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.

Bird Watching

Have you seen The Big Year? It's pretty good. Has Steve Martin and Jack Black and Owen Wilson. And it's all about bird watching. I guess a 'big year' is a real thing. People that are avid bird watchers go out and try to see as many birds in a year as possible. Sounds fun, right? Well, not to me. I think (or used to) that bird watching is dumb. Birds are birds, what's the big deal.

Then comes Michael.

He was assigned to see as many birds in a semester as possible for a grade. I think he is supposed to see around 200, or close to it. That means he has to put some serious time in the out of doors looking for birds and being able to identify them. Sounds daunting if you ask me. Especially since I just said that I don't care for bird watching that much.

Last semester, someone Michael knew told him about this assignment and that the teacher allows you to remember from your past the birds you have seen. Only thing is, you need to have a permanent list of birds you've seen with the location and date seen written beside the bird. So we got a bird book, a field guide to identifying birds. We also got a bird feeder. That way the common birds you should see all the time would come right up to our house and Michael could actually have time to identify them using his book. The hard thing about bird watching is that a lot of birds are very similar. Like insanely similar. Some of them have this cheek patch or a stripe by their eye or even just darker colored wings or something minute like that. This makes identification, proper identification, much more difficult. Thank goodness we have a camera good enough to capture all these birds.

This is a kingfisher. It's a little (ish) bird that dives under the water and catches fish. The normally have a little mohawk on their heads, but this one just came out of the water and its feathers were all stuck down. Michael saw this at work. 

Once Michael started this assignment, we both got pretty into it. He was using a lot of his spare time to look at birds, so obviously I was sucked in if I wanted to spend time with him too. And I love animals and being outside, so what downside is there really? Along the way, we've seen some really great birds, taken some amazing pictures, learned a lot about birds, and gained a lot of respect for bird watchers.

This particular time that we went bird watching, we went to Camas National Wildlife Refuge. Ivan had a blast running around... for about 20 minutes. Then he wanted to be carried. That was a little difficult. We had enough foresight to bring the carrier for Charlotte. Michael carried her so he could take pictures at the same time. We thought Ivan would just love to be outside and explore. Nope. All he wanted to do was be carried. What a workout for me.

I love Love LOVE this picture of Charlotte! Michael's all busy looking for birds and here I am taking pictures of the kids. 

This is me trying to convince Ivan that riding on my shoulders is fun. This is Ivan trying to convince me that riding on my shoulders is not fun. 

We saw this cute little coyote and Ivan about freaked out! We were in the car by now all buckled up and on our way out. I'm impressed Ivan could even see out of the window to see this guy. He loved it! And he wouldn't stop talking about it the whole way home. 

It's a little blurry, but that's a sandhill crane. 

Pretty little Pumpkin Patch

Our friends, the Sellers, invited us to go to the pumpkin patch with them. 

Of course, we agreed. 

Ivan loves Ember after all. 

This little patch is just outside Rigby. 

They couldn't believe the pumpkin was that big!

Ivan thought some of the little ones were apples. Glad he didn't try to eat one.

Ivan wanted to fly on the pumpkin with Charlotte. It didn't work out like he hoped. 

Here he is flying by himself. And he had to kiss the pumpkin too. 

I am perfectly smitten with this beautiful little girl. 

Weekend with the Ward's

James and Melissa are awesome. They have a little boy, Beckham, that's about Ivan's age. James and Melissa are from round these parts so they have family here too. James's dad has a cabin in Island Park. 

So we finally, after knowing James and Melissa for what... 3 years! We finally were able to go to the cabin! 

And it smelled like skunk.

This is how Ivan traveled in the car.
That's his giant giraffe that he uses as a pillow. 

Actually the weekend was really fun. The cabin has a nice deck off the back and is right off a little shoot of Henry's Lake. We roasted marshmallows and Starbursts and stayed outside telling stories for forever. 

We played lots of games and Ivan watched lots of movies. He got to see Finding Nemo for the first time and was totally mesmerized. 

At one point we got the canoe out and Michael and James took it for a spin? Or is it a run? Maybe a splash? Ivan thought that would be fun. So we put life jackets on the boys, Ivan and Beckham not Michael and James, and they all hopped in the canoe. The kids didn't last long, for fear of tipping, but they enjoyed it. 

A life size life jacket. 

Then we spent some time throwing rocks into the water. Man, that sure is a timeless activity. Ivan had sense enough to stay out of the water. It was cold! He tried to pick up the biggest rocks he could find and throw them in. Beckham, on the other hand, was much more interested in throwing himself in the water. Poor Melissa. She tried to stop him but he wouldn't listen. So he just got to play in the freezing cold water. And when he was done, he. was. done. Natural consequences tend to be the best teachers, right?

It was fun to spend some time in nature, just hanging out and hiking. 

This was as close as Ivan was allowed to get to the water. Funny how they always find ways around the rules. 

