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.

Welcoming...

Charlotte Olivia Wampler

Charlotte was born at 7:47 pm on Monday March 25, 2013. She weighed in at 7 pounds even and measured 19.5 inches long. Her length is the same as Ivan when he was born! She's absolutely perfect! 

So here's all the details. If you don't want to know, stop reading now. :]

I started having contractions a couple weeks ago, I'd say the beginning of March. I would feel one or two when I went walking or did the stairs. I was determined I was gonna get to meet this little girl early. I did a lot of exercise, mostly to get things going sooner but partly because I have a soccer season that starts up the first week of June and I wanna be ready for it. At my doctor's appointment on March 7, I was already dilated to 1 cm and 50% effaced. On March 21, I had progressed to a 2.5 and was 70% effaced. After that appointment I walked a couple miles and did the stairs and felt a few contractions, but nothing promising. I did all I could over the weekend to get things going. I helped someone move, I sang a song with the church choir (with some super high notes, you know, to break my water), and I walked a bunch of stairs. Saturday and Sunday night I didn't sleep well, too much pressure on my bladder and I kept hearing weird noises and having random contractions. Monday I felt weird all day, my stomach was a little upset and I didn't have a whole lot of energy. Noon rolls around and I felt like my water had broken. There wasn't a gush or a pop like everyone had told me and when they broke my water with Ivan there was so little fluid that I didn't actually feel anything. So I steadily trickled fluid all the rest of the day. I told Michael that I thought my water broke around 12:30 but that I wasn't having any contractions so not to worry about it. By 3 I was still having a few random contractions but nothing regular. At 3:30 I told Michael, who was still in class (a chemistry lab at that), that my contractions were about 15 minutes apart. He said he would hurry with lab and come home as soon as he was done. I made arrangements for Ivan to stay with a friend for the night and made sure we had everything packed for the hospital and for Ivan. By 4:30 my contractions were easily 5 minutes apart and a minute long. I was doing a really good job of being relaxed and I really think that's what helped labor progress so fast. Michael came home shortly after that, we dropped Ivan off and rushed to the hospital. When we checked in, the lady at the counter said she had just admitted 2 moms right before I got there, busy day I guess. We got settled to our room, asked a billion questions and they checked my dilation. I was at a 4. Then shift change is at 6 and at some point there was a miscommunication and the new nurse thought that this was my first baby which led her to believe things would go a lot more slowly than what actually happened. I let the nurse know that I was doing the hypnobirthing thing, my exact words, and she was absolutely wonderful at letting me labor on my own and not interrupting my contractions and relaxation. She brought me a birthing ball to sit on, which I really thought would help, but the ball is bigger than I am so instead of a 90 degree angle for my knees it was a 160 degree angle. I was practically standing. I got a hep-lock instead of the permanent IV, which was great cuz I could move around however I wanted. Getting the hep-lock in place was a bit difficult though. The nurse I had was having a difficult time finding a vein, so she got another nurse to help so she wouldn't have to poke me twice. By now it's about 6:15 and they still hadn't placed the IV. I was having contractions every 2 minutes or so and it was getting really frustrating to be stuck in bed while they were trying to poke me. Finally they just put the hep-lock in and we were done. I got really nauseous a couple times, which never happened with Ivan. At 7 the nurse checked me again and I was at a 7 so she told me to let her know when I felt I needed to push. 7:10 comes around and I called the nurse in and said I need to push. She rushed in and set everything up and called my doctor. Apparently she didn't tell the doctor to come in right away but just informed her on my "station". At 7:20 I started pushing. I couldn't help myself, my body just took over. The nurses told me not to push and they told my doctor to come in. Normally this wouldn't be an issue for the doc to get there soon, but she lives in Rigby which is about 20 minutes away. I panted through all my contractions as