Dinosaur movies

Van loves watching 'scary' dinosaur movies. That means those dinosaur documentaries, where they talk about fossils but have clips of dinosaurs throughout. He gets bored with the parts of people talking, he'll say, "more dinosaurs, less people."
But he has picked up some words and topics that result in interesting questions.

On fossils

"Momma, why do dinosaurs turn into fossils? Why do they do that."

On Echoes

Van: "Momma, tell me a story about when you was little and an echo was chasing you"
Me: "Van an echo isn't an animal, it's just a sound. It's like if you say, 'HELLO' and you hear 'Hello... hello...hello'" So an echo is when you say something and hear the same thing you said reflected back at you."
Van: 'Momma, tell me a story about when you was little and an echo was biting you."

oh well.

or

"momma, where do echos live? what do they eat?"

Camera Man

Here are some pictures of Van. The reason they are neat is because Andy had just given him a compass key chain.

He was so pleased with it that he brought me the camera and asked me to take a picture of him with it.

Then he set up a series of pictures. 'Mom take a picture of me with this screwdriver. Now of me biting this crayon. etc.'

Here are the results

Originally I didn't want to take a picture of him biting a crayon, but I let him direct the shots and I think I like this one best. 

Sledding

Svea, Peter and I took the kids sledding today at Trailside Elementary. The schools are so great for this, they are fenced in, and when the kids get tired of sledding there is a playground right there.

We went at 9 AM so we had the place to ourselves.

Peter pushing Van and Finn down the hill

The ride down towards the playground

Svea pushing Solvej on the swing

Solvej

Finn and Van heading out for another run

Getting ready

Svea and Solvej sliding down the hill

Fun on the swings

Finn and Van on the see-saw

Van from his vantage point

Unfortunately the camera died before Elin and I got into any pictures. But we were all there and we all had fun. Then we all went to 'House of Bread' for chocolate milk and cinnamon rolls.

Baby Shoes

Our friends Tyler Peters and Shannon Daniels sent us a very exciting baby present. New shoes for me and baby Esther!

I had a lot of fun testing this baby present out :)

34 weeks

Baby Esther is getting bigger and bigger!
Here's the latest.

My doctor appointments have been going well, her heartbeat is in the 140s, she moves and has the hiccups a lot. She's measuring right on schedule, at the next appointment we'll have a quick ultrasound to determine if she's still head down. She has been for a while, so I don't anticipate her moving but we'll wait and see.

A walk in the woods

Van and I walked to John's park today. He's so fun to play with, I try to capture the funny things he says in these stories, but sometimes it's not any one thing he says, just the way he is that I want to remember.

So I took some short video clips.

Here are 2 minutes in time from my walk in the woods with Van today.

Part 1

Part 2

I love when he suddenly decides we are lost. We were 80% of the way around a loop, so luckily I later convinced him to keep moving forward. 

I also love that his response to breaking his stick is, 'Hey mom look, two sticks!'

Way to be optimistic buddy.

Carnivore

Van is eating salami. He comes to me and says, 'More meat please!'
Then he sings the song like he's a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
He likes to tell us how he likes meat, just like a dinosaur.

Here he is watching Diego, and eating meat in his playhouse. Ever since Andy added the door to the playhouse it has been a big hit to hang out in.
I am supposed to make a curtain for this window. Van and I have picked out fabric, so I need to work on that.

1/6/2013

I've been really tired, so Van has been watching movies in the house more than normal this weekend. He was watching 'Wonder Pets' on my laptop in his old bedroom with the door closed. We heard stomping and jumping and I was sure the computer was going to be destroyed.

We opened the door and Van had turned on iTunes and was dancing around the room to "International Love Song" by Pitbull.

Naturally we had a family dance party.

***

Van pulled one of the bar stools up to the thermostat.
"What are you doing bud?" Andy asked.
"Checking to see what time it is" Van answered.
"That's not a clock, it's a thermostat" Andy said. But Van ignored this.

He climbed up until he was level with the thermostat, put his finger on the screen and said very carefully as if reading it off the screen,
"It says, it's time to go to Finn's house!"

(They have the flu at Finn's house, or we would totally be there).

32 weeks

The weather is warmer now, so most of the pretty snow has melted. Still we've been able to go out on skis an walks with Van.
Everything was normal at my 32 week checkup, Esther's heart rate is ~140, she's head down, and I'm measuring right on schedule.

30 to 32 weeks. My shirt is getting smaller

The whole comparison, 7 - 32 weeks. Amazing that my body has changed this much. And hard to believe that it will someday go back!