Random Fun with the Boys

One of my favorite parts of the day is just hanging back and watching this pack of boys as they walk home from school with their friends.

Sam's first soccer season was a smashing success. He's had a lot of chances to practice with his older brothers in the back yard, but since they have always been bigger than him he was convinced that he wasn't very good at soccer. It took a bit of pushing to get him to even go on the field for his first practice. But once he got playing, he realized that dribbling around these kids was way easier than trying to get past Ellis! In the end, he scored in almost every game of the season, and was the Sharks and Minnows champion of his team.

Ellis' main accomplishment this season was perfected some of his goal celebrations. And luckily, he scored quite a few goals so he could put them to good use!

The medal is cool, but Sam's mostly in it for the snacks.

I just like this picture of Sam.

And we can't leave Henry out of the fun! One of the best parts of kids getting older is that they start to become capable of putting together their own snacks. Here is Henry with his chicken nachos on a Sunday afternoon.

Rather than finding a way to get RSL players to sign his hat, Ellis decided it would be cool if he just signed it himself. Nothing could be more Ellis than that!

Beach Summer 2015

We love living near the beach!  We can get to any of the Evanston beaches in 8-15 minutes, where we get to enjoy sunshine, time with friends, and lovely Lake Michigan.  At the beach, the boys are pretty much happy and self-entertaining.  Henry hardly gets in the water, but he could spend all day building castles and other structures in the sand.  Here are a few pictures of our summer beach adventures this year!

With the Severson boys

With Eli Larsen

New friends

New friends

The Cannons: Sadie, Grant, and little Henry

Tenille and I (in all my glory) catching up when the Cannons came to visit from Pennsylvania.  

April Fool's Day for the Books

I can't tell you how excited we were to find out that our Spring Break trip overlapped with my favorite holiday, April Fool's Day!  

This is what I wore on the plane on the day we arrived to visit our families.  Fun surprise, right?

  What our families didn't know is that I had a belly like this one above at 11 weeks, and with friends who saw me on a regular basis, the fact that I was pregnant was quite obvious from about 8 weeks.  I would have loved to tell our families, but who can resist the chance to tell them in person, at 16 weeks, and on April Fool's Day, no less?!?

The day before we flew to Utah, we had an ultrasound, during which we found out that we are expecting a baby boy.  Boy #4 for the Iversons!  But we thought it would be more fun to tell our families that we are expecting TWIN boys, and it was a fun little joke as they tried to figure out if this could in fact be an April Fool's joke, and if it was, which part of it was a joke.  Was I actually pregnant?  Was it one boy or two boys?  Or was it a girl?  Or did I not even know?  These questions and the accompanying torment filled my parents' kitchen for a painful 2 hours.  I kind of wanted to tell everyone the truth, but I honestly couldn't figure out how to tell them in a way that would make them believe me.  No matter what I said, it sounded like another addition to my April Fool's Joke.  "It's a girl - April Fool's!"  "It's a boy - April Fool's!"  "I'm not actually pregnant - April Fool's!"  It got painfully annoying after a while.  My mom just wanted to go to bed, so she could wake up and have it not be April Fool's Day anymore . . . but she knew she would not be able to sleep!  

Brady saved the day with some April Fool's entertainment of his own.

Finally, I pulled out the ultrasound prints and let them see the single, adorable baby boy for themselves.

I quickly updated my shirt with the truth . . . to clarify everything on the morning after.  Anti-climactic?  Maybe.  But it was kind of an adventure.  

We spent the rest of the week laughing, crying a bit, and mostly celebrating all the really great boys in our family.  These are some of the boys in the Griffin family.  My parents have one adorable granddaughter - Sophie, who will be followed by TEN grandsons in a row!  Yes, it is true.  Time to restock the Nerf bullets.

We played with Iverson cousins and had a fun family night with cousin Zach.

Henry, Ellis, and Sam enjoyed getting dirty in the Ogden River with the Jackson cousins.  

Sam and Max threw at least 800 rocks in the river.

And Ellis and Henry stretched their normal levels of bravery and insanity to impress their cousins, by crossing slippery rock paths and dunking different clothing items in the water.  Yeah.

We enjoyed the annual Iverson egg hunt.

Sam got a golden money egg!

And Ellis scored the broccoli egg!

Ellis amused us all with his uncanny resemblance to Little Debbie.

We spent lots of lazy mornings sorting and eating Lucky Charms (especially me).

We had a fun visit to Ogden's Treehouse Museum.  Don't you love my little firemen?

And my cowboys?

And my brave and chivalrous knights?

