Dag, Sinterklaasje!

Last night was "the best day of the year" according to Dutch children. It is the presents evening when Sinterklaas brings all the big presents. We celebrated at Jacques and Ulrike's house along with Annabelle, Brian, and Matti. I guess Sinterklaas was too busy dropping off presents that he didn't have time to come in and say hello. Instead, he just pounded on the door. By the time we got there, he was gone, but a few bags of presents were waiting for us.

Matti didn't actually get this bus from Sinterklaas, but he was so happy with it that he didn't even care to open his presents.
Evie can now play doctor with her new doctor set! This morning she has already healed four of her toys.
The loot. The best part of the evening was a few moments later when Evie opened the little present there. It was a Hello Kitty hairbrush that she had seen a few weeks ago by the H&M. She was SOOOO excited that Sinterklaas remembered that she had to jump up and down. It was fabulous!
Opening presents.
The horse was probably Evie's favorite gift of the evening. It really walks!!!
Felix got some presents, too, but he was more in awe of everything happening around him.
After dinner, when the news toys weren't as exciting anymore, Finn and Evie decided to play in the bags from Sinterklaas.
It was a really fun Sinterklaas evening! Today Sinterklaas goes back to Spain, which means... Christmastime can begin!

Sinterklaas at the Creche

Sinterklaas will be visiting Evie at the creche today. Parents are not allowed to attend, so we won't have any pictures of the event. What we do have is how Evie looks. Upon arrival at the creche she donned this fabulous Zwarte Piet wig. No camera on board, so Papa took a mobile phone shot.
Tomorrow is the big presents evening celebration of Sinterklaas.

He stands!

Felix has now officially mastered standing. He loves to pull himself up by the coffee table, chairs, box and crib. Evie is all excited, as are we! She can't wait for him to start walking around.

Standing in the box and crying to get out.
Standing at the chair, with a little video:
We have also tried a new play situation, on the suggestion of Grandma Nan. Evie plays in the box (which turns into an awesome tent, by the way) while Felix is able to roam free outside the box. Of course, they still end up playing together anyway.
Felix has to investigate who is in his box.
The little lion in her cage!

Gymnastics Sinterklaas Party

Saturday we all attended the annual Sinterklaas party held by Evie's gymnastics club. Quite the event! There were dozens of Zwarte Piets and Sinterklaas himself came to see how well the kids are doing!

Evie wore her leotard AND her Piet outfit.
Evie sings along with all the kids while waiting for Sinterklaas to arrive.
Sinterklaas and his Hoofd Piet - Head Peter
The gym was set up with many obstakels.
Felix enjoyed himself as well.

Sleeping Arrangements

This week the sleeping arrangements have been changed around a little bit in an attempt to sleep-train little Felix.  Since returning from the States this summer his nighttime sleeping patterns have been totally messed up.  At first we could pass it off as jet-lag when he became wide awake at 2:30 in the morning... but days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months and all of a sudden it wasn't as cute anymore!

Solution: Felix moves into Evie's (small) bedroom while Evie takes Felix's place in our (big) bedroom.  With the risk of speaking too soon and ruining it all, it is actually going really well!  For the past three nights Felix has slept from 8pm until 5:30am without waking, at which point he nurses (in "his" bedroom) and returns to sleep for another two hours or so.  

With this experiment we have also learned a lot about Evie's nighttime adventures.  It turns out she's a talker.  She talks a lot in her sleep, in Dutch and in English.  We've heard her say, "Ik wil het nu (I want it now), I hungry!" and "Just Dutch."  The first night she was also startled awake by a dream.  She said, "There was a bird in my bed and I don't like that very much!"

In early 2010 we are hoping to both of the kids together in one room, the big bedroom, and we'll have to move into the small bedroom.  Hopefully it's big enough for our bed.  More about that as the time comes.

H1N1 Vaccination

Today the kids went and received their first of two doses of the H1N1 vaccine. Two weeks ago the Dutch government decided that all children aged 6 months through 4 years should be offered the vaccine. A week ago we received our invitation in the mail with a roster of when we were to go. The postal code determines which day and location, and the house number determines the time. Our location was a temporary building in a nearby park. Tom went to work late today so he could help out. We put the kids on the bike (yes, Felix now rides on the bike with us!) and arrived shortly before 9:30. The whole operation was organized so well that we were back outside about seven minutes later. Felix hardly noticed the shot, but Evie did cry a little. She was very nervous and didn't want to go. The lollipop and coloring page afterwards did help her feel better. When she got to the creche, she proudly showed her cool band-aid. We wanted to and were planning on taking pictures, but everything went so smoothly that there just wasn't any time. In three weeks time the kids go back for another dose... maybe we can get some pictures then.

Felix joins the Fun!

This weekend the kids went and spent the night at Opa and Oma's house in Zoetermeer. That's right, BOTH the kids!!! This was Felix's first time away from us. He seemed to have done well, and we got to get some uninterrupted sleep! Yay!

Felix had his first bottles of formula.
Quality playtime with Opa
Super fun!
And guess who got some presents from sinterklaas in their shoes!!
This looks like a morning picture...
We gotta love our dorky princess.

Wedding - Martijn & Danielle

This weekend our friends and family Martijn and Danielle got married here in The Hague. It was a beautiful ceremony and fun party! It was also nice to get all dressed up. Felix got to wear his tuxedo, and Evie got to wear her pretty dress with silver cinderella shoes.

Felix looked fantastic!
As did the girls, of course.
The ceremony took place in the old city hall. Martijn and Danielle were seated for most of it. It was very different from a traditional American wedding!
They did stand to say the "ja" word.
Tom played an important role as witness by signing the marriage certificate.
View the full wedding album by clicking here.

Sinterklaas arrives!

It's that time of year again! Sinterklaas and his band of Zwarte Pieten (Black Petes) arrived this morning on his boat from Spain. We all went to see him and the parade. Grandma Nan has extended her stay until Thursday, so she got to join in the fun. Evie and Felix both had on Piet outfits. This year was the first time we also painted Evie's face.

Evie checking herself out in the mirror.
Ready to go!
Waiting on the side of the street for the parade to begin.
Felix was soooo tired!
Enjoying the parade!
Yes, a camel...
Zwarte Piet! and...
Sinterklaas!!!
Sinterklaas will stay in the land until his birthday on December 6th at which time he'll return to Spain. Hopefully he'll come by a few times before leaving.

What have we been doing?

Grandma Nan is visiting us, which doesn't leave much time left for blogging. We we've been to Amsterdam and Rotterdam. In Amsterdam we finally registered Felix and applied for an American passport. We also visited the van Gogh museum. In Rotterdam we went to the Natural History Museum, which Tom has named the "Museum of Death." It was quite a small museum, with quite a lot of stuffed (taxedermy-style) animals. There was even a two headed calf. Pleny of bottles of animals in formaldehyde. Gross. Evie loved it all! She and Grandma had the most fun doing a scaring game. For the rest, it's just been hanging out and enjoing each other's company.

Felix sitting in the train - he's getting to be such a big boy!
Grandma and the kiddos.