Stylin'

Van has been down in his room for about an hour as we've been trying to put him down for a nap. He keeps coming upstairs needing different things.
Finally he comes up and says,

"Hey guys, look at me! I put these on myself!"

He's wearing clothes he found packed in his room. They are from the 6-9 month tub.

I like this last picture only because it shows how the onsie is on backwards. As he was showing us his new look he turns around grabbing the tail of the onsie and goes, "hey what's this?" 

For reference, here is Van wearing those pants at the appropriate age. They look short even here.

Meaurements

I never measured myself during my last pregnancy and today I was curious how big my belly is around.

My non-pregnancy measurements are ~
36 - 29 - 35

I was surprised to find that my pregnancy measurements (at 31 weeks) are
40 - 40 - 40!

As Svea said, 'Hey, we could fit you down a tube!'

Babysitting

Andy, Van and I watched Elin, Solvej and Finn this morning while Svea went to yoga.

We took a bath;

ate lots of tortillas and cheese, raisins, and aussie bites;

 and looked out the window for animal tracks.

It's a busy group!

Christmas Eve

We had a fantastic Christmas Eve up at my parents house. We all wore red so we could take a coordinated family picture; the Hatches stopped by which is great because they are usually in Hawaii this time of year; and Svea and mom made the best sushi rolls ever for dinner. We had moose meat or shrimp sushi (everything cooked). It was soooo delicious.

Here are some picture from the night.

Me and the boys

Andy and I

The Lunoe family

The whole group

Cute boys

Upsidedown boys

30.5 week belly

with Kyle!

Tree pose

Such a fun delicious night, looking forward to Christmas tomorrow.

Merry Christmas everyone!

30 weeks

30 weeks is a big one for a lot of reasons:

• You can really see the difference since 28 weeks
• This is the only week that my Christmas turtle neck is actually appropriate
• We finally have decent snow 
• The world did not end yesterday
• I gave up on keeping my shirt covering my stomach you can see a little skin. Likely more to come later.

Vanessa carrying Esther, 28 to 30 weeks. 2012

 

Vanessa carrying Esther, 7 - 30 weeks. 2012

 

I didn't find much in my file on me carrying Van at 30 weeks, I think it was a small change for that pregnancy. Here's an old comparison that includes the 30 week picture though.

Vanessa carrying Van, 24 - 32 weeks. 2009

 

3 year well baby visit

Van’s 3 year well baby visit was today.

Height: 40 inches, 95^th percentile

Weight: 40 lbs, 98^th, percentile

BP: 80/60

The doctor said he was closer to a 4 or 4 and 1/2 year old in size.

Other notable quotes from the doctor’s office:

Nurse (to me): “Do you have any questions for the doctor?”

Van: “I have a question!”

Nurse: “You have a question for the doctor? What is it?”

Van (standing on the examining table): “Well there’s a seal picture (pointing at a picture of a seal on the wall).. and those lights are on (pointing at the ceiling)… with no batteries.. houses, you know, houses don’t run on batteries. Like our house doesn’t run on batteries.”

Nurse: (laughs) “That is right, houses don’t run on batteries.”

***

Doctor: “How old are you Van?”

Van: “Good”

***

Van is sitting on the table

Doctor: “I need to listen to your heart”

Van immediately pulled up his shirt, I was so proud that he knew where his heart was then he said, “I have a heart, it’s in here! (pointing at his belly button)”

***

Doctor (turning Van’s hands over in his and feeling each finger): “What big hand you have, what are you going to do with these hands?”

Van: “No, no, no, these are fingers”

Doctor: “Yes, that is true, can you show me your thumb?”

Van opens his mouth and shows him his tongue.

***

Doctor: “Van are you good at jumping?”

Van: “Yeah!”

Doctor: “Ok show me how you can jump.”

Van: “I can jump over this” (jumping over his dumptruck). “I can jump high.”

Doctor: “Can you jump in one place?”

Van: “Yeah.” (Van jumps in place several times) “I can jump really high.”

***

Van: “Hey who broke that?” Van points to a missing ceiling tile.

