Story of a Dead Man

Starring. . . Michael Wampler

Last night Michael volunteered to help a friend make a video for a class. He was only supposed to be gone for an hour or so but after an hour and a half I asked when he would be home. I had already gotten ready for bed and was in the back when he text me back saying he would be home soon. A few minutes later I was indeed grateful for having just used the bathroom. I heard this loud thud followed quickly by an equally loud "ugh." My first thought is that someone just broke into my house and broke themselves on the way in. Then I realized Michael should be home. I go running into the living room and this is what I found. 

Michael had hit his knee on the door frame coming inside. The movie he helped with had him as a dead person, hence the makeup. A little frightening at first, then I just felt really bad that he hurt his knee. Just thought I'd share what goes on at our house. 

Family of Four

Today marks the end of our first week as a family of four. It's pretty exciting to think of all the accomplishments in my life and realize that the biggest accomplishment is one I never expected to happen so soon. I have 2 kids. I have TWO kids! Man, that just seems crazy to me. Growing up I never thought I would have a family this quickly and I definitely never thought it would be this big this soon.

Ivan thinks very highly of his little sister. Any time she makes a noise, he runs over to her to see if she's ok. When he wakes up in the morning or from a nap, he runs over to her and says hi. I really likes to pet her head. He's really good at being soft with her. So far he hasn't shown a tremendous amount of jealousy, which I think is a pretty big deal since he's such a momma's boy. When we brought Charlotte home, we gave Ivan a bunch of presents. He got some dinosaur toys, playdough, and the quilt I made for him. He likes the animals on his quilt, but still prefers his doggie blanket. We haven't actually opened the playdough yet. He really likes playing with the containers they came in. I got a pack of 10 and they came packaged in a box with holes to fit each individual container. He likes to take all the containers out, then place them one by one back into the box. Today Michael showed him how to make a tower out of the containers. Sometimes Ivan will take the containers and put them all right side up then one by one flip them upside down. He is really entertained by them. Ivan loved the community Easter egg hunt we went to Saturday. He loved even more hunting for eggs at home. He has a big bucket that he'll put all the eggs in, then dump them out, then open all the eggs and put them back in the bucket, and so on. Boy that stuff keeps him busy for hours. And a good thing too, now that it's warmed up outside if Ivan isn't well pleased with his toys inside he'll cry and cry til he can go outside.

Charlotte is a really good baby. On Wednesday night she slept 6 hours straight! She really gets this whole nursing thing, which makes life so much easier for me. She doesn't cry very much but she does make these cute little baby noises, grunts and coos. I love it! Have I mentioned how pink she is? She has so much more color to her skin than Ivan ever did and more than he has now. Her eyes are a dark grey/blue but I'm sure she'll get hazel or brown in the end. When we took her to the doctor for her 4 day check up she had gained 3 ounces! Normally there is a dip in baby weight where they lose a couple ounces after being born because being born is pretty traumatic. Not my kids. Both her and Ivan gained around 3 ounces for their first appointment. I absolutely love newborns. I love the snuggly and cuddly babies and how small they are. I'm so smitten with this little girl that I can't even explain it!

I am doing really well. I did tear a little when Charlotte was born, but it hasn't bothered me very much at all. I've been doing some light walking and I feel really great. I'm so glad I decided to go natural, I think that made all the difference in the world. I am more hungry now than when I was pregnant. That's kind of annoying. I haven't needed nearly as many pain meds as they gave me. In fact, I've had a couple days already that I've only needed one tylenol or less. Today I made it back into a pair of pre-pregnancy jeans! It's probably a little too early, they're kinda tight, but it makes me feel better about life. Mentally I'm doing really well. I thought having 2 kids would be really super hard, but Ivan is a pretty good listener and helper and Charlotte is just plain a good baby. Michael has been super helpful and I've had several friends that have watched Ivan for a little bit so I can get an extra nap in. My emotions are still a little all over the place but I think that's to be expected for a little bit. I have found that since I'm so keyed in to Charlotte that I have a lot more patience with her. When she wakes up to eat in the middle of the night, I wake up to her little grunts before she cries. That makes the feeding so much easier and quicker. Life is good.

