Sea Life

After a weekend of great weather, we decided we'd finally go tot he beach first thing on Monday morning. But of course.... we awoke to rain showers. So, what did we do? We went to the beach anyway to check out the Aquarium.

Hamster in the House

For the next two weeks we have a pet in the house. His name is Jamie! Unfortunately, he sleeps during the day and we don't see him much.
Jailhouse Jamie

The Hague Sculptures II

It has turned into summer weather here... finally!!! Today we decided to again go to the sculptures downtown.
With no stroller, Evie was walking the whole morning!

Evie had her first real ice cream cone...
...and ate the whole thing! Delicious!!!
One of the sculpures was a sand sculpture of all the big buildings of The Hague. Impressive!

Monday's Pictures

Finn came over on Monday and joined us for lunch. Because of the yucky weather, we stayed inside and watched Ratatouille. Evie has her apron on because she was helping make a cake for Papa's birthday.

Here are some more pictures from our "photo shoot" monday (taping video for tom's video).
CHEEEEEESE!!!
It's a shame it's out of focus.... Do you think we look alike?
She never really looks like this in real life.

Happy Birthday, Tom!

They call this July??

There are high winds, it's raining, and it's barely 55 degrees fahrenheit. When will summer finally begin here in Holland?!?! Another day spent inside for the Schutte family. Poor Tom does have to bike back and forth to work. And Evie and Liz made the daily trip to the grocery store. But that's it...

The Hague Sculptures

Every summer there is an open-air sculpture exhibition on the Voorhout in The Hague. Today, despite the dreary weather, we decided to take a visit. We'll definitely go back another time when the weather is nicer. There were some fun pieces of artwork. Evie thoroughly enjoyed it.

Bedtime reading

Now that Evie is in a big girl bed, it means she is able to get in and out as she pleases. It also means that the whole going-to-bed-routine has met some new challenges. Hopefully in another week or so it will all be working smoothly. Until then we just give up and just trust that she'll go to sleep in her bed, and then we check on her one hour later. When we come back, she has been lying perfectly and sleeping like a princess every time. This position was so cute we just had to take a picture. You can really see she was reading herself to sleep. You can also see the sweaty head caused by crying...

Bathtime

One of Evie's favorite things to do in the bath is to lie down completely on her back and relax. Tom managed to get some good shots of her enjoying tubby time.
Here her smile looks more like a cry... but it's actually a big CHEESE smile
There's the real smile!

Evie's Family

Starting this week the theme at Evie's creche is family. As part of the theme we had to put together a page with pictures of her family. This is what we came up with.

Pannekoeken

Last night Aunty Rachel stayed for dinner and we decided to make pannekoeken for dinner. That is the dutch version of pancakes. They are more like crepes than the American pancakes. We even made it from scratch - so easy... just flour, milk, eggs, and salt. We cooked some with raisins, apples, bacon, cheese, bananas. mmmm yummy! And we topped them with syrup (what americans call molasses), sugar, jam, and chocolate sprinkles.
Evie put her apron on to help, but really just stood there.
Watch as Aunty flips a pannekoek perfectly!
Evie loved dinner!!

Play-Doh

Yesterday Papa introduced Evie to Play-Doh for the first time. She had a good time rolling, cutting, and squishing.

Big Girl Bed

Evie is now officially a big girl now that she is sleeping in her big girl bed!
Look how proud she is!!
And mama can cuddle her in her room now, too!

Congrats Grandma & Grandpa

Happy 25th Wedding Anniversary!

Anniversary Present

For our one year anniversary Tom gave a large photograph on canvas of the view out of our honeyroom hotel room in NYC. We could probably have taken a better picture, but it's fun using photobooth. There it is, hanging above our bed. Beautiful, isn't it? It's actually a funny story. Liz ordered exactly the same picture on canvas, though slightly smaller, to give for the anniversary. Luckily, the company is very nice and are letting us order another one with a different picture!

Evie in the train on the way to a 4th of July BBQ

One Year Anniversary

One year ago today we were married on Chebeague Island, Maine.

Smile, Evie

Happy 4th of July

To help celebrate 4th of July, we made cookies last night for Liz's colleagues.  They look something like this:

We'll officially celebrate the 4th tomorrow with a barbecue by our friends Whitney and Rob. Hopefully the weather will work out for us!!

Pictures

At the petting zoo

At the playground

In the sandbox