Esther on Skis

I finally bought Van a real pair of skis with ski boots. So we gave his old pair to Esther.

We all went out skiing last night, Andy took Van ahead and Esther and I hung out.


I love this first picture, I crouched down to take her picture so she crouched down too.

I had to stand up to get a picture of her standing up.

 

Here's a little movie

Christmas Play

Van had his Christmas play at preschool.

He got some McNuggets as a treat.

Favorite Number

Van and I talked about numbers the other day.
He had me write numbers 1 to 100 and we talked about infinity and going from 1 to 1,000,000,000 by multiplying by ten. I don't know if any of it sank in, but ultimately he wanted to know which number was my favorite.
Which is of course
0.142857

I found this awesome number doing my Statics homework
            ______
1/7 = 0.142857

Which by itself was cool because 1428 was part of my phone number growing up.

But then I figured out that 2/7, 3/7, 4/7, 5/7 and 6/7 are all a version of this repeating number, just starting at a different place.

2/7 = 0.2857142857142
3/7 = 0.4285714285714
4/7 = 0.5714285714285
5/7 = 0.7142857142857
6/7 = 0.8571428571428

Which was the greatest thing I had ever seen. Then a quick search will tell you that people have figured out even more cool things about the number.

http://www.decisionsciencenews.com/2013/07/10/numbers-worth-knowing-142857/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/142857_%28number%29

I don't know what's going on there, but I like it.

Pre-School Picture compare

One year comparison. An almost 4 year old compared to an almost 5 year old.
Both very handsome.

ConocoPhillips Holiday Party - Kids

ConocoPhillips has a party for families each year. It is great, but it has never been a good fit for us because it requires waiting in line; something Van has never been able to do. Until now.
Usually we just run through the crowd and Van asks to ride the elevators up and down.
But this year we did everything.

First we waited in line for Santa. The line is always long so I've never tried before, but this time Van was committed. We wrote a list while waiting in line.

What kind of sled does he want?
'A fast one.
Maybe with some rockets on the side.'

Talking the list over with Santa.

Then on to the next item; he did a craft while I waited in line for him to get some balloon art.

 He worked hard and made a cool ornament.

Then he got his face painted. He asked for 'Pirate Face' which wasn't on the list so I wasn't sure what he would get, but she came up with something great.

 Then we got to go on a sleigh ride around the block.

I think the horses names were Dan and Bill

 What fun!

Esther events

Esther and I heading outside to play.

I held up her boots and suggested she wear them. 

She shook her head and said, 'No. Shoes.' pointing to the sparkly mary janes she was wearing.

***

 
Here's a picture to show that she was able to smile on the day we took the holiday picture. Just not during the shoot.

***

Mo man paws his dish around when he's hungry. Yesterday he accidently pawed and flipped over his water dish.
Then a few minutes later Esther came by and saw the water. She went back into the kitchen and grabbed a washcloth from the kitchen and started wiping it up. Meanwhile I think I was sitting on the couch the whole time. Who's the mom here?

Svea and Peter go to a Christmas Party

The night after Andy and I went to our Christmas party, Svea and Peter went to their Christmas party.

The girls really wanted to be in the photo.

So we lured them away by giving them a photo of their own.

 Cute girls

Beautiful couple :)