best I could, to try and avoid pushing but that has got to be the hardest thing I've ever done. At one point I remember asking, how do I not push?! I did pretty well with the pain side of things until about 6:45. I was following the hypnobirthing relaxation techniques, which is what made everything happen so fast, and trying hard to focus on the scripts Michael was reading. I was a little freaked out that things were happening so fast and because of that wasn't able to get back into relax mode. I did end up getting some IV pain meds and I was very impatient about them kicking in. After laboring a little longer, I felt I couldn't take it anymore and asked for the epidural. The nurse paged the anesthesiologist then I told her I needed to push so she checked my status and the baby was crowning. No epidural for me! That's what I really wanted, was as drug free a delivery as I could manage. So it's 7:40 and they're telling me not to push. Michael had been holding a warm wet rag on my junk to try and loosen things up so I wouldn't tear and to help me focus on what part of my body I needed to relax. He pretty much held the baby in so we could wait for the doctor to show up for the delivery. Charlotte's heart rate dropped to about 90 ( it was 140 the whole rest of the time we'd been there) and the nurses stopped telling me not to push. The charge nurse and my nurse were the only ones in there besides me and Michael when Charlotte was born. I felt only pressure when she came out, I was really surprised by that. I definitely thought that would be the most painful part but she numbed everything and just slid right out. I don't even remember pushing to get her out, it just happened. They didn't even have time to take the bed apart and catch her, she just came out on the bed. She was so alert and so was I. I can't even begin to explain the overpowering joy I felt when I saw her for the first time. I was so proud of myself for not getting an epidural and so impressed at how fast the delivery was. She was born at 7:47 and my doctor got there at 7:53. She just barely missed it. Charlotte nursed right away and was wide awake for a couple hours after she was born. She was super chill and just took in all her surroundings. I felt really amazing after I had her. I was hungry within minutes and super excited for my first shower. I got up and walked around just fine and loved seeing my toes again! I did tear a little, not near as bad as with Ivan though. Dr Spaulding said it was a second degree tear and when she was sewing me up she apologized for how long it was taking her but she thought I could have a promising career as a porn star after she was done. She's the best doctor I've ever had, just really gets our sense of humor! At one point, Dr Spaulding said there was this weird crescent moon shaped piece that she couldn't tell where it went, just goes to show how great a job my previous doctor had done. That's Charlotte's birth story. I tried really hard with all the hypnobirthing and feel like that did the most to help labor progress quickly and for me to stay strong enough for long enough to not get an epidural, even if I asked for one. I feel great. I feel more emotionally attached to this little girl than I did to Ivan for weeks. I'm so happy with how things went that I want a billion more kids and I want everyone to be able to experience birth this way. In the future, I will not be getting an epidural and will make sure to let Michael know that he isn't allowed to let me get one, no matter what. My recovery is already a hundred times better than the first time, mostly because of the degree of tear but I think it has a lot to do with my state of mind too. I was so hopped up on adrenaline Monday that I only got about an hour of sleep that night. I was just so dang excited and proud of myself. I cannot believe how amazing that experience was. Charlotte didn't have a single bit of jaundice, she's super pink, has a great heart, and clear lungs. Her eyes are really dark still, just like Ivan's. She has the cutest little button nose and a sweet little dimple. She has really long toes and is absolutely perfect. Ivan loves her. He lets me know whenever she makes any noise and likes to pet her hair. He's really soft with her and pretty much doesn't care that she's here to stay. He has been doing great with the transition. We got him a thing of playdough and he loves playing with the little tupperwares they came in. He's still going to bed on time and sleeping through the night. I'm super impressed with how well he's handling it. More updates soon to come!

