Front yard

We're breaking all kinds of records for nice weather this summer. Here is a picture of Esther and I hanging out in the front yard while Van rides his bike with the neighbor kids.
Great afternoon!

Painting Numbers

I play a lot of Sudoku, so Van really wants to play too.
But I tell him he can't play until he learns his numbers. So the other day we made number flashcards so he could learn 1 to 9.
However, it turns out I am not a very patient teacher. I got too frustrated trying to teach him so I decided to table the exercise for a while.
Then today he got the watercolors out and started to paint his number flashcards. They are so beautiful! Maybe he'll end up more artist than engineer. Either that or it's just good I didn't go into elementary education.

Baby in the morning

"Baby in the mornings,
baby in the evenings,
baby at suppertime. 
You're my sweetest baby,
And I love you all the time."

Best part about Sundays: lounging around with a cute, sweet, baby.

Nearly 5 months

Esther is almost 5 months old now and so sweet

Only for adults

Suzanne is Zamzam's daughter who plays with Van sometimes, she's 6 and in 1st grade.

Van: "Mom, guess what I was doing with Suzanne?"
Me: "Playing?"
Van: "Nooooo"
Me: "What?"
Van: "You have to guess, it's only for grown ups"
Me: "You were doing something with Suzanne that's only for grown ups?"
Van: "Yep, guess"
Me: "Cooking?"
Van: "Nope."
Me: "Going to school? Going to work?"
Van: "Nope, nope"
Me: "It wasn't kissing or anything was it?"
Van: "Nope"
Me: Thank goodness "What was it then?"
Van: "Climbing. We were climbing trees."

This made me laugh so hard, he had me worried for a second there.

Here he is climbing, he went out to demonstrate

The sort of sleepover

We had a sleepover planned for Van last night. He was going to spend the night with Aunty Svea, Finn, Elin and Solvej while Peter was working at the hospital. He was so excited.

Van: "Mom, I want to stay at Finn's house this long" (holds up all ten of his fingers)
Me: "Do you think you'll ever want to come back?"
Van: "I want to stay a long long long long long long long long long long looooooong time."
Me: "But when are you going to come home?"
Van: "After the long time"

But then at 9:48PM, I got the call.

Me: "Hi sweetie"
Van: "I want to come home"
Me: "Ok I'll come right over and get you"

I ran over to pick him up. Svea said he had been doing great they were reading stories, but then they started reading 'Truckery Rhymes" a book we read at home as well, and he just started to cry. She thought it reminded him of home.

Van: "I was missing you mama"
Me: "I was missing you too Van"

And he held my hand all the way home.

Post Flattop

This is what happens at 2PM, if you hike at 8AM. We haven't done naps in a while, so this was a pleasant surprise :)

Top of Flattop

Here's Van at the top

Hugs

We were driving up to Svea and Peter's new house to see Finn and Peter who were working up there.

Van: "I think Finn will be excited. I think he will hug me."
Me: "Well maybe, but you know Finn doesn't always like hugs."
Van: "Yeah but I think he will hug me. Maybe he just doesn't like tight hug-es."
Me: "Yeah, maybe that's it."
Van: "I won't give him a tight hug; I'll just hug him around the bottom, not the tummy."
Me: "Well you can try that."
Van: "Kids tummy's are fragile. Like babies heads."
Me: "That is true"

Flattop

I groaned when I heard Van sometime past 6 this morning. By the time I came out he was already sitting on the couch with a styrofoam cup of frozen chicken nuggets looking at me wondering what were going to do today.

Since everyone else was going to be sleeping for a while, I decided today was the day. Van and I were going sneak out before everyone woke up and climb flattop. I fed Esther around 7:20 and headed right out the door.

It was a beautiful day. Van helped me pack his backpack full of treats and he headed up the mountain.

Van snacking on chicken nuggets

"Flattop has eyes! snow eyes!" says Van laughing

A hiking team

"No resemblance there!" noted a fellow hiker.

Van escaping my smooch

I thought we might lose steam at this point, it's really steep, but luckily Van loved the stairs and got excited about climbing them.

Taking a break at a bench

Cutest hiking partner ever

"I love climbing mountains!" says Van. 

You can see the fog has rolled in though...

The top of Flattop! but we can't see a thing

Van liked this rock wall

And this cool pile of rocks

Once we started heading down it went from foggy to pouring down rain. We made it down in about 25 mins, holding hands the whole way. It was fast for a toddler but we were soaked and I wanted to be at the car before he got sad. 

Van said he did not like getting caught in the rainstorm (called it a bad adventure) and although he loved climbing up the rocks he got a little scared coming down. So I'm not sure how he'd rate the overall experience. I needed better hiking clothes for him, his cotton pajama bottoms were soaked by the end and I ended up giving him my smartwool hoodie to wear over his coat.

