Ivan- What's he up to?

You guys were beginning to think I didn't love Ivan as much as Jack and Maybell weren't you. Yeah there have been a few more pix posted recently with those 2 and not Ivan. 

I do need to update a bit here and I tend to get a little wordy. So I feel it necessary to make a side note that I do this for my kids to have some day and not because I think people like to get on and read 100 pages about "what Ivan is like"  :)

Surprise! He still eats and sleeps anything sports. I think his favorite is football. I love to watch him and his little friends out in the back yard playing a football game, organizing plays, running the ball from one end of the yard to the other and tackling. He can also spend hours passing the ball back and forth with Mike.

He'll also spend hours at the hoop, up to bat or kicking the soccer ball. He's definitely a natural.

He graduated from preschool. 

We loved Ms Kristi's. She lives in our neighborhood so we could ride bikes to and from school as often as possible. It was one of my favorite things to do this past year. 

 Jack really enjoyed the ceremony and was a great support to his older brother

We try not to use the word, "shy" around here so instead, Ivan is very cautious,  observant, aware, self conscious. It takes him a while. It was nice to see growth over the year and nice for those last couple of weeks to finally be able to drop him off and have him go in by himself ;) 

His little friend Rome. 

He invited Ivan to his bday party this year and as I was getting his coat on he said, "k jack, come on, lets go." I looked at him and said, "oh honey, Jacks not going" and he said, "oh, ok, I guess it's just you and me then mom." I smiled so sweetly and said, "oh honey, I'm not going either. It's just you my love." He wasn't sure he wanted to go anymore. On the way over I told him about how lots of people are nervous in a new situation, but that he could do hard things and would have a great time. So the sweet little thing sat in his car seat and said things out loud to himself like, "yeah,  I can do this. I'm a lil nervous, but I know I can do it. This is kinda hard, but I can do it."

And he did!

He finished his first year of soccer. Oh man did he love it! He loved having an official uniform. He loved marching around in cleats, he loved playing in "real games" and turns out I loved it too. I didn't know I'd be such a soccer mom. It was lots of fun. He played so good. He listens very well and does just as the coach tells him. He did tend to follow Micah around the field,  but that lessened by the end of the season. And not that anyone is counting at that age, but he did make his fair share of goals and they did seem to whoop every ones butt! 

Next year Charlie is going to play. 

The boys getting their new cleats together for next year

I love my little Ivan.

 He is a very emotional kid. This makes him so sweet and can also make him so hard. He loves to snuggle. Normally you can't reason with kids, but Ivan has this side to him where you can explain things and reason with him and he gets it. Those poor first kids are like the experiment and we hope we haven't harmed him too bad during our experimenting. He's a good kid. He is so sweet with Maybell.  Laying in bed with him one night he said, "mom lets put a sign on Maybells door that says no bad guys aloud." He talks so cute to her and takes good care of her. 

He's still very particular about his clothes, but that has shifted gears.  He's less worried about how they feel on him and more worried about if it fits the activity or who he can match.

Like all kids, he loves to play. 

For the most part he and Jack do well together. I'll admit I do get awfully tired of the antagonizing each other, but when Ivan's sweet side kicks in he really loves his brother

He and Jack are total opposites and I hope they can learn from each other.