Family Photos

I love getting pictures of our family done. I absolutely love having beautiful pictures of us around the house. And the last time we got family pictures done was when Ivan was 3 months old. My favorite photographer is Janneke Marquez, Michael's cousin, she does such a fantastic job with capturing our personalities and her pictures are always edited to perfection. But she lives 4 hours away. This is why we haven't had more family pictures done since Ivan was so little. I've been searching for a good photographer in the Rexburg area and haven't really found anyone I liked. Then Michael told me there was some posting on the school bulletin that sounded promising. I found her facebook page and was pretty impressed with her work, not to mention her prices. So we booked her. We spent about 30 minutes playing outside and taking pictures and it was actually pretty fun. We took the pictures just off the side of the road and Ivan was totally fascinated by all the cars driving by and especially the airplanes overhead. The following pictures were taken by Peyton Stuart from Paint the Sun Photography.

In other news, Ivan is super cute. He loves putting his dirty clothes in the hamper. He loves giving high 5's and fist bumps and headbutts. He has 4 teeth on top and 2.5 teeth on bottom. Still no molars. He is measuring in the 10th percentile for weight, 20th for height, and 45th for head circumference. He loves milk, but will only drink it from a bottle, a sippy cup is not ok. He loves peanut butter. When he gets peanut butter on bread he'll just suck the pb off and leave the bread. When he gets those sweet and salty granola bars with the peanut butter layer on the bottom, he'll eat the peanut butter off and spit out the rest of the granola bar. He loves string cheese, mac & cheese, ramen, jelly toast, nutragrain bars, captain crunch, granola bars, peanut m & m's, and the baby food pouch things. He loves playing hide and seek and peek a boo, being chased down the hall, playing with rocks, playing outside, reading books, and watching animals. We took him to the wildlife museum on campus and he spent the whole 45 minutes running back and forth from all the animals saying "what's that" and pointing at them. We took him to CAL Ranch and he loved looking at the chicks and rabbits. We got a rabbit out for him to look at and he would not touch it! He loves pointing and looking and talking to animals but is a little afraid to touch them. Well, until you make him touch it and he realizes it's so soft, then he's less afraid to touch it. I took him to feed the ducks and he thought that was the best thing ever. He gets super excited for animal noises and thinks that flying animals are probably the coolest. Ivan likes to climb. He can climb from the floor onto the recliner then onto the kitchen counter. He likes to climb onto the back of the couch to see outside the window. He pushes his high chair around the kitchen so he can climb onto the bench, onto the table, then onto the high chair and sit in it. He really likes sliding down the stairs and doing anything that dad does. Michael makes this cool bird noise and Ivan tries to imitate it by screaming really loud. It's cute and loud. He loves loves loves his pacifier. He would have it all day if I let him. He gets it at bed and in the car and when we're out places. He likes stacking things or putting pieces together. His vocabulary includes the following words: dog, what's that, where'd he go, wow, uh-oh, ooo (like the aliens from the crane game in Toy Story), dad, hi, hey, and a whole lot of jibberish. He loves Baby Einstein. I could have that turned on all day and he would sit and watch and talk to it. Lately he's started to like movies altogether, especially those with animals in them, animated or not. He is my little helper around the house too. He helps me with the laundry when I switch loads from the washer to the dryer. I put wet clothes on the floor and he picks them up and puts them in the dryer. He helps with the dishes by putting utensils in the utensil tray. Usually he puts all the forks together and all the spoons together and everything else where ever it will fit. And he loves it. He claps after every time he gets to help me and cries if I don't let him help. It's been a little hard to let him help though. Obviously I could do it better in a lot less time, but I figure if I let him help now he'll want to later. He's really good about picking up toys and putting them back, especially if there is a basket to put everything in. He hates taking baths but loves to be in the shower with me or Michael. He likes the shower so much that I can't take a shower with him awake or else he'll scream and cry until I'm done. He has built up some pretty bad separation anxiety, too. Not so much when Michael leaves, but when I leave he usually freaks out. Totally inconsolable for 5 or 10 minutes. Poor kid. That's what I was most afraid of when I started staying at home all the time. It's hard to leave him with anyone, even his dad for any amount of time. At least I don't have to go anywhere. And that's all for now.

