7/1/2013

Van touches Andy's chin.

Van: "What are these?"
Andy: "They're whiskers."
Van: (pause) "These are weird."

***

"They're like puzzle shoes."

 - Van, about mom's dog slippers

6/30/2013

Van is playing with his cars

Car 1 & 2: "CRASH!!!!!"
Car 1: "I ran into you! Sorry-you!"
Car 2: "Thank you for saying sorry-you!"

(note: sorry-you is Van's particular way of saying 'I'm sorry'. It's one word, sounds like, 'Sorryou')

***

Van wanted to wear one of each shoe, a monkey shoe, and an orange shoe

Me: "Let's show this to grandma"
Van: "Yeah, she's going to see it and she's going to laugh. 'Ha ha ha' like that."

***

"Mom, I have an idea, you could leave me at grandma and grandpa's house!"
 - Van, every time we visit grandma and grandpa's house

***

Sunday morning.
Van: "I'm going to check if they're here"
Me: "who?"
Andy: "Yeah who are you looking for?"
Van: "You guys forgot? Grandma Sandy and Poppy Joe!"

(They will be here on Wednesday!)

Mama portraits

Van took these, his photography skills are definately improving.

6/29/2013

Married 5 years today!

I love my wonderful husband, being married to him just gets better as time passes.  

love.

Napping at the office

Mom calls this Esther's office

Apparently she worked so hard today she fell asleep.

Sleeping top

Sleeping bottom

Sleeping baby

Making trouble

As Van gets older he finds new and creative ways to make trouble. He is actually a pretty good boy, but you have to be very specific about what you don't want him to do. And sometimes there are things you forget to mention.
Here are a few recent ones.

 - Got a bag of millet out of the pantry. Got the scissors, cut it open (even though it was a plastic bag with a twisty tie). And added it to a jar of cous-cous (he thought they were the same and needed to be combined).
 - Added all the wheat flour into the white flour.
 - Stuffed toilet paper and toothpaste down the sink drain. Filled the sink. Washed his feet.
 - Snuck out his (groundfloor) bedroom window after bedtime. Not sure when he did it. But I found him an hour after we had put him to bed, riding his bike in the driveway.

New book!

Aunty Linda sent Van an awesome new dinosaur book. He was so excited to open the package!

When we saw the cover I said, "Van what does it say?"

"Dinosaurs!" he said. 

He can't actually read, he just knows from the picture; but still, that's the first step towards reading. :)

Here we are reading the new book, it's blurry because we're laughing.

Thanks Aunty Linda!

3.5 months comparison

So similar and so different at the same time. Two cute babies.

Helicopter

Were driving to do something else when I saw this at a yard sale and decided we needed it.

It's a hand prop model

Van said he likes it, but he needs Finn to play with it more. 

Goodbye

My friend and mentor moved to Houston yesterday. The office won't be the same without you Wen!

I thought it might be a good time to share the mentor/mentee photos that were taken of us last year.

Smiles

Mom took these pictures of Esther smiling yesterday.

That is one happy baby :)

Back to Work

I just finished my first week back at the office.  It was fantastic. I love my job but I had been nervous. Would Esther be ok? Would Van be happy? Where would they both go?

But I was lucky to end up with the ideal set up. My mom watches Esther. And not only that, I get to leave the house at 7, but mom doesn't come to pick up Esther until Esther wakes up at 9 or 10.
Zamzam (who Van loves, she watched him from ages 1 to 3) came back and we hired her as our nanny. She stays with Van, often bringing her son who is the a similar age, and they have picnics and go to parks.

Zamzam has also been keeping the house clean. Every day I come home and find some other little corner has been organized (or today my mountain of laundry had been done!). It's so fantastic. I think it takes at least 2 women to make one household run (for me, even when I'm not working).

And having Esther with my mom is so comforting. I never worry about her at all, I know she's safe and I can focus at work.

The best is Van today,
Me: "How was your day?"
Van: "My day was GREAT"
Me: "Oh I'm so glad! What did you do?"
Van: "play."

Vanessa (name)

"Vanessa is a feminine given name, especially popular in the United States. It was invented by the Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift for Esther Vanhomrigh, whom Swift had met in 1708 and whom he tutored. The name was created by taking "Van" from Vanhomrigh's last name and adding "Essa", a pet form ofEsther.^[1] Swift may have also^{[contradiction]} derived the name from that of the ancient mystic goddess Phanessa.^{[dubious – discuss][citation needed]}

Vanessa has been adopted later as the name of a genus of butterfly by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1807."

link to full article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_(name)

Van, Esther = Vanessa! Pretty great history.

Hola!

We were driving home from Goose lake  and out of the blue Van says,
"Mom, speak Spanish to me."
I responded with "uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis," and "adiós" and he asked me to repeat it over and over again.

I had been wondering where he got that from and until just now. He's watching a show called, 'Handy Manny' on Netflix. The main character on the show is Spanish and my guess is that this sparked his latest interest.

I should find someone up here who actually speaks Spanish to talk to him.

Making Soup

I came up with a great soup the other day where you boil cauliflower, red peppers, and potatoes in chicken broth and milk then put it all in the blender. Then add a scoop of cheese.
I used cheddar last time but I think I will try parmesan this time.

Anyway I let Van use all the extra parts to make his own soup. He's a great helper.

soup making

Van's soup

my soup

Van told Andy, "My soup is yucky because I put tops and seeds in it, but mama's soup will be 'licious."

Esther and Grandma

Esther is staying with my mom while I'm at work right now. 

Here is grandma giving her a bath.

Couldn't ask for better! 

Goose Lake

Emily and Leif planned a BBQ at Goose Lake yesterday. They brought their grill and a tent and the kids played at the 'beach', in the lake, and at the playground.

I don't have many pictures, but here are some of Van in the water

It was a great event to follow my first day back at work!

New Shoes

After his tumble in the parking lot on Sunday, we bought new shoes so he'd have good traction.

Couldn't get him to stay still, so this is my favorite blurry picture.

New kicks!

The damage. It looks even worse in person.

Father's Day hike

We hiked up Bear Valley today for Father's Day.

I took Van on this hike last year and it was fun to marvel and how much bigger he is and how much better at hiking he is.

Still we didn't take him too far, his little tennis shoes are so bad, they have no traction so when it got steep we just turned around. He was running in the parking lot beforehand and fell face first in the gravel. He literally landed with his face, so we were cautious the whole hike about him falling again.

Here are some pretty pictures from the hike.

picnic spot

love

love love

out adventuring