Ha Ha! Beckham actually enjoyed being in the frigid water. For a couple minutes. 

Da fair, da fair, da fair, da fair

You know, kinda like da bears....

Every year we look forward to the Southeast Idaho State Fair. They put on an incredible show. It's in Blackfoot, which is about 45 minutes away, but worth it. They have barns and barns full of livestock like cows, goats, sheep, horses, bunnies, chickens, and pigs (but pigs are gross so we don't go there). They have all the known carnival rides and foods. Oh the foods. They have a space as big as a football field just filled with all these wonderful places to eat. They have scones, corndogs, french fries, burgers, Chinese food, Dutch oven cooking, deep fried everything, fish fry booths, and so many desserts I don't even know where to begin. Goodness, just thinking about it I can't wait for next year!

The first time we went, I was prego with Ivan. Oh boy all the food.
The next year we went, I was prego with Charlotte. Oh boy all the food. And Ivan loved the animals oh so much. And it rained on us.
This year when we went, I was not prego and I think this was the time I ate the most! Ivan loved the french fries and Charlotte was pretty chill. Ivan had a blast seeing all the animals.

He especially loved the goats. He pet them and bleated at them, in a nice way, and wanted to take one home with him.

We walked around for a bit trying to find the petting zoo and I'm pretty sure they didn't have it this year. That was kinda sad. So we made another loop around the goats and called it good. We did see a few chickens wandering around and after the trip to my parent's, Ivan was thrilled to see them walking all free and stuff.

Tennessee... Sounds good to me

This is Natasha Wilhelmina  or just Mina for short.

Michael and I are rather whimsical. So with a couple weeks of summer left, we headed east. I missed my old rocky top.

I forget about the mountains in Missouri. I guess it can be pretty too. 

In the past, Michael and I would just drive straight through from Idaho to Tennessee, the whole 1700 miles in one shot. This time we thought we would stop on the way out and on the way back. We didn't leave Rexburg until 5 or 6 in the evening on Friday, because the shop took forever to get our car back to us. I wanted a little more drive time during the daylight to get a preview of more places in Wyoming we might end up, but that didn't happen. I ended up in the backseat of the car between the two car seats, to keep the kids happy. This wouldn't have been so bad if I would have thought differently about how I packed the back seat. You live and you learn I guess. I did pack plenty of things to keep the kids busy though. Ivan loved being in the car when he was little so I thought Charlotte might be the same. Nope. Ivan, although he loved the car as a baby, requires much more freedom at this point in his life than is available to him in the car seat. So here I am thinking Ivan will be terrible and Charlotte will be simply lovely. Nope. They were totally opposite. They both did well the first few hours in the car, and fell asleep pretty quickly after the sun went down... at 10 pm. I had packed a bunch of things for Ivan to do in the car. He had toys, games, puzzles, a cookie sheet and magnets, a tablet with Talking Tom on it, and a slough of other activities. I thought I had overdone it with all the things he had. Nope. It was just enough. That way he had a variety of things to do and ways to stay busy while engaging his mind. Charlotte got pretty tired of being in the car and just wanted to be held, but that's what pacifiers are for.

Ivan really loved playing with the magnet letters. And he likes putting them on his fingers so much he fell asleep like that.

I can't say too many exciting things about the drive. It's a long 28 hours and we took it in a straight shot. Michael drove the majority of the way, that way I could entertain the kids enough to keep both of us sane.

Nobody even likes that arch anyway.
It's like a half-done McDonald's with no playplace.

I really wanted a good break in our trip and a chance to get out and stretch our legs, so we planned on stopping at the St. Louis Zoo (which is free). Every time we drive through St. Louis is miserable. There was the time with the moving truck and the lane that abruptly ended, the time with crazy bad backed up traffic, and the time I missed my exit. All of those were not fun. It was time to change our view of St. Louis. So we got to the zoo.... and it was closed. Boo! St. Louis = the worst.

This is all that we saw of the St. Louis Zoo the first time we tried to go. 

By the time we finally got to my parents we were exhausted. It was probably around 9 or so on Saturday night that we arrived at the nostalgic Dirt Road. Yep, that's the name, not a description. After all, it's the only Dirt Road in the south that's paved. The kids were so excited to be out of the car. Ivan even squealed with joy.

We all took turns jumping into my parent's above ground pool. My pictures weren't near as flattering...

Ivan loved being in the pool. LOVED it! He would jump from the deck into the pool, onto Michael of course.

He finally got brave enough to try the whole swimming thing out. 

We had the opportunity to go to my home ward while we were there. It was so fun to see so many people I hadn't seen in years. Getting the kids to go back in the car wasn't fun though. One of my friends from back home had actually moved to the Salt Lake area not too long after I moved to Idaho, and she was back visiting her parents at the same time I saw mine. So we both drove 25-28 ish hours to see each other when we're only 3 hours away out here! But that meant a bonfire at her place. She has a little boy that's a couple months older than Ivan and her sister has kids all around my kids ages. It was so good to see everyone.

