Work

With Andy out of town this week, I picked up Van from preschool a couple times and brought him to the office so I could work some more.
He likes the view, he says it is very beautiful.
He likes that I can move my desk up and down and that the office has hot chocolate and occasionally other treats; one day we found some chocolate cake up for grabs.

x-c skiing

Van's downhill skiing lesson have helped him in x-c skiing as well. He was able to do all of Randy's loop, the uphills and downhills without any help. 

We skied with Elin, Solvej, Peter and Svea while Finn was at Junior Nordic.

Then after skiing we found Finn and the boys conquered this mountain.

1/27/2014

Van ended up dressing like me. Although I think all he had in mind was the necklace, he did pretty good overall. I would totally wear that outfit.

Dress like mom or dad day

Today is dress like mom or dad day at Van's preschool. Van's normal clothes already look a lot like Andy's clothes, so we played with the idea over the weekend and I tried all of Andy's clothes on him.
Here he is showing his outfit off to Andy.

I don't think this outfit will work because everything would fall off... but maybe he could wear the shirt with some of his own jeans. We'll see what they decide, hopefully Andy will send me a picture before he goes to school.

Van said a couple times that we wanted to add one of my necklaces. I think he has in mind 'dress like your mom and dad day'.
We'll see how the day turns out.

Outside

We finally got some snow, but then it got really cold. Still that didn't stop everyone from wanting to play in it, and the cold clear skies made for beautiful pictures.

The boys are working on the sledding hill. Later they get out a pick axe and try to tell me that grownups can't be outside while they're using it, because it's too dangerous.

They are also arguing here about who is the boss of who. They've previously decided that each boy gets to make the rules to the games at his own house, but outside is flexible territory. Therefore they still occasionally fight about the 'vision' of what they're trying to do.

Van is pushing show with a broom.
Finn: "Van, you can't push snow here."
Van: "You're not the boss of me Finn."
Finn: "I know Van, but you can't put snow there!"
Van puts snow there.

I didn't get to hear how it ended, but I feel pleased that they are getting plenty of practice learning how to accomplish their ideas in the face of opposition.

Facing grandma and grandpa's house, considering making a run for it.

Great Harvest

Andy and I split up for running errands on Saturday. He took Van to work and I took Esther to return library books. We stopped by Great Harvest on our way home.

I didn't ask her to wait, she's just careful this one.
Especially because on the way over to the table to sit down, she tried to take a bite but instead dropped her bread on the ground. The workers saw it and offered to give us a new piece.

That was really nice of them but from her perspective, one wrong move and someone will take your perfectly good piece of bread and throw it right in the garbage! She wasn't taking any chances on this piece and so she waited until I started eating to eat her piece.

Also there were people in the table next to us that she kept an eye on.

Before we left, we visited with the animals for a little bit.

Pedicure video

Do I have a movie of the most adorable thing in the world?
Yes. Yes I do.

Esther gives us a pedicure

Aunty Hogean brought back these cute little bottles of cuticle oil that look like nail polish from Hawaii for us.
These are Esther's favorite.
And today, she gave us a pedicure.

Van's Preschool Report Card

I laughed when I read that he only got 'improving' on 'keeping hands to oneself'. That sounds about right.

5 years old

Here is Van's stats from last year

4 years
Weight: 44.8 lbs, 96th percentile
Height 43 in, 95th percentile
BP: 88/50
Vision: 20/40

And this year

5 years
Weight: 49 lbs, 90th percentile
Height 46 in, 94th percentile
BP: 88/48
Vision: 20/20

Hopefully he really is 20/20, but testing vision is always hard. We tried the letter chart first but he's not completely reliable with letters. So then we tried the shape chart but he's too creative for us to reliably understand what it is he can really see.
He'd call the same shape 3 different things depending on which time you asked him. 
"It's round. It's a zero. It's a moon. It's an O."
"It's a flag. It's a computer."

Anyway, he's great. A healthy little boy that has his physical complete and is ready to start Kindergarten in the fall. 

Snow travel

A small package all wrapped up for transport to grandma's house.

Stripes

Esther and I are twins.

Thank yous

Van and Esther are playing in the tub. Esther dropped something out of the tub and Van picked it up for her. (and although I wasn't looking I'm going to assume she smiled at him)
because then Van says,
"Mom, even a smile is a thank you to me."

The rope tow with the girls

We met Rachel and her daughter Charlotte at the rope tow for some skiing. The girls did great, they seemed to be having a lot of fun.

 But they started out skeptical.