Me: “I don’t know babe, look at the pipes up there”

Van: “Hey, maybe we could swing on them!” Looks at me intently to see if the answer is yes.

***

Van: scoots his little chair a few inches closer to me “I want to sit next to you mommy”

***

The doctor brought up nutrition quite a few times and I wondered if I didn’t answer the survey questions correctly about how many servings of fruits, vegetables, grains and protein he eats. I do think he eats healthy but it’s hard for me to come up with those numbers on the spot. Especially since I don't exactly know what he eats at daycare. I may have underestimated fruits because we do eat a lot of those. So the doctors asks me about nutrition and I say we’re lucky because he’s a good eater.

I say, “we’re lucky because he likes a lot of healthy food, like green beans and pineapple and oatmeal.”

Van: “I like chicken nuggets!”

Me: “Right, well he likes chicken nuggets too…”

Doctor directs me to a healthy food website.

***

Doctor: “Well he looks great, he looks really healthy. And there’s no scale for energy, but he’s a 10. He really keeps you busy huh?”

Yes. Yes he does. J

Daycare Update

Finding daycare is one of the scariest things in the world. Who are you going to trust with the most important thing in the world?
However, I have continuously been impressed with the people I have found to help me take care of Van. Angela, Cristina, Zeze and now Dionisia.
Every time you have to switch, you think you'll never find someone good again, but I wanted to share some pics Dionisia has sent me of Van during his first week at her house. Just to show you how lucky I am.

Here is Van sledding with Viviana, Dionisia's daughter who is 18 months old.

Here is a wreath, one of several art projects he has brought home (I hung it up at work).

Then today I got these pictures. Playing with shaving cream at her dining room table, a little boy's dream come true! I can't wait to ask him about it after work.

Birthday Dinner

Since last night was Van's actual birthday, we took him out to dinner at Bear Tooth. It went as you might imagine taking a 3 year boy old to a restaurant might go, but I was glad we did something special.

Here is Van after receiving his post dinner 'suprise'. We used the promise of this to keep him relatively well behaved towards the end of the night.

Tiger Birthday Party

Today we had Van's Tiger themed third birthday party.

I think Svea has more pictures for me, so hopefully I can add more later. But here is what I have.

Here are everyone's tiger tails

 

Here are some decorations in the dining room.

 

Tiger Livia, enjoying the playhouse/slide

 

Tiger Lily, distributing balloons.

 

Reluctant tigers Elin and Solvej

 

Van blowing out a candle on his birthday cupcakes.

 

Van relaxing with some Diego after the party.

 

Van flying his new airplane around.

 

The present opening was chaotic, there was a pirate ship, a dump truck, this airplane and some nerf guns. Van calls them 'shooty things'.

For example, 'Mom can I bring my shooty things in the bathtub?'

Even though the present opening was a blur, throughout the day he spent time playing with all of his new toys individually. He said very sincerely, 'Mom, I love my new toys.'

Happy 3rd Birthday Van! We love you.

Van's Second Ski

I took Van to the Service trails tonight. We started out at the soccer field, I thought we might just go around the field, but he immediately wanted to go down a hill. 

We ended up doing a small loop. It was maybe a kilometer, it took us almost an hour, but we had so much fun doing it! I was really impressed at how much he seemed to enjoy it. I had been prepared for him to be bored and/or cold after 10 mins, but he was happy as a clam. He even tried to run on his skis, he'd laugh and say, "look how fast I am!"

For going down the hills I would hold his shoulders and snowplow with my legs outside of his. We could get going pretty fast and if he lost his balance I could easily just pick him up.  He really enjoyed that.

He was a little concerned about crocodiles in the woods and at one point he saw some animal tracks and said, 'Aren't those tiger tracks?' but he didn't seem too scared. And when it was done, I was surprised that I actually had to coax him back into the car, it was about 0 degrees out!

This picture shows a little of Esther as well :)

Van's First Ski!

We bought Van some skis today and took him out in the back yard.
He did really well and had fun. I want to take him to the trails; I think keeping his feet in the tracks will be nice.

Skiing with dad

Skiing with mom

Then we came inside and had some delicious hot chocolate. :)