Ivan loved Papa's tractor. 

Papa let Ivan drive!

And he loved playing with the chickens. 

And he loved all the baby kittens, even while the momma hissed at him.
This is his excited dance, cuz of all the animals. 

One of the days we were there, Ivan made it half way down the driveway before I could catch him. Mina was the only one with him and she stayed right by his side. So I took him for a walk down the road to the creek at the end and Ivan emphatically told Mina to go home cuz he didn't want her to be on the road. She was a good sport and stayed for a couple minutes there at the end of the driveway, then caught right back up to us. She even let Ivan ride her like a horse for a couple minutes. 

Another reason for the timing of our visit was for my Dad's birthday. Happy Birthday Pops!

And of course we can't visit my parents without my dad showing off the armory. 

Dad shooting the AK

Dad showing me how to shoot the AK. Not too bad for my first time, but I prefer the AR.

Michael being a boss. 

On the way home, we took our time. At least a little more time. This time we stopped at the St. Louis Zoo while it was open. And let me tell you, it was worth it! I was so incredibly amazed at how wonderful a place it was, and for it to be completely free!

Ivan was in love with the elephants. We must have stayed there looking at them for twenty minutes. 

He was so, SO excited for the big fish. 

This is my favorite picture of all time! Ivan thought the seals were pretty cool. There was a tunnel thing underground you could walk under and the seals would swim right next to you, or over top of you. Ivan was kinda nervous for them swimming too close, but he wanted to see them better. So he stood up on the bench where he knew he couldn't get down without help and watched the seals swim around him. Then this one came swimming right at him! Ivan must have thought he could come through the glass and eat him right up. This picture was only the beginning to his bad reaction. Ivan cried and immediately wanted nothing more to do with the seals. 

We stayed the night at a hotel in Omaha, NE (which means Nebraska, not New England). And we drove more north than we should have. But only because we wanted to. We went to the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, the Black Hills, and stopped for the night in Casper, WY to see Michael's sister Brenda. We stayed with Brenda and Gavin for a couple nights then finished our trek in one fell swoop. 

Do you see all that yellow? This is in South Dakota. That is a field of sunflowers. These fields went on and on like wheat fields in Kansas. It was actually pretty cool. 

Badlands National Park. When Michael worked at the Marriott, he met all sorts of interesting people. One guy that visited the hotel often, said that his favorite national park he's ever been to was the Badlands. What a load of.... Anyway, we figured we'd check it out and see what it was all about. And you do the hokey pokey, I'm getting off topic. The park was really neat. The whole place is super flat all around it and then you walk into this. Stunning peaks of cool colored rocks. It reminds me of all the Bryce Canyon photos I've seen, but not as cool. I'm glad to say I've been there before. 

You know that time when you do something weird right when your camera timer goes off and clicks a picture.... Yea. I was scratching my foot with my other foot and I really look like I have to pee! Thank goodness it's a desert and I was already dehydrated and obviously didn't have to go. 

Past the Badlands a ways is Mt. Rushmore. We took full opportunity of pulling off the road, taking a picture, and continuing our drive. There is no fee to enter the monument, but the fee for parking is something like your firstborn, second if they're really cute. 

The side of Mt Rushmore. The mountains in this area are all really cool. And the next 30 miles was just littered with deer all over the place. A little scary, but mostly just plain awesome. 

This is how Charlotte kept herself entertained. Wow, my arm looks really hairy!

We missed the South Dakota sign on the way in, so Michael flipped around and got it on the way out.
Looks like there isn't much for the youngin's to do in this place. 

 We really had a good time seeing Brenda and Gavin. For those who don't know, Brenda is Michael's twin. And I like to think she's the sister I got to pick. They are living in Casper right now. She is working as a physical therapist and Gavin is working at a furniture store, a really nice one, and going to school for his bachelor's in social work. Their apartment complex had a sweet play ground and a pool. The sides of the pool had metal on them, so it would heat the pool? But it was still cold. Thankfully, Charlotte had no interest in swimming, so I got to be with her and they had to swim with Ivan.

Jumping in. 

Hey ladies!

On our way from Casper to Rexburg, we got to see some new parts of Wyoming. This pretty place is known as the Red Rocks. It's not too far from Dubois, which we think is a really pretty area. Along the side of the road here was a guy peeing. That was funny when I turned and saw him and told Michael to drive away or he might flash us. 

There was a sweet Bighorn Sheep visitor's center in Dubois. We stopped there to change diapers and to get a break from the car. The skull here belonged to T-bone, a bighorn sheep native to the area. He had congenital problems that caused his horns to go straight out instead of curling, like normal sheep. This didn't stop him from participating in mating rituals and he is even thought to have fathered a few males in the area due to the shape of their horns. I thoroughly enjoyed this visitor's center. 

It was good to be home by the time we were done.