I loved it though, I'm having so much fun now that Van is old enough to do these kinds of adventures with me. And seeing how well he was able to climb at 3 made me realize it won't be too long until I can't keep up with him!

Grape Crepes

To Van, the words 'crepe' and 'grape' sound the same. So he qualifies by

"do you mean crepes you make?" (crepes)
"or crepes you don't make? "(grapes)

Charades

Van and I played charades last night, it was so fun!
He called it, 'What creature am I?' and we'd take turns pretending to be different animals, dinosaurs, or vehicles and the other person would guess.
We both did well, he guessed all of mine: turtle, dog, helicopter, snake, triceretops.
And I guessed most of his, puppy, stegesaurs, airplane, t-rex, tiger (twice), pteranodon.
I got stuck when he was a stegesauraus-unicorn though; they are apparently identifiable by a spike coming out of the back of their neck.

Esther 4.5 months

I tried to pull up a picture of Esther at work today and realized I hadn't taken any lately.
So here she is in her wonderful sweater from Aunty Hogean.

A smiley, happy, wonderful baby. 

She and I had a 'conversation' today. I'd make a noise, she'd smile an make a noise back, we went on and on; it was very cute.

She also loves bouncing in her exersaucer and is so close to rolling over but hasn't yet.

Getting groceries

Me: "Be very careful with those apples Van."
Van: "Yeah, fruit is very fragile, just like babies heads!"

7/11/2013

Van and I talking about work. I was trying not to use the word 'PowerPoint' to avoid confusion but confusion ensued.

Van: "So mom, what did you do at work today?"
Me: "Well I met with some people, made some slides, had some teleconferences."
Van: "You made slides? what kind of slides?"
Me: "Oh, well that is confusing. Not real slides, they are more like, pictures. Yeah, I made pictures."
Van: "Pictures of slides?"

***

"Mama put your sweating ring in here right now."

- Van. Wants my wedding ring bad.

Blessing in disguise

Van: "Hey mom, when do we turn into mamas?"
Me: "When we're bigger. But boys don't turn into mamas, they only turn into daddys."
Van: "Aw man, just daddys; but I want to feed babies."


Van is disappointed that he won't grow breasts. Luckily, this is one disappointment that will later feel like a blessing

Finn and Van

On a lighter note, Svea is back from Denmark! Which means Finn and Van are back as a team. I was talking to Svea on the phone this morning, and Van whispered in my ear that he wanted to talk to her.

When I gave him the phone he said, "Hey can I talk to Finn for a second?"

When Finn came on the line Van invited him over for a sleepover and to build a train track, Finn said, "We'll drive over as fast as we can!"

The kids played at my house then I took them out for frozen yogurt.

No one is more excited than us to have to stop for a train!

train watching

Chocolate frozen yogurt

The ladies at the Yogurt Lounge let Finn and Van pick the movie.

They settled on Wall-E, these are the previews.

Now they are out bike riding with Grandma and Grandpa. They are so happy!

Bad day

Well we had our first really scary experience with Van.  On the friday after 4th of July Van, Andy, Sandy and Joe had just stopped by my office. Not 40 minutes later I got a call at work that the paramedics were at my house and Van was fine but needed comforting.

I ran home and it turned out Van had found a can of bear spray and sprayed himself in the face in the cab of Andy's truck. Andy was driving at the time, they were really close to the house so Andy held his breath pulled in, grabbed Van and called the paramedics.

When I got home Van was bright red, his eyes were swollen shut and he was crying. We gave him a shower, which apparently made things burn more. I had to shower in between comforting Van and holding Esther so that I didn't transfer any of the bear spray. Anyway it was a horrible, horrible day.

Van has said some funny things about the experience. One day he told me he knew a naughty song, I asked him what it was. He sang,
"Hippopotamus, hippopotamus,
found some bear spray,
in the car,
and sprayed himself in the face."

At the playground yesterday Van met a little boy and said, "Hey, I want to tell you something. yesterday, I found some bear spray and sprayed myself in the face. It was awful."

He also apologized to Andy a few times. He said, "Daddy, I'm sorry I sprayed the bear spray"

And he would say, "You know, sometimes kids don't know about bear spray. But now I know."

4 month stats

Esther at 4 months old

Weight: 17 lbs 13 oz, 97th percentile
Height: 26.75 inches, >99th percentile
Head circumference: 41.5 cm, 76th percentile

perfect!

Quilt track

Van has/had a lighting McQueen road rug but we haven't been able to find it recently. So he asked me to spread out his quilt from Aunty Linda so he could drive cars on it.

It works great!

Especially if you get tired...

really tired...