Friday afternoon

Here is a two minute video, it doesn't show anything particularly exciting, but it is a good excerpt of our afternoon. I wanted to keep it as a time capsule. To show how Esther is walking now and show Van up to one of his schemes.

http://youtu.be/THJdClW0th8

Van has decided to set up for a 'party' for me. His primary motivation appears to be the chance to eat chocolate, and he knows that the best way to get chocolate for himself, is to get chocolate out for someone else. It's pretty clever. So he's setting out plates, cups, napkins and silverware for my 'party'. Then on every plate he has put 1 or 2 sticks of picked asparagus and 2-3 chocolate chips. He was going to add PB and J sandwiches but I stopped him (we had all eaten dinner already).

Anyway then we get a visitor and the front door.

Another note: The juice he is trying to put in everyone's cup, that he says he really likes, it's the remaining juice from the jar of pickled asparagus. He's crazy about it. I have no idea.

Bedtime stories

Van has requested this book three nights in a row "Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon"

http://www.amazon.com/Stand-Tall-Molly-Lou-Melon/dp/0399234160

I like that he likes it, it's about a girl with a great perspective. It lists her 'flaws' and how she turns them around to be great assets.

Neighbors

We have so many great neighbors. It's hard to keep Van in our yard, he always wants to run out and visit his friends. He defines everyone he's ever met as a friend.

It's really really hard to explain to a 4 year old that you can't just show up at someone's house every day. I try to tell him that you can go over a couple times but then you have to wait to be invited. But he's told me that he doesn't do it that way.

Here is Esther playing with Frankie, one of our favorite neighbors. He lives just one street over. We love it when he comes over. 

He and Van have a bike riding playdate later this week :)

04/24/2014

Van: "Mom I'm going to put a cookie in your car. So you can eat it at work. Because I love you"
Me: "Aw thanks Van, I love you too."
Van: "You love everyone, but not spiders. You kind of like them. But not really."

(We talk about this quite a bit, Svea tells us that spiders are good because they eat bugs. But Van knows I am scared of them.)

***

Van is riding a bike with pedals now! He just learned in the last couple of days. It's so cute. He's getting so big. And Esther is walking everywhere, running sometimes. She loves playing outside and pretending to talk on the phone.

Easter Dress

Esther all dressed up and ready for Easter dinner

Summer shoes

Van and I are going to run The Heart Run together next week. We bought new tennis shoes since his old ones from last year are too small. Here they are, his first pair of 1s.

New Table

The table I ordered in November finally arrived!