Ivan is 1!!

Today my baby turned 1!! When I woke up this morning and saw that the clock said 6:30 am I was FILLED to the brim with sweet memories. I remembered the 4 am birth of my sweet boy. It was so rewarding having to work so hard for a brief time to bring my little guy into this world. The thought makes me want to give birth over and over and over again. Seriously, it was such a rewarding, spiritual, and connecting experience. I remember being full of energy for about an hour after his birth and looking at him thinking "I cannot believe I just did that. I just did that!" I was in love with that little guy from the time I found out I was pregnant with him, and the love just grows exponentially. There is something about a mother's love for their sons. It is truly indescribable. I recalled having an extreme amount of fatigue come over my body after that first hour postpartum. I laid in bed, with Eric next to me, Ivan squeezed in between. We all slept deeply and I felt so fulfilled, thinking of my wonderful husband and beautiful children.

We had a combined birthday party. My dad's birthday was the day before, and Amber's birthday is the same day as Ivan's. It was fun and COZY with all the family at our place for soups, cake, and ice cream.

Benson

Our friends, Brad and Shanda, came up for dinner the other night with their 2 cute kids. Reese and Benson had a fun time watching Monster's Inc., drinking LOTS of chocolate milk, and building blanket forts.

Best pals

These two are the best of pals. They definitely know how to push each other's buttons, but for the most part play good. It makes my heart SO happy when I see them playing and giggling. I am excited to see these two grow up together, being so close in age.

FYI: Reese is feeding Ivan nerds in this pic. She loves to feed him things, and is learning to quickly remove her fingers from his mouth since he now has 4 top teeth and 2 bottom teeth. Ivan also likes to feed Reese, when she'll let him. That blue dress Reese is wearing is her "dancing dress". She insists on wearing it the most part of every day. I need to get that girl in dance lessons!

moto ride

Near the end of October, Eric and my dad went on a long motorcycle ride. They said they froze the majority of the time but still had a good time. Crazy.

They went to quite a lot of cool places and saw many neat things.

Halloween 2011

Ivan = Shark

Eric = Shark Fisherman

Reese = Sheep

Nakita = Shepherd

 You should have seen me sewing Reese's costume. It was pretty hilarious. I made it the shape and size I thought it would need to be, then I tried it on Reese and cut and sewed different places multiple times to make it fit right. It still wasn't fantastic, but it worked.

Our ward Trunk or Treat was fun, except when they had the kids all line up and go outside together, and by the time I got out to the parking lot I found Reese wandering around trying to find me. One of the parents was dressed as Darth Vader and was next to us as we trick-or-treated through the parking lot. Reese was a little freaked of him and kept squealing and saying "aaah, scary guy!" every time he came near her. Someone had a bubble machine that blew fog filled bubbles - AWESOME!

We went trick-or-treating, on actual Halloween, around my parents' neighborhood. Reese was wiped, tripped before we even got to the first house and then continued to trip periodically and freak out when both Eli and Chelsea weren't holding her hands. She kept saying "I want to go back to papa's house". Next time we'll make sure she's well rested for trick-or-treating so she can enjoy it a little more. Ivan was totally happy about being outside walking around, but then again, he had 2 naps before we went out.