Esther's Dress

She still has some room to grow into this but I couldn't help myself.

Here's the dress I made for Esther while I was pregnant with her in PA. As a newborn I held this up to her and it looked enormous. She has grown so much in two months.

Activities with Esther

Here are some fun things I've been doing with Esther.

Hiking in the rain

Arm wrestling.

(I won)

Hiking along Turnagain Arm

Letting our tummies hang out.

Sleeping

4/30/2013

Van: "Daddy show me your toothes"

Andy: "You mean my teeth?"

Van: "No daddy, they're called toothes"

***

Me: "Hey Van what do you want to do today?"

Van: "I want to find fossils because I'm a paleontologist. Do you want to pretend to be a paleontologist too?" 

Me: "Sure"

Van: "And Esther is a baby paleontologist."

Opportunist

Van was sitting on the slide watching a dinosaur movie on Andy's iPad. They were showing the skeleton of a Tarbosaurus. It looks like a tyrannosaurus rex and I love that he can identify it.

I watched the movie over his shoulder for a second and then whispered in his ear,
"hey Van, do you know what?"
"what?"
"I love you."
"I love you too."
(pause)
"Can I have some chocolate?"

Rainbow Ruffles

Aunt Lisa sent the cutest outfit in the world :)

I included this last picture even though it's essentially a duplicate because it shows her surprised/alarmed look. A pretty common expression.

Dog Park

Took Van, Esther, and Alamo to the dog park today. With all the puddles from breakup it was a huge hit.

Van found a big puddle right off the bat. He explored while I nursed Esther.

Then we were off down the trail

A brave explorer.

And baby Esther too!

Heading back to the car.

Make no mistake, even with his Grundens, he was completely soaked from waist down by the time we got back to the car. Luckily we always travel with a spare change of pants.

Building Molecules

This happens all the time. I send Van downstairs for something and he comes up with something else, having completely forgotten about what I sent him down for.

So I sent him down this morning to get clean clothes on. And he comes upstairs (with the same dirty clothes on) carrying this and says triumphantly, "I figured it out!"

These are pieces of my molecule building kit from organic chemistry, he is pleased because he figured out how they fit together. 

Then he says, "So mom, I have a question for you. I dumped these out." then he looks at me and opens his eyes really wide, bracing himself in anticipation that I might yell. 

"Why don't you put them back in the box?" I say.

"No, because I want to play with them" he says. 

I say, "Well if you put them back in the box and bring them upstairs, then we could build with them together."

"Yeah!" he says and runs downstairs, returning with the box of molecule parts.

I built Van a methane molecule and then he builds one too.

 Building molecules with Van. I am in heaven. He loves it too but has no idea yet how nerdy we are yet. :)

Switch up

Van loves to pretend we are other people. At first he started pretending I was him and he was me.
Here is a picture of him wearing my high heels (which he calls mom shoes) and telling me what we need to do next. He actually does a pretty good impression of me.

But the latest game has been to pretend that he and I are Finn and Svea.
This is not dissimilar to us being us, but he calls me 'mor' (which is danish for mom, which is what Finn calls Svea). At first he got it right but now he's changed it to 'mores'. Still it's hilarious.
The best part is when he wants to ask 'Van' something. We'll be playing and I'll say,
"Finn do you think Van will mind that you're playing with his airplane?"
"Let me check" he says.
Then he walks into another room and says,
"'Hey Van, can I play with your airplane', 'sure', 'thanks', 'you're welcome'"
Then he comes back out and says,
"Van said it was ok"
He calls the dog Odin (Svea's dog's name). and pretty much that is the whole game. We spent 3 hours doing this yesterday. It's hilarious. He just adds 'mor' or 'mores' to the beginning and end of every sentence.
"Hey mor, can I ride my bike on the snowbank mor?'

Anna's Birthday Party

On Saturday we went to Anna's 3rd birthday party. I bought Esther an Easter dress on sale.

The party was amazing. Laura does birthdays like nobody else.

http://kanyerfamily.blogspot.com/2013/04/snow-white-magic.html

Museum

Here is Van at another one of our favorite places to play

patiently watching the Rube Goldberg machine

Putting on a puppet show

The Alaska Museum of Science and Nature

I can't believe I don't know about this place earlier given how much Van loves dinosaurs.

It's great, they can touch almost everything in the museum.

Van in the geology room

Van riding a woolly mammoth

A view of the dinosaur room

Then they had activities and story time for toddlers, it was great.

Lessons in Breastfeeding

I was feeding Esther and Van was eating a piece of bread. He handed me a bite of his bread and said,
"you know, you eat food and it goes down here and to Esther" motioning from my mouth to my breast.
"yes!" I said, "that's right"
Van nodded in acknowledgement, then said,
"Ok, come here Esther" and offered her his nipple. He still hadn't put a shirt on after his bath.
"No Van, you don't make milk, only mamas make milk" I told him.
"I make milk" said Van with certainty. "I make it with my prey."

Beautiful Spring Day

We have really been enjoying the beautiful spring weather. I've been able to go skiing a couple times, and today Andy, Van, Esther and I went on a walk in John's park. Well Andy and I walked, Esther rode and Van snow biked.

Esther making her first snow angel

Pretty good. We'll have to work on that.

The bump is just as big, but now there are more blankets involved.

Family picture!

snow biking

Driving socks

Van walks into the room
Van: "Look Mom!"
Me: "Oh wow Van, you put your socks on by yourself, good job."
Van: "Yeah, I have a police car and a firetruck. I said to myself, 'I'm going to drive around'"

Myers-Briggs 2.0

I love Myers-Briggs, it makes my life better everyday by helping me understand myself, my husband and everyone else I interact with. So I bought a book about how to identify what type your child is and tips to help you parent them.

My best guess for Van is an ENTP, someone copied that chapter of the book here

http://personalitycafe.com/entp-articles/14767-development-entp-children.html

Here is the first sentence,

"ENTP children are energetic, creative, adventurous, and fun. But they can be exhausting to have around, both physically and intellectually."

Sounds about right. I'm tired right now.

Typical Van

I got Van a wooden car today for being good while I was shopping. Or something that resembles good anyway.

This is us in the store
Van: "RAWR!!!"
Me: "Van! that is too loud. You have to be good remember?"
Van: "Oh.
Is this too loud?
Is this too loud?
Is this too loud?
Is this too loud?
Is this too loud?"
(in his defense it sounded like he was genuinely asking.)
Me: "Van stop, you have to be good if you want to get your car and that means being quiet."
Van: "I am being good now. Can I have it?"
Me: "You have to be good for the whole trip"
Van: "I have to be good for the whole trip!? Mama what's a trip?"

Anyway, in the end he more or less earned it. He stayed in the cart anyway and told me I looked pretty when I tried on dresses. Here he is with it.

He says, "This is my new favorite toy ever that I just picked out." then he drives it around on his lap and adds, "and it's so drivable!"

***

Yesterday I made a chocolate cake. This morning I was drying my hair when Van comes into the bathroom to talk to me. 

"Van" I say, "you have been in the chocolate cake"

"What?" he asks incredulously. I can tell he's trying to decide if there is any way I could know that so he knows how to respond. He decides to the go with the defense of smiling. 

***

And being no trouble at all,

 here is baby Esther, helping me with my shopping.