And the little man is THREE

May 7, 5:55 a.m. - Iver comes running into our bedroom.

Iver: "WHERE MY PRESENTS?!"

Me: "Buddy, it's not your birthday, and it's way too early. Your bunny's not up. Back to bed!"

He reluctantly returns to his bed for another 20 minutes, until the bunny clock turns to daytime.

May 8, 6:35 a.m. - Iver's still laying in his bed at this point, but I had been summoned with "MAMA!"

Iver: "Am I 3, Mommy?"

Me: "Tomorrow, buddy." I quickly realize that this is the last day we'll have a two year old living in this house. But I couldn't be sad because Iver was SO EXCITED TO TURN 3!! Until ...

6:45 p.m. - Iver is throwing a massive tantrum about not wanting to go to bed.

Iver: "I don't want to go to sleep! I want to stay 2! I don't want to turn 3!"

More tears, but he does fall asleep. Within about 10 seconds of his head hitting the pillow. And I offered to snuggle him, but he turned me down - insert sad face.

May 9, 6:45 a.m. - Iver comes running into our bedroom.

Iver: "Can I open my presents now?"

Me: "You bet, buddy. You're 3!! Happy birthday!!"

Presents were quickly opened and he began playing with his new cement mixer and his other big trucks at about 7:30 a.m. It was a long, fantastic day of sunshine, heat, friends, family, cake, sprinklers, paint, and laughter. We put an exhausted child to bed once again, who couldn't have been happier to be 3.

As for Iver turning 3, I'm only slightly terrified as to what the next year will bring. I remember vividly the 3-4 year for Piper. It was a hard year - our hardest year - and although Iver's personality is completely different than hers, I see a lot of the clogged ears happening already that seemed to be present for her fourth year. Fingers are crossed.

But before we get ahead of ourselves and have him turning four already, there's so much about Iver that I want to remember when we're old and grey.

We had the BEST time making his cake! He wanted a big truck cake and loved helping to decorate with dirt, logs, etc. It was such a fun cake to make with him :-) The only hard part was keeping him from playing with all the big trucks on the cake and taking all the frosting off.

Iver's favorite colors are green, red and pink.

He is obsessed with big trucks, Frozen, and anything sparkly, including Piper's dress up clothes, which he often wears while playing with his big trucks in the sand box. He sings Let it Go at the top of his lungs, although his favorite pop song is currently Bruno Mars' Uptown Funk. I find this hilarious, by the way, because when Piper was almost 2, her favorite song was Bruno Mars The Lazy song, which she called the monkey song because of the music video. who can blame them? Bruno Mars rocks.

Iver's hilarious. And has a super devilish grin - if I don't remember what that looks like, all I need to do is revisit his pre-school photo from this year...

He LOVES mud.

Iver's BFF is Cosette. His obsession with her rivals his obsession with big trucks, and it looks like the feeling is mutual. Cosette also loves mud, which is awesome.

His favorite food is currently cucumbers, and he likes them both fresh and pickled. Sometimes he eats them for breakfast, and while he loves a salad with them on them, his preferred method of consumption is by themselves.

We're excited to see what the coming year brings! I'm hoping he'll ...

1. Potty train(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
2. Learn how to swim independently
3. Have a blast playing with friends

Love you, Shmoops!

Dear Piper

Dear Piper - our new Kindergartner,

Today you're in your second full day of Kindergarten, and while you've been reluctant to embrace the excitement of all that's to come, I believe you're beginning to figure out that school is going to be a great adventure in so many ways.

On your first day, you came down to the kitchen with a blotchy, red face and my heart just about broke for you. I could tell you were scared. Really scared. You cried in my arms and then slowly got yourself ready for school. You barely ate breakfast, you put up a fight to just about everything, but once you were ready, you were so stinking cute and I'm thankful we were able to take some pictures without tears!

When we got to the bus stop, you were definitely quiet, but when the bus came, you made me so proud. I knew you were nervous, but you marched right onto the bus and sat down calmly in your seat. You couldn't look at us, and your little chin was trembling, but you held it together and went off to have a great day. It wasn't easy to let you go, especially knowing how scared you were, but you were all smiles when you got off the bus and had lots of stories to tell about your day. It was very obvious that you had fun!

After your first day, we went to the library and checked out the first two books in the Junie B. Jones series. We read half of the first one while Iver played in the play room at the library, and finished it before bed. You loved it. You loved the antics, the humor, and that Junie B. had her first day of Kindergarten also. Thankfully yours was a bit less traumatic and didn't involve rescue personnel like hers did ... :-)

So now here's a little information about YOU.

