. He loves playing with the blocks and only letting him have them for a couple hours in the mornings keeps things new and interesting. Then when he can have his other toys he's more interested in them as well.

Pyper Wedding

Since Michael didn't get to spend Christmas with any of his family, including me and Ivan, we decided we were for sure going to his cousin's wedding just after New Years. We stayed at the Marriott in downtown Salt Lake. I really wasn't impressed. Man, I have been so spoiled by Michael's job, cheap hotel rooms at any Marriott we want pretty much. So when we get to a Marriott that isn't up to par, I'm a little disappointed. We usually stay at a Springhill or Fairfield because the rates are a little cheaper. We've only stayed at one Courtyard, once, and it was in Reno, Nevada so of course it's going to be nice. We don't normally stay at the Courtyards because breakfast isn't included and we figure if we can save a little extra money, we should do it. Plus, I love waffles! So we stayed at the Courtyard in SLC and expected a mini fridge and a closet and a microwave. We got none of those. We needed a fridge because we're really trying to save money and brought our own food to eat instead of going out. Good thing it was below 20 pretty much the whole time we were there; the car served as a make shift fridge (I did have the food in a cooler with ice packs too). We wanted a microwave for the leftovers we were planning on having as dinner Thursday from eating at Texas Roadhouse (our Christmas present from Michael's parents, best idea ever by the way) on Wednesday. Since we had no fridge, we left the food in the trunk and were going to use the church where the reception was at to heat the food up. Well, I went grocery shopping on Tuesday and forgot there was some fuel additive stuff in the trunk. We use it to make sure the car will actually start when it's -3 and Michael needs to be at work. So the fuel additive spilled in the trunk and really really stinks. We didn't even put anything in the trunk on the way to Utah just to make sure nothing would smell like that. Well, we didn't think about that when we stored our leftovers there. We heated up the food and Michael even ate a little of it. Then we decided it wasn't worth it since so much of the food had absorbed the fumes from the additive, especially Michael's fish. Oh well, it was a good effort. Back to the room, we wanted a closet to put Ivan in. Michael's family is all about playing games, and I love it! That's all we do when we get together. Even at family reunions we seek out immediate family to play games with. So if we had a closet to put the pack and play in, Ivan would have his own room, he'd be able to go to bed on time, and we'd be able to play games in our hotel room. No closet. We did use our phones as a baby monitor once so Ivan could sleep in the room and we played games in the lobby. Michael's parents were staying at a different hotel so that wouldn't work when we wanted to play games with them. So Ivan got to stay up late and play so we could play. It all worked out I guess.

When we got into town we saw Michael's grandparents on his mom's side and his aunt. Karen lives in Ohio so we don't get to see her often and it was a blast catching up. Ivan even gave her a high five! The way their house is set up there are 2 doorways into the living room. Ivan thought that was the best thing ever. He would run down the hallway, peek into the living room and laugh, then run down the other way, peek into the living room and laugh. He did this over and over again. He really liked the hotel room too. A whole new place to explore and play and climb on. He climbed onto the coffee table and danced, then onto the couch. He tried really hard to get onto the swivel chair but it kept rolling away so he gave up. He did not sleep well there though. The first night I was feeling really sick, some kind of cold, so we went back to the hotel room at like 8 and went to bed. Ivan would only go to sleep if he was laying on top of me, just like at Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was really sweet that he wanted to be cuddled, but it wasn't enough for him to be laying on my stomach, he had to be on my face. Not comfortable. So I would roll over and try to get him to sleep on his side and me on my side and he'd pop a leg right over onto my face. All the time that happens. I did put him back into his crib after about an hour of him sleeping on me. He slept good for a while then woke up around 2. I'm not sure if he had a bad dream or got scared because he's not at home or what but he did not want a bottle and would not go back to sleep unless he was on me again. He was up again at 6. We needed to be at the temple by 9:45 for the wedding so we needed to be up and getting ready at 7:30. Of course Ivan and I had just fallen back to sleep right before the alarm goes off. So I have to wake him up to get ready. I hate waking up sleeping babies. You have to have a recommend to go to a temple wedding, it's pretty much a piece of paper that says you're worthy and have done a few things in the church to make you worthy to see a wedding, so little kids can't go. I had decided I would stay with Ivan, since he's particularly attached to me and screams when I leave him with someone else and Brenda's fiance was going to take my seat in the wedding. Well there was a serious lack of communication about all this (we didn't tell them anything) and he didn't bring dress up clothes so he offered to watch Ivan. I'm really glad I let him and went to the wedding. It was beautiful. I haven't been to one since my own almost 3 years ago. And the guy that married them was pretty darn funny, cracking jokes the whole time. And Ivan was really good for Gavin. There is a waiting room for people waiting on people getting married and a part of that is the 'youth room.' Ivan colored, sort of, climbed on the table and chairs, and dumped out all the crayons just to put them back in the box. We got to play outside in the snow for a little bit after that. There was a bunch of ice too, so Ivan kept slipping and thinking it was awesome.

Here is the happy married couple! Melissa is Michael's cousin on his mom's side. 

After the wedding there was a luncheon for those who attended the ceremony, the food was delicious. And later that evening there was a reception with more delicious food. We played games there and went back to the hotel and played games there too. Ivan was pretty good the whole time, he really likes croissants. Overall it was a pretty good trip.

Michael enjoying the veggie dip more than he should. He got it out of his nose with a carrot then ate the carrot. 

Ivan and Grandma Janet

Congratulations Ben and Melissa!