Bangs

I gave Esther's bangs a pretty serious trim with my new Christmas scissors.

Downhill Skiing

I took Van downhill skiing yesterday; it was not a good experience. He had lessons last year and I assumed he was a little more self sufficient than he was. I wasn't really prepared to help him the way he needed; he's too big for me to hold between my legs anymore. We only went on the chairlift once. Someone loaned us a harness and leash for the steepest part and that was a lifesaver, otherwise we were going to walk down. The leash/harness was the only way to help him, keep him safe and let him learn to balance on his own. Without it we couldn't do all three of those things and there was a lot of falling and yelling.
Still he looked adorable in his snowsuit with new helmet and gloves. He'll start lessons again next week and I'm sure that will go much better than me taking him.

Apples

Why do apples cause so many fights in our house?

 - Everyone wants an apple
 - It has to be a full apple. Not a half, or quarter of an apple. God forbid, an apple slice.
 - No one will share an apple.
 - The apple is eaten 1/2 of a centimeter deep, all the way around. This takes time.
 - If the apple turns brown during the process, a new apple is required.
 - Despite rules about sitting down while eating, apples with 1/2 cm bites around the center are found throughout the house.
 - If you make Esther sit at the counter with her apple, she will cry, and ask for a different apple.
 - Van will refuse to eat his dinner because he is not hungry, while crying that you gave his sister a bite of his apple.
 - The apple everyone wants the most, is the apple someone else has.

Christmas Eve eve sledding

The kids and I had the day together so we tried sledding at Service.

Here we are trying to sled as a group; it worked pretty well.

 This is what the view from the sledding hill looks like, nice clear area.

 

 

 But of course this is the trail Van finds that he wants to sled on.

Esther, wearing my gloves; she refuses to wear her own. And I can tighten these so she can't take them off.

After about 45 mins of riding up and down the hill, Esther decided she wanted to pull the sleds around. That made for some cute pictures except she would start to walk down the hill with the sled,  be surprised when it started to slide, and then drop the rope and want me to get it the sled when it slid to the bottom of the hill.
That can only happen so many times before it's time to go home.
Still all in all it was a fun trip. Nice close sledding location.

12/22/2014

Conversations with Van last night.

Van: "So why doesn't grandma have any babies?"

Me: "She does, me and Aunty Svea"

Van: "No but I mean new babies. Like you said you could go to the hospital and you'd come home with a new baby. So why doesn't grandma have any new babies."

Me: "Well you can't have babies forever. Sure I might be able to have 1 or 2 more babies, but at some point women get too old to have babies."

Van: "And you'll turn into grandma?"

Me: "Yep."

Me: "What do you think you'll do when you're a grownup?"

Van: "Well if there arent' any dinosaur bones left, I think I'll be a Steelers player or a Steelers fan."

Me: "That's cool. Except you don't want to be a player."

Van: "Why not?"

Me: "Well when playing football you can get hit in the head and get something called a concussion. It's bad for you."

Me: "Do you think you'll have babies when you get big?"

Van: "No. Not from my tummy."

Me: "Oh right, but do you think you'll get married and have a family?"

Van: "Yes. And when I have a little boy, I'll name him Van, because that will remind you of me when I was a little boy."

Me: "You're going to be a grown up pretty soon"

Van: "But not too soon right? Because I just turned 5. I'm just a little boy. A few days won't be my birthday."

Me: "That is true, you have to wait a whole year before you'll turn 6, and then 7 and so on. You have a while I guess."

Crazy Apes

Van has gotten many great presents. My favorite, i. e. the one I can't stop playing with is the magnet fractal board. Super fun.

But anyway, yesterday he got a package from my Aunt Hildur (aka Aunty Hogean). It contained a preschool workbook and card game 'Crazy Apes'. I didn't feel like teaching him how to play cards at first so we did the workbook.

But last night grandpa taught him how to play Crazy Apes (played like Crazy 8s) and we've been playing ever since.

This morning when I came downstairs he was sitting at the table with cards already dealt out for two.
I played one game with him but when I stopped to make breakfast, he dealt out another game played my side and his side (he won).

Van's Birthday

I'd say his birthday was a success.

Although luckily Van doesn't read the blog (yet). The day didn't go exactly as I had laid out in the last post; we skipped Bouncing Bears in favor of opening, and playing with, family presents while getting ready for the party.

Here is Van playing with his new loader and putting together his dinosaur puzzle.

 Dinosaur puzzle

A new train! This was Andy's present to Van.
Or Andy's present to Andy, it's still unclear.

Pretty soon it was noon and I dropped Van off at Preschool and started getting party decorations ready. I found these great Shark bowls, plates and cups.

I created the scavenger hunt that would lead them to Dad's garage where they would get cake and ice cream. Five clues for a 5 year old boy.

Since it was going to be dark during the hunt, I took pictures while I set it up. First clue led to the swing.

Then to the trampoline...

 Then to Svea's zip line...

Then to grandpa's shop...

 Meanwhile, the inside of the house looked like this:

Once guests started arriving, it got so busy I don't have many pictures.
First the kids, decorated the tree, here is the final product

Then all the big kids went outside and Peter drove them around with the snow machine pulling the otter sled. Andy cooked hotdogs on the grill and kept a fire going in Peter's backyard for the kids to warm up by.

I stayed inside with all the moms with babies and kids who didn't want to go outside.
One mom texted me a picture of the kids outside in the otter sled.

After they had been outside for a while, we called them in to eat stew, hotdogs, and soup.

Then once they all had eaten, we rounded up everyone interested to start the scavenger hunt. Luckily we had Suzanne, a second grader who could read the clues for us.

The scavenger hunt was a blur, but they had fun. In the end this is what they found!

Dad let them climb on his ARGO

Frank did not want to get off.

Laura hanging out with April Rose in the middle of the shop.

Suzanne and Van checking out some cool tools

By this time is was 6:15. Svea and Peter and I ran to the house and grabbed Van's presents and he opened them on the blue striped blanket.

Then Peter gave everyone (that wanted it) a ride back up to the house.

 And that was the end!
The Lunoes stayed over for a couple hours while Svea and Peter did some jobs. After all the excitement we sat them down with a movie and the girls were instantly asleep.
At about 8:30 grandpa decided we should revive the fire and roast the marshmallows we never got to during the party.
I stayed in to put Esther to bed.

All in all it was a pretty exciting day.
Here is Esther at the end, watching the train go by.