Wednesday, November 28, 2007

New Baby, New Windows, New Friend

Here are some shots of Evie at the petting zoo. She loves seeing the animals and saying, "moooo!" She's getting pretty good at knowing what all the animals are and what they say. Brilliant kid, of course.



We are very excited with the birth of Janna last week. Janna is little sister to Mila and daughter to Terhi and Dimitri. She is sure to be a good friend to Evie. Sunday we went to see her for the first time.


Monday we had our front windows and window frames replaced. They are now more energy efficient with insolation glass and we hear a lot less of what is happening on the street. It was very weird to all of a sudden have a big opening in the house.

Evie wore her hard hat for protection.

The old windows.

The new windows, without the glass.


Tuesday, Evie's new friend Kaylee came over to play. She is actually born on the same day as Evie. They get along really well and enjoyed playing with all the bears under the table, the magna doodle, and the top. Like Evie, Kaylee's mama is American and her father is Dutch.


Here Evie shows off her topping talents.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Today we celebrated Thanksgiving.
This was the spread.

Evie and Finn

Evie looooves corn on the cob. She left not one kernel behind.

Finn the ham.
Ulrike reads a story.

"Auto! Auto! Truck!"

All in all, it was a success!!!

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Sinterklaas is in the House!

Every year Sinterklaas leaves his home in Spain on a steamboat and makes his way to the Netherlands. With his Zwarte Pieten (black Peters) in tow he arrives in mid November and stays until his birthday on December 6th.

This year Evie and Papa went to the harbor to greet Sinterklaas when he arrived.
Evie wore her Zwarte Piet hat.

As did most of the children. Some even painted their faces black.
And Evie waved her little flag.

Read more about Sinterklaas in the Netherlands here.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Pictures! Many, many pictures!!!

As you can see our new computer is up and running and, as promised, I have here all the pictures from the last three months.


Evie's Fairy Princess Halloween costume


Aunty! Aunty!


Little Mozart


Queen of the Bubbles





Enjoying the playground. Unfortunately, Evie also decided to pretend she was an ostrich that day and ended up with a mouthful of sand. Poor kid!


Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee




Tom does the laundry.


Awwww :-)


Playing on the GameCube with Mama.


Evie's favorite trick in the bath these days.


In her car with Barbie in the back. :-)

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Evie's First Real Halloween

Halloween is not a holiday tradition often celebrated in The Netherlands. But luckily for us, there is a Canadian father in the neighborhood who is trying to spread the Halloween spirit. This year he distributed 1200 flyers explaining a little what Halloween is and including a sign to hang up you are "Halloween Friendly." His efforts were a success. We had more than forty children come and collect candy. Instead of the traditional "trick or treat" many said, "snoep of je leven" which translates to "candy or your life". Evie joined the trick-or-treating fun with our friend Finn, who was a dracula. Evie was a fairy princess and was oh so sweet. At every door she very neatly took one candy and deposited it in her pumpkin bowl. But poor Papa's arm was aching after carrying her the whole time.

Sorry we don't have any pictures to post yet. Tomorrow (fingers crossed) our new computer will be arriving. It's going to look something like this:

Isn't it beauitful? Look at that stylish screen and ultra thin keyboard! It's pretty AND it's going to be high functioning. Finally we'll actually be able to empty our digital camera onto the computer (wow!) and burn CDs/DVDs and if we're lucky we'll even be able to run more than one program at the same time!!! We are ecstatic! So, once it's here and we've got it settled, we'll be adding more pictures more often. :-) And with the webcam, we'll be even more connected to our global friends.