• Your favorite colors are orange and blue.
• You want to be a meteorologist, although during dinner last week you also mentioned that you and your brother are going to own Carreras and you're going to drive a cement mixer while he drives the dump trucks and front loaders. Hmm. Time will tell I guess.
• You love Legos, especially Lego Friends. You had Lego block cakes for your birthday party this summer.
• You love riding your bike and scooter.
• You love to swim and your crawl and back stroke have gotten pretty impressive over the summer. This was the first summer you could touch the bottom of the deep end and that made you really proud! You always jump right in.
• You had gym yesterday as your Special and you were proud to discover you were the only kid in your class who can tie her own shoes.
• You have a major sweet tooth!
• You have a 6 year molar coming in right now and it makes your jaw hurt.
• Your favorite ice cream flavor is Superman.
• You love to watch Doc McStuffins, Daniel Tiger (with your brother), Sofia the First, and the Treehouse show (with Daddy).
• You still love your milk warmed up and I'm shocked to say that I still warm it up for you.
• You love taking pictures with our old digital camera.
• You love math! It's one of your favorite things to do with Daddy. 
• You love playing card games, especially Uno, Crazy 8s, and you loved playing SkipBo with your cousins this summer (we should get that game).
• Sometimes you still look little when you sleep, but each and every day, you're looking like a big girl and it makes Daddy and I happy/proud (and a little bit sad) to see the big girl you're becoming!

We're so excited to see you make new friends and learn all sorts of different skills over the next nine months. We truly believe you're going to love school once you get settled into this new routine (and longer days - oh my you were so tired yesterday after your first full day!!) and we're excited to see you grow and learn. We're proud of you!

Love,

Mama and Daddy

Baby yoga

And while looking through pics of Piper, I found this one from before Christmas. For some reason, it's one of my favorites :-)

P-I-P-E-R

When I think of Piper this fall/winter, I can hear her spelling her name over and over again. "P-I-P-E-R." She loves to write it, she loves to see it, and now that she's mastered her name, she's onto Iver's and I think she has that one pretty much down also. I love to watch her learn and grow. It's unbelievable how much a kid can change in 3.5 years. And then I think of how quickly the next 3.5 years are going to go and I get all sorts of freaked out!

Piper has a great sense of humor, and whenever something ridiculous comes out of her mouth, I think to myself she is such a little Reid. Last week it was bitter cold out. So cold that the only time we spent outside was walking from the car to whatever building we were going into. And even that was done very quickly. So on one of those days, Piper comes flying down the stairs one afternoon in a tank top and PJ pants and she was "sweating from doing her HOT dancing in her room." Hot dancing! What does that even mean?! If you really want to know, just sit in my living room during quiet time and you'll hear the jumping, thumping, her doing who knows what to her music CDs. The kid just cracks me up.

And then she can be a little devil, and on those days, I count down the hours until bed time. She can get under my skin better than anyone I have met, and then I think to myself, she's a little Jen. Not because I enjoy getting under peoples' skin, but because she understands how I tick because she ticks the same way, and therefore knows exactly what to do to push my buttons. And truth be told, I'm pretty sure she enjoys pushing my buttons. I have to remind myself that she's just three, but on days when the countdown is in play, I dread when she's 13. Oh my ...

Luckily there are more good days than bad! I was just looking back through pictures and we really don't have many pictures that show her funny faces that she makes. She has incredibly expressive eyes and I'm pretty sure she'll use them to make people laugh and get what she wants for her whole life. This pic doesn't do them justice, but I want to remember how she makes funny eyes when I'm old and grey.

Piper's favorite color is still orange and she loves Disney princesses. I can't remember exactly when she became obsessed, but it was a bit before Christmas so we gave her a Disney princess story book for Christmas. This may have been a huge tactical error as we've barely read anything else for 5 weeks now. Two stories at quiet time, two at night time. Her favorite are the The Mice Save the Day (Cinderella) and The Royal Friend (another Cinderella one about a little girl named Emma -also her BFF's name). And to round out the old school stories, she also loves Falling in Love (Sleeping Beauty) because she loves to say Maleficent's name. I'm pretty sure this is because Reid had a hard time saying it one night and Piper could say it perfectly. I am SO sick of these stories and can't wait for this obsession to end, but it's also a ton of fun to hear her finish the sentences, and every once in a while, "read" those stories to Iver or one of her lovies. When she hits kindergarten and has to know 92 sight words, I hope we luck out and they show her Cinderella, Jaq, Gus and Maleficent. We'll have those four down, no problem!

Oops - way overdue Iver update!

