After using the potty, Ivan returns to the game pantsless.
A: You need your pants.
i: No, I have socks.

Today Ivan had his first basketball class. They start with a question of the day and after the kids before him named their favorite things to eat “oranges, peanut butter and lunch,” Ivan proudly declared, “French Fries!” He did well at ball bouncing, but when they were told to trap their balls Ivan thought that necessitated lying on top of the ball on the floor. Most kids just hugged the ball to their chest. When they were taking shots in the last five minutes of class, Ivan curled up on the floor and would not move. After class I asked why he did that. He declared it because the class was “too boring.” His favorite thing about class was “all the balls.” His curl up on the floor was after the class had been reduced to have only a couple of shooting balls rather than a ball per child. He wants to go back next week, so we’ll have further ball bouncing adventures.

“I hug you like a barnacle! BARNACLE!”

We ate this gingersnap family that Ivan thought looked like a bear. He made it himself. Grandma Liz and I helped. I got the second biggest or mama cookie.

Here’s a family hug minus the lady with the camera.

These are a couple selfies of Ivan and I snuggled on the futon. I am telling him a “Greenburg” story about a green bear who really likes to ride in elevators and has a best friend named Francine who is a purple&pink bear. There were oddly colored squirrels involved in this story.

“I got da grub!” Ivan playing Munchtime with his sister. Munchtime is a favorite game it involves logic puzzles of a chameleon lizard eating bugs and grubs.

Photo of Ivan with “Gold Dragon” which he requested from Santa this year. Gold Dragon has been proving particularly useful this weekend in using his fire breath to help defeat the Krang bots who have a not-so-secret lair in our basement.

It’s been awhile since I’ve stopped to think about Ivan’s favorite books. Here are some we’ve read repeatedly.

Rex Wrecks It! by Ben Clanton
This story of building with blocks and wrecking fits perfectly with Ivan’s love of building, wrecking, and dinosaurs. It also has a unicorn bunny named Sprinkles and a robot named Gizmo.

Ivan the Terrier by Catalanotto
This story about a dog who pops up in fairy tales and wrecks them by doing things like eating the Gingerbread Boy before he can run away is another Ivan favorite. The fact that one must say, “No, Ivan!” and make barking noises is an obvious win.

The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak
This one continues its reign of hilarity causing my kids to sing,”glug glug glug my face is a bug. I eat ants for breakfast right off the rug,” from the backseat of the car often and at high volume. It has also led to Ivan calling people “Ba-DOOONGY-Face.” Pluses and minuses to introducing great literature to the young.

Where is that Cat? by Carole Greene
Simple story about a stray cat finding a home and not wanting to leave so whenever someone comes to look at the cat, he hides. Ivan loves finding the cat on each page and the warmth of the story.

This snow was not great packing snow, but if I made snowballs for him then Ivan was happy to throw them at Eric.

He really disliked it when Eric caught the snowballs and threw them back, but would happily pick up snowball misses and throw them again. Here he has landed a pretty good shot. If he missed, he just came closer and closer until he could make the target.

I love how fast Ivan’s grin can come across his face.

I can’t remember what we are talking about but he goes from this:

to this:

when he finds things funny.

Amanda made this tree.

Ivan wanted to make one too. He needed a bit of help, but did most of the construction and all the demolotion on this tree.

We took a cookie break to enjoy cookies in that came in a package from Grandma Tam. They taste like my childhood. Ivan likes to eat them like cookie monster.