Michael is having a little bit of a hard time. Finals are coming up next week and he's taking quite the credit load this semester. His classes are all pretty demanding and difficult too. Add a newborn to interrupt your sleep and a wife that wants more help than normal and that makes for a pretty stressful day. Soon enough the semester will be over and he'll get a little break. And the longer we have 2 kids the more adjusted we will be to taking care of them. Well, that's the idea anyway.

Just realized I made this whole post about our expanded family and I don't have a single picture of the 4 of us together. I'll have to fix that.

Easter 2013

This year is the first year Ivan has done an Easter egg hunt. He absolutely loved it! I debated on whether we would actually be able to go to one this year since it was so close to Charlotte's due date, but things worked out for us. The next decision to be made was which egg hunt to attend. There was one in Idaho Falls with 16,000 eggs and big prizes like bikes, but I didn't want to be gone that long and was a little afraid Ivan might get trampled. There were 3 egg hunts here in town. One at a grocery store (Broulim's), one at Porter Park, and one Fat Cat's (it's a movie theater, arcade, bowling alley, billiards place, and mini golf thing). With all the snow we've gotten this year I think it was a great idea to have a few indoor options and was leaning towards those since I wasn't sure of the weather anyway. I wanted to go to an egg hunt where Ivan might actually get a few eggs and be able to run around and get some energy out. I was starting to hear a lot of bad things about the egg hunts in Rexburg. Things like moms pushing kids out of the way to get eggs and that kind of thing. I didn't want any crazy mom to touch my kid, especially since I have a bit of a temper and I can be a little overprotective. And none of these egg hunts had age group separations. So I could have a bunch of twelve year olds taking all the eggs before Ivan even has a chance to understand he's supposed to pick them up off the ground. I was not about to go to an event like this just to get really angry. So I decided to go to the one in St. Anthony. That town is about 20 minutes north of us. They had 4 baseball fields and each field had a different age group on it.

 The Saturday before Easter came around and it turned out to be a beautiful day. We rode with one of our friend's (Kristen) and her little girl (Ember) who is 9 months old. When we got there, we met up with Tami and her daughter Ellie (Ivan's best friend). The thing started at 10 but we were told to get there early because it goes by fast. They had a guy talking on a megaphone telling everyone that parents are not allowed to help if kids can pick up eggs on their own then they must do it on their own. This was very comforting. To me that meant Ivan had a chance. Most of the kids in our age group, which was 0-4, were nice enough to leave an egg or two behind so that slow poke Ivan would actually get a few. I was really nervous about going somewhere with so many kids loose that I might somehow lose Ivan. It hadn't been a week yet since Charlotte was born and I wasn't that confident in my running ability. So I got him a leash. Yep, I'm that mom with her kid on a leash. Ivan didn't mind it too bad. In fact, he thought it was pretty dang funny to run as fast as he could just to get yanked back when he reached the end of the line. So he wore that little backpack leash thing while he picked up eggs. I held his bucket for him and he did a great job picking up eggs and putting them in the basket. He got 9 eggs. Then they announced to open all the eggs and check to see if you won a prize. We did! There was a table at the entrance of the ball field with tons of toys on it. They had bouncy balls, bubbles, recorders, water guns, and lots of other small toys to offer as prizes. We got in line kinda late and all that was left was bubbles, but we're happy with that. And it's a good thing we were early to that thing cuz it ended quick! We were home within an hour of leaving, with 20 minutes driving time there and 20 minutes back.

On Sunday we had Michael's sister Brenda with us. We all got baskets with candy in it and little stuffed animals. I put eggs out all over the living room and kitchen and Ivan had a blast picking up all the eggs and putting them in his basket. He got to eat 1 piece of candy and was pretty content with that. Ever since, he's been so busy opening and closing the eggs, putting them in and pouring them out of the bucket, or stacking them on the bench or entertainment center. We didn't have a traditional Easter dinner. I made pulled pork, potatoes, corn bread, green beans, and corn. It was delicious. And it made a ton! Thank goodness we had Brenda and some friends over or we would be eating leftovers from that for weeks! We had apple Snickers salad for dessert. That's easily becoming one of my favorite foods.