Iver is 8 months. 8 months! And several days really. So let's do a quick catch up because I have done the worst job ever chronicling all of his stats and milestones and everything else going on in our lives. I hate to admit it, but the second one does get the short end of the stick a bit. But then again, he has all of Piper's stuff to get into and a big sister that makes him laugh like crazy and smile the biggest smiles I've ever seen. I guess it's not all bad.

Turning the clock back 4 months, Iver had his well baby visit ...

4 month stats:

Height: 26.5 inches - 88 percentile
Weight: 16 pounds, 9 ounces - 72 percentile
Head circumference: 16.5 inches - 31 percentile 

And here's what that cutie looked like back then, which clearly shows that he did not know what to think of his first meal of cereal.

On Iver's four month birthday, he rolled over the first time from his back to front (caught the picture and posted it). Two days later, he went from front to back at my parents' house. Not too long after that, he discover that he loved to sit up, and from that moment on, he basically stopped rolling and only wanted to be upright. Here he is on his 5 month bday, proudly sitting up in his room.

I don't think anything super important happened between 5 and 6 months, other than Iver stopped sleeping through the night and we all turned into zombies for a month and a half. I still can't figure out what happened, other than he went through a bit of separation anxiety or something, and we made a crucial mistake when he first started waking up: we responded immediately. Iver was the happiest baby ALL the time until this point. He only cried when he was hungry, so when he stopped sleeping through the night and started screaming, we assumed something was wrong. After a month of responding, we started waiting a bit. Two weeks later, we were back to our sleeping through the night baby. I think he was working us, because we still have no teeth (our first excuse for any negative change in routine) and he was fine in every other way.

Fast forward to 6 months! And another well baby appointment ...

6 month stats:

Height: 26.75 inches - 52 percentile
Weight: 18 pounds, 9 ounces - 52 percentile
Head circumference: 17.5 inches - 63 percentile 

I will say I don't believe the height stat at all. If he had really only grown a quarter of an inch, it would have all been in the size of his head and he wouldn't have outgrown his clothes. By 6 months, he was in 12 month clothes for the most part so I know that wasn't the case. Not that it really matters, but I think we'll see a decent size height jump at the 9 month appointment.

By 6 months, Iver wanted to stand all the time, on everything, so we would prop him up and he'd smile like a crazy man ...

I will note that his doc told us at his 6 month well baby visit that his bottom teeth would be coming any day, and I believed her. Still no teeth two months later ... He's been a great eater and we haven't found much that he doesn't like. As I type this, the only thing I can think of is store bought baby food with meat in it, and honestly, I can't blame the kid so I make most of that on my own. Our super smiley boy continued and his love for his big sister has continued to grow and grow. He LOVES to watch her, and if her being a bit rough with him didn't pull the biggest laughs out of his belly, I would have a much easier time getting her to be gentle. He loves it, and I love to watch it.

Right before Thanksgiving, Iver was finally baptized!He was a good little boy and just kind of stared at the priest as the water was poured ... he was super handsome that day, as usual.

And here's Iver at 7 months - probably my most favorite pic of him so far!

Iver started CRAWLING on Dec 23 and quickly went from crawling to pulling up on everything (on New Year's day). He's now loving the push lion that he can walk behind and has let go of whatever he's been holding onto to stand on his own now several times. Physically, he's such a different kid than Piper and is doing everything way earlier and much more quickly. That being said, the one word I've heard him say is Mama, and before today, that had happened super clearly once, or maybe twice. Then today, he clearly called me Mama a few times. I melt like a stick of butter in a hot frying pan. It's AWESOME. But I do think he's teething now because our super happy man is not always happy anymore, and the drool is ridiculous. His gums are jam packed with his two front teeth on the bottom, but they were at his 6 month appointment too. His lack of teeth doesn't seem to impact the eating, and his kisses are still the sloppiest, open-mouthed messes so the lack of teeth is kind of nice. But is that explaining his recent lack of sleeping through the night again? We will see! But here's the handsome man's 8 mo pic ...

The main update from now is that he is into everything. He can open cabinets (time to get the locks out), he loves cords and electronics, and the quieter he is, the worse he's being. He seems to be into more stuff than Piper was, but I don't know if he really is, or if my memory is poor. All I know is, there's only so mad you can get at that handsome face. He's trouble for sure.

And Piper gets an update next. She's 3.5 and I'm starting to freak out about the fact that she will be FOUR this summer. Yikes! And Colorado and Christmas need their own posts. So behind, what is wrong with me?! Busy mama of two awesome kiddos, that's what.

First day of school

Piper and her buddies today

The first roll

Success!