Jack-O-Lanterns

This evening Ulrike and Liz got together with the kids to carve the pumpkins. The kids didn't help at all, but succeeded in making two amazing jack-o-lanterns!
Ulrike's and Liz's
It was so much fun making a kitty jack-o-lantern!!! But it's not too easy getting a good picture of it. Maybe tomorrow there will be better pics. And just in case we don't get to post tomorrow...

Happy Halloween!!!

Baking Halloween Cookies

Yesterday Evie baked some delicious Halloween sugar cookies.
She loved watching the mixer mix up the dough.
But she loved it even more when the mixer stopped and she could snipe a finger of dough.
This was one of the first times Evie could really help. She added the eggs and the flour.
... and she got to lick the spoon.
Even rolling was a success!
Placing the cookie cutters went well, too, but Evie doesn't quite get the concept of getting the most cookies each time.

That explains it...

Okay, so what is the real reason for the lack of good posting the last few weeks? It is because we have big news that we couldn't talk about, which made posting about other things that much more difficult. But it's time. It's time to share the fact that we will be welcoming a new baby to the family in the spring! Needless to say, we are thrilled! And thanks to some prenatal testing we already know that the new bundle is a baby boy! Yes, a brother for Evie!! Brother is due on May 5th, putting Liz at around 13 weeks now. So far things have been pretty good. A little bit of morning sickness here and there, but that comes with the territory. We have also had four ultrasounds already, so we have plenty of pictures, but haven't gotten to scan them in yet. Hopefully soon.

Now that that's out in the open, we hope to have the blog back up to they way it should be!

No more pox!

Well, they're not completely gone, but Evie is no longer contagious and is feeling a lot better. She is back to being a busy, busy toddler. Not much else to report this week, but we do have another picture from our weekend in Zeeland. Here Evie is enjoying driving a race car!!! Go, Evie, Go!

Chicken Pox

It's official - Evie has the chicken pox!!! The first one appeared Tuesday evening on the palm of her hand. When she woke up on Wednesday it was clear that it wasn't just a blister. And every day since there seem to be twice as many as the day before. Evie is doing really well - and only scratching the ones in her hair. However she is very visibly uncomfortable. She can't even walk normally because of the ones in her diaper. It's a sad sight. These pictures were taken last night. The water's not as dirty as it looks - it's just an oatmeal bath!

Weekend in Zeeland

Nearly two weeks ago we took a weekend away and travelled the the south-west corner of the Netherlands to a place called Zeeland. It was the inspiration that named "Nieuw Zeeland" which eventually became "New Zealand".

We enjoyed a nice walk on the beach.



We also visited the second longest bridge in Europe. It is a whopping 5 kilmoters long! (Just over 3 miles, for you who don't think in km) We almost got a good shot of Evie, but she wouldn't cooperate.

A big highlight of the weekend was a massive bubble session with Papa and Bincky.





Tom was a little hyperventilated after nearly twenty minutes of constant bubble blowing!