And my talented calligraphers? 

I love them too.  I felt so lucky to get to bring these three boys (plus one little bump) home with me.  I'm a lucky lady.

The World Will Know

It has happened.  A new obsession has taken hold of the Iverson household, and it has taken hold something fierce.  We have put presidents, apostles, and Star Wars on the back burner in favor of a newer, bolder, more dramatic passion:

NEWSIES!

This one has become the life and breath of not one, not two, but all three Iverson boys.  They live for the chance to watch the full-length movie.  They request to hear the soundtrack every time they see a CD player.  And even if Mom and Dad choose to listen to another album, they sing Newsies anyway, and they sing it louder.  They practice singing different lines together, taking turns being David, Jack, and Crutchie.  They are mastering the New York accent and are working on achieving the delicate balance of toughness mixed with choreography.  They are trying out different versions of the charming Jack Kelly smile.

With no further ado, I bring you the all-new
Newsies (in under six minutes)
an Iverson production:



Newsies (in under six minutes) from Ben and Jenn on Vimeo.

Three Very Handsome Boys

I can't help but post these handsome pictures of my boys in their Easter attire.  I was happy to see that Henry seems to have gotten over his awkward photo stage and is now happy to pose for pictures (in a dramatic, thoughtful way).  Sam, on the other hand, was very hard to capture . . . unless he was holding a ball!

Can you see their personalities in this one (just a little bit)? 

 

Thanks to Jamie for taking these last three. I feel so lucky to have these boys in my life!

Summer in Utah: Part 2

It was super hot in Utah while we were with my family, so we spent a LOT of our time in the water.

Henry took swimming lessons with Ivan.  I think this was one of my favorite parts of the trip, because I got to spend time every day talking to Kati while we watched the swimmers.  Did I mention that our 2-week swim session was $35?  We would pay $90 for a similar session in MA, so we felt like it was a great deal too.

Water slide in the back yard (thanks to the Rileys for lending it to us!)

See a tiny bit of trepidation on that face?

Sam is the perfect age to hate everyone who is not his mom or dad.  He eventually warmed up to our parents, but it took him a little while before anyone else could hold him!

Cherry Hill!  We had season passes as kids and went to this water park all the time.  It was fun to share the excitement with the kids!

I just love everything about this picture.

Ellis was absolutely crazy about the water slides . . . as long as somebody (like Grandpa) went with him.

I love trying to cram as many boys as possible into one picture . . .

 . . . It kind of gives you an idea of the amount of energy that exists when mine and Kati's boys get together.

And let's not forget the babies!  They waited very patiently for the few fun things they were allowed to do.

Lagoon!  Henry has never forgotten our trip to Lagoon three years ago.  He has begged and begged to go again!  Lucky boy.  We really had a fun time.

Ellis and Ivan

Carousel pics

One of Sam's only rides!  What a patient boy he was!  He and Max both lasted until past 10pm (and Sam with no nap!).  He's a trooper.

It was so fun to be with these babies and see how much they have grown!

James, Sam, & Max

Brady and McCall were awesome and came and played with us every day that they could.  We played lots of games and laughed a lot!

Look how cute McCall and James are!

Ben and his dad showing off their beards on the day they got back from Alaska.  Ben was gone for 10 days, and I missed him a lot -- but it was MUCH easier to have him gone while I was with my family!  I was so glad to have him return though.  Ellis prayed every night that Dad would be safe "and won't get eaten by anything."  I think my prayers were pretty similar . . .


Upgraded to smart phones!  Yep, still free riding on the old family plan!

Visited Mary and Chad in their new house!  Mary has twins in her belly!

And now, for a bunch of pictures of cute kids.  Starting with Sam.

Isn't it just adorable to have this many boys???  My mom has one grand-daughter (the oldest) and EIGHT grandsons!  In this picture they are playing Guess Who, and Sam is sad because he wants to play too!

One of Henry's favorite things about Utah is that people have trampolines in the ground.  This is part of why he wants to move to Utah (also for the houses with "parking garages" and finished basements).  Ellis wants to move to Utah "because Utah is just SO much more funner!"

Grandpa and Max

Sophie (the one lucky grand-daughter) - who is an amazing, angelic girl.  Sam LOVED her!

Sam, Max, Ellis, Milo

The Nerf Gun game my mom came up with to get the kids outside!

Henry, Ivan, Isaac (love this action shot)

Oh, yes.  The biggest news is that Sam learned to walk on this trip.  Finally, at 16 months!  Hooray!

Thanks to both of our families for the amazing time we had in Utah.  It was an absolute dream!