Drum roll, please

It's finished! I'm done! I did it! Yay!
For those of you who don't know, I decided to make Ivan a quilt to give to him as a gift from our baby girl to him. We're hoping that will help him like her more (or at least a little), whether he understands she's giving it to him or not is still debatable. I've had all the fabric for this quilt for quite some time. Natalie Millett gave me most of it, except for the white which was scraps that I already had. The only thing that I spent money on for the quilt was the batting, which was kinda pricey. And if I had to buy all the fabric and the batting and the thread and needles and embroidery thread and sewing machine and pins I would have spent way more on this than buying Ivan 10 quilts! Quilting is not cheaper, but you know what? It means more, well to me, Ivan doesn't really care right now and since he's a boy he might not ever care. Maybe his future wife will or his kids. In the end, we all know I made this quilt for me. I now have something tangible that says I love my kid, not that it's not obvious that I love him, but something physical to hold on to just makes me feel better about life. Funny how that works.

So I started making this thing in the beginning of January with cutting the squares and trying to piece things together. I had lots of advice from Michael's mom, the quilting expert in my life, about how to set things up how to sew and she even helped me pin all the border down and boy was that a task! My mom provided the thread and needles and sewing machine. So it was a joint effort by the female presence in the family. I got the top of the quilt assembled fairly quickly, which was surprising to me. I did a pretty dang good job with matching up all my corners. I kinda went a little OCD about it cuz that part is important to me. The back of the quilt is big enough to wrap around the front of the quilt for a border. I planned it that way so I wouldn't have to worry about binding, which I hear is a pain in the rear. I used the feather stitch, just a decorative stitch that supposed to help keep the fabric from fraying, for the border. I was really surprised at how difficult it was to pull all three layers, the top, back and batting, through the sewing machine. This made my decorative stitch look just a little bit different than when I practiced it. Oh well, looks good to me. To my dismay, there were several parts of the top that had not been sewn to the border! This meant weird little pockets in places and that all three layers weren't actually joined. To fix that, I hand sewed a stitch in the ditch. All that is is a hidden stitch between the top of the border and the top layer of the quilt. I used the same stitch, called a ladder stitch to miter the corners and keep the stitch hidden. Funny thing about the ladder stitch is I totally practiced that stitch when I was in the vet tech program. It's one of the stitches that veterinarians use most commonly in abdominal surgeries or any amount of stitching up an animal that requires more than one layer of stitches. Then I decided to embroider Ivan's name onto the front of the quilt. I really wish I had decided to do that part sooner. If I had thought of it before attaching all the layers I would have been able to make my knots on the back of the fabric and the front would have looked cleaner. It would have been a lot easier too because I wouldn't have been going between the layers to hide my stitches. I think it turned out pretty good. Then comes the hard part. I've been reading tons of tutorials and blogs and getting advice from all the seamstresses I know about machine quilting. I know that it's difficult. I know that it's a process to learn. I also know that my sewing machine was made to quilt, so I could do it, right? I drew the pattern I wanted on the back of the quilt, pinned everything in place, and got ready to sew. I sewed the first line and stopped to look at it and it was awful! The fabric on the front has pulled and bunched and wrinkled. I was so upset. So I unpinned it, repinned it tighter, adjusted the tension on my machine, and started sewing the second line thinking this time would go better. I got about 6 inches done, stopped and looked at it, and it was awful! I was so mad. I'm also very pregnant and had been working ever so hard on the quilt to make it look beautiful. I procrastinated quilting it for so long because I wanted it to turn out well. Heck, I even added his name embroidered on there to keep from quilting it for that much longer! Pretty sure I had a meltdown after that and couldn't look at the quilt for a couple days. What's worse about messing it up is that I couldn't undo it. The stitch length made the stitches so small they were practically invisible. Even with my tiny seam ripper I could undo most of the stitches. Then I got the idea to sew it by hand. I'm sure I didn't use the right technique or anything, but it's holding together just fine and looks pretty cute. I made little triangles all over the body of the quilt. And that's it!

not sure how well you can see it, but this is the triangle I quilted

just a close up of the minky and pattern fabrics. all the fabrics I used have different textures

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.