Goblet Squat

Today in our workout we had to do 35# goblet squats. I hadn't heard of them; I had to look it up, but it turns out I was an expert at them due to my 29# weight trainer.

The Facttracker

Van and I are reading a book called 'The Facttracker' by Jason Carter Eaton.
I picked it out at the library, but I think it is a little too old for him, he has trouble following it. I love it and the writing is so hilarious that he seems to enjoy it as well (even if he's not always sure what is going on).

Here is a link to some quotes from the book
http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1218493-the-facttracker

The main character is 'the just small enough boy'
It's a boy who is small, but not too small. The story is set in Traakerfaxx and it is about a town that finds, collects and sells facts to the world.

I think if Van understood it more he would love it too so I almost wish I had waited until he was older to read it. It's really funny. But one good thing about this book is that Van is learning all kinds of new words. About every page he asks me what something means.
For one thing, about 30 pages into the book, he finally asked me,
"Mom, what is a fact?"
We talked about all kinds of examples of facts and came up with some.

Then, after their fact tracking machine breaks the city is convinced to start selling lies by a seedy salesman Van asked,
"Mom, what's a lie?"
We talked about all kinds of examples of these and came up with some.

Also from last night,
"Mom, how do you chuckle?"  - (we practiced this)
"Mom how do you bark?" (as in when someone barks an order at someone else. We practiced this too)
"Mom what does it mean to be clever?"
"Mom what's a genius?"
"Mom what does dreadful mean?"
"Mom what is a disaster?"

There have also been some difficult ones to explain like,
"Mom what does theoretically mean?"
"Mom what is a miracle?"

I'm not sure if he'll remember the meanings to any of these words. Especially since my explanations usually lead to about 3 more word definition questions. But even if he picked up some of them that would be great.
This morning at breakfast he was about to start playing a game and he said, "Alright, it's showtime." using the phrase with the perfect inflection.
Then he looked up at me and said, "Mom what does 'it's showtime' mean?"

I love that he keeps asking questions

Esther is sick

Esther doesn't feel good, she has a double ear infection.

Last night when I got home Van came into Esther's room. He smelled like something in particular but I couldn't place it at first.

Then he said, "Hey mom, you remember that stuff that you use so babies can touch things and not get sick? I put that all over my body so Esther would be able to touch anywhere."

Ah-ha! That what it was, he smelled like hand sanitizer. Or baby touch.

Me: "That was very thoughtful of you Van."

I took Esther to the doctor so she could get some antibiotics. Here she is in the waiting room watching the fish in the fish tank.

 

She took this picture with some help. She liked this little fish who was hiding.

 Another Esther picture.

Ski Lesson

Today I brought Van to his first Ski Lesson of the season. Then I went home and grabbed Esther and our skis and we played on the rope tow while Van finished his lesson.

That's hot

I was making crepes,

Me: "This pan is hot!"
Van: "You're hot!"
Me: "Thank you, that means 'you're pretty'."
Van: looked up at me
Me: "Although it's not something kids usually say."
Van: "Why not?"

I didn't have a good answer for that so I just left it.
I gave him a fresh crepe.

Van: "That's hot! I didn't mean the pretty kind. I mean the hot kind."

Later that evening Van and Daddy were building a Lego Jet. I came in to read Van his bedtime stories.
Van looked down at his jet lovingly,

"She's hot" he said, then he looked up at us, "I mean it in the pretty way."

New Year's Day

On New Year's Day Svea's friend Rachel invited Svea, Beth and I over for playing in the afternoon, chili and cornbread for dinner and football watching for the boys. She lives on a lake and we were going to take the kids for a ski there, but it has been warm recently so the lake was slushy and wet.

Instead we took the kids to the Kincaid sand dunes. It was slippery, but beautiful.

New Year's Eve

For New Year's Eve Svea, Kyle, Megan and I went out to dinner at the Rustic Goat. It was fun because we were neighbors growing up but haven't all been in the same place in a long time.
Svea and I are in Anchorage, but Kyle is a teacher out in Teller and Megan works for a Geocaching company in Seattle.
I'll look for a picture of us when we're 4 or so and update this if I find it.

UPDATE:

Back row, left to right: Kyle, Svea, Vanessa
Front row: Megan