Ivan's Third Birthday

Ivan turned 3 on March 18th. The day after we moved to our new house. Because my parents were coming up on Saturday the 17th to help us move, we decided that would also be the best day to celebrate.

After moving everything from the old house to the new, we had Papa Murphy's Pizza, opened presents, and had pirate cake and ice cream.

Adelia, Lincoln, Ivan, Tanner, Papa Kerry, Gramma Tam

For his birthday Ivan got some duplo legos and some Air Force jets from Gramma Tam and Papa Kerry, a duplo lego base and bike bell from Grandma and Grandpa Swan, and a strider bike (bike without pedals) and bike helmet and a Lightning McQueen camping chair from us.

He liked his bike well enough, until we told him that now that he had a cool, new big boy bike, he should probably give his little red trike to Adelia. That did not go over well, and then he wanted nothing to do with his new bike. It took a few days to persuade him that his new bike was bigger and he could go faster on it than he could on the trike. I think we're getting there.

Ivan told me his favorite present was his Buzz Lightyear helmet. Two days after his birthday the kids got in the garage and Adelia was playing with the helmet and left it out in the driveway without any of us realizing. Later, I was backing out and ran over it. It crunched. I cried. I felt like a miserable failure at Ivan's birthday this year anyway, because we were so preoccupied with the move, and then I went and ran over his favorite present. Gah!

The good news is, we have since bought him a replacement helmet, this one has rocket ships and astronauts on it and lights up. He's pretty pleased with it.

I will say, that Ivan's cake turned out awesome. It's probably one of my favorite cakes of all the cakes we've made. Ivan wanted a pirate ship. I made it out of a loaf pan and a sheet cake. It was actually pretty easy, but just looked so incredibly cool. I hope he liked it.

On Sunday, Ivan's actually birthday, he had a really long and late nap after church. So  in the evening Aaron and I put Lincoln and Adelia to bed, and then spent some awesome one on one time building a lego city/castle with Ivan in the toy room. Ivan was so animated and chatted up a storm. You could tell that he doesn't get the opportunity to be the only one talking very often, and he wanted to make the most of it. I think that was my favorite part of Ivan's birthday, was being able to spend that hour with just Ivan and Aaron, doing something that Ivan loves...legos. He's a good little builder too, and between him and Aaron and me supervising we made a pretty awesome city. Unfortunately, the camera battery was dead by this point, so I didn't get a picture.

Happy Birthday Ivan Boy! I'm glad you're three and I'm even more glad that you are in our family.