Sunday, January 31, 2010

Bedtime Instructions

Every night Mama puts Felix to bed while Papa puts Evie to bed. And every night Evie gives papa a couple instructions, "Ask Mama to come give me a kiss, and ask if she can take a picture of me while I am sleeping, and keep the door open now, but make sure you close it when you go to bed - don't forget!" Papa never told Mama about the photo-taking until last night, so of course she got right in there and took another picture of our little Sleeping Beauty. This time the eye mask is over her eyes.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Inburgerings Diploma

The day before we left for America we got a letter informing us that Liz had passed her integration tests. We waited to share the big news until today, the official ceremony of the integration diploma. It was held at city hall and lasted an hour. There were about sixty diploma recipients, mostly from Turkey, Africa, and Asia. With so many nationalities, there were also many different types of names. At one point, Evie started repeating the names as they were called. That got many laughs when the names were difficult or long. iMovie is being used a lot these days... here's another video:

Playdate - Evie & Linde

Today Evie's friend Linde came over to play. The girls are only weeks apart in age and have known eachother since birth. It was a rainy day, and Felix is a little sick anyway, so we just stayed inside and had fun together. First the girls played did some coloring and played Candyland, then they made their own pizzas for lunch. While that was in the oven they played Legos, and afterwards they made a fantastic tent and pretended to go to sleep. Evie later said her favorite part was the tent, and I think Linde would agree.
The two play very nicely with one another.

Food is always so much better when you get to design it yourself.

For toppings there were carrots, mushrooms, bell pepper, pepperoni, and cheese.

While playingk Evie invited Linde to come to her birthday party (in a few months). Linde told Evie that her birthday came first and Evie said, "but I'm bigger."

So the two of them stood up next to each other to see who was taller. We took a picture so they could see, too. This picture is a little off because Evie stepped forward, but it had the prettiest smiles. For the record: Evie is a little bit taller, and Linde is a little bit older.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Bicycle

Evie has finally started riding her bicycle. The training wheels are still on, but she's starting to get the whole concept of peddling and braking. Yesterday she biked to the creche and back with Papa.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Grandma Nan

Grandma Nan has returned to Holland for a few days. As always, we are all excited to have her here, and not just because she likes to cook and doesn't mind doing our laundry. But it helps. She leaves Thursday and will be returning again in a month.
Grandmother and Granddaughter especially enjoy their time first thing in the morning while Mama and Papa are still in bed. That's when they get to eat cookies, drink chocolate milk, and watch cartoons.

This afternoon they worked on a hospital made of Legos.

Tada!

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Kids at the Table

Upon Evie's request, we took some pictures of the kids at the dinner table. Felix looked directly into the camera, smiled, then the two of them hammed it up together.


The next morning, same story.


Friday, January 15, 2010

Sleeping Beauty

It may be mean to do, but sometimes we gotta get in there and take a picture of the kiddos while sleeping. They never wake up from it, so what's the harm? Evie has started wearing an eye mask to bed and looks so darling lying in her bed next to her Sleeping Beauty pillow. She really is a little princess...

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Florida Montage

It's quickly becoming a tradition that we make a video of our vacation pictures. Here's the latest!

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Florida - Week 2

We are back in town! The journey home couldn't have gone any better. Felix slept through the first flight (2 hours) while Evie carried on some conversation with her nieghbor and watched a movie with Papa. After a few hours in Philadelphia, we boarded our second flight, this one of 7.5 hours. Both kids fell asleep before lift off and didn't wake until a half hour before landing. Not only was there no crying, but no peeping, whining, kicking, anything! It was a dream! But as we have come to discover, sometimes jet lag is worse than the flight. Very true for this trip, but we are getting through it!

Just because we weren't able to post during our last week in Florida, doesn't mean we didn't take any pictures. Below a selection of the rest of our trip.
Felix and Papa in their new hats from Aunty Viki.

Tom got to drive a truck!

They have the coolest shopping carts at the grocery store!



Uncle Thijs!!!

The hotel had the perfect place to put the kids when they were being naughty. His and her naughty cabinets.

One more round of mini-golf.

Uncle Thijs made Evie a rose from a napkin.

We went out to dinner at TGI Fridays the last night.

Cool boy Felix wore his hood up the whole night.


Then we hung out at the hotel a little bit.



Tickle tickle tickle!!!

Evie tries Cinderella's shoe on Uncle Thijs.

There was a great play area at the Philadelphia airport. They should totally do something like this at every airport. Evie was able to play and expend some energy.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Party Time's Over

Tonight we are heading back to Holland after two fun-filled weeks in Orlando, Florida.  We leave shortly before 3pm and are again stopping over in Philadelphia.  We plan on having our last American restaurant meal in the airport before catching the 9pm flight back to Amsterdam.  Seeing as our plane arrives at around 11am, we should be back home by about 1pm, just in time to pass out and start trying to recover from the inevitable jet lag travelling with a baby and preschooler has caused.  Saturday night we have a birthday party at Oma Oma's house... we'll have to see about that later.  It might be perfect for us, but it might be completely crazy (or both!).

Sunday, January 3, 2010

No More Wi-Fi

We've been disconnected from the internet at our hotel, now, so updates will probably be few and far between. McDonalds, however, has free Wi-Fi, so we may find ourselves getting more fastfood than usual... or y'all will just have to go without our posts for a while.

Florida here has turned cold. It's not freezing cold (during the day) but cold enough that there will be no more pool visits and no more short sleeves. The forecast doesn't show a warming-up until the day after we leave, so we're kind of bummed. Luckily we didn't come here (just) for the nice weather. Maybe those meteorologists have it all wrong and we'll be swimming and sun-bathing tomorrow! Fingers crossed for us??

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Orlando Science Center

New Year's Day was a rainy day, and what do we do on rainy days?? We visit a Science Museum, of course! Orlando has a great Science Museum that is thankfully off the tourist path. It was not crowded in the slightest. Thijs joined us on our adventure!
They got to explore currents with this water table.

Evie got to change a spare.

Thijs and Evie discover and unearth fossils.

There was also an experiment lab where Evie and Mama explored phenol red.

When added to different liquids, it went from pink to yellow and back.

Meanwhile, Thijs and Tom explored the program police use to make suspect sketches.

Felix absolutely lit up when we put him in a toy car. He's one of the big boys now!

Evie, however, looks a little too big for the car, but she had to play too.

After the success of the car, Felix also had to try out the rocking fish.

Felix enjoys a puppet show put on by Uncle Thijs.

I'm gonna eat ya!!!!

Friday, January 1, 2010

Ringing in the New Year!

Our New Year's Eve was spent with Christyl's family at her grandmother's house. There was lots of food, and a fire pit, and many, many fireworks!
Breyden and Evie were treated to rides on the lawnmower.

The Schutte Wives

The fire kept us warm and cooked the food.

Everybody loves Papa!

For the occasion, the Miller family bought just a few little fireworks.... yeah